Philadelphia’s New Nightclub Pulses with Light and Sound
Last September, in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square, a new EDM (electronic dance music) nightclub emerged on the scene. The area, an upscale blend of residential and retail real estate, isn’t known for hot nightspots, but Leverage Hospitality Group (LHG) decided that this would be a great place for their new nightclub, Rumor.
Originally, the building had a hodgepodge of businesses, including a hair salon, office space, a lab and a bank depository in the basement. This didn’t make it an automatic choice, because the building had been passed over by a previous potential occupant. Leverage Hospitality had to install exit stairs, close an elevator shaft, install a new transformer (for more power to the rig) and drill through the steel-reinforced walls of the bank depository.
Today, Rumor functions as an all-DJ/EDM nightclub. It’s open three nights a week with different theme nights. Thursday is the more college crowd (more Dub-Step, Electro House); Friday is House/Trance night, and Saturday is mainstream dance night (think Tiësto/ David Guetta).
Four Spaces
The guest capacity for Rumor, which totals 10,000 square feet, is 650. The interior includes a main clubroom, a bar room area, an oval room, and the special VIP area called the Vault (the previous tenant’s bank deposit area). The club’s four rooms are well-appointed with full service bars, décor and ambience to please experienced club-goers.
The main room’s focus is on the DJ at the end of the room, with a small dance pedestal on either side of a for atmosphere talent. The oval room’s décor and ambience includes a beautiful mosaic tile bar. Its oval-shaped dance floor gives patrons a second dance space. The VIP area adds a sophisticated touch — it’s dark and rich with a crystal chandelier and fabric swags at the central point of the room. The venue transitions easily into a very elegant space for corporate events or seasonal parties.
A grandMA ultra-light runs the lighting for the entire club. The main dance floor is equipped with 97 Acclaim X-Tubes configured in a grid pattern above the dance floor. There are also six Elation Platinum Beams for movement and gobos. The grid-type hang gives the lighting director the freedom to immerse the crowd in saturated color all at once, or to roll color like a media matrix wall in a pattern, little by little, depending on the tempo and energy of the crowd.
Pulsing Light
Imagine a large video game above your head with infinite amount of patterns and designs to get you in the dance mood. The Acclaim X-Tubes offer a seemingly limitless range of movement and color, well-suited to the changes of the EDM music itself.
Also adding to the energy of the club are 24 Diversitronics Mk3600 strobes, strategically placed around the dance floor. The DJ stage is also flanked by platforms on both sides for the go-go dancers. These have a 36-inch-square frosted acrylic tops, lit with Elation Opti Tri Par fixtures.
Architectural lighting elements include six Elation Bricks to accent the bottle service tables, an Elation Elar Ex Tribar for the DJ booth, and an additional 100 strips of RGB tape for the LED bar room. The LED bar has 40 feet of RGB illumination. The 100 RGB strips required individual soldering, and its installation was done over the course of a week.
Ian Hoffer, of Aurora Sound and Light Design LLC, designed and installed Rumor’s lighting, effects and sound system, working with a crew of three electricians on the installation. He also serves as the club’s main programmer and trains the other lighting operators in the club on a nightly basis. PLSN asked about his selection of gear.
“Something Different”
Of the Elation Platinum Spots, Hoffer says, “I wanted something different than the same old moving heads that you see everywhere.” He also credits the Clay Paky Sharpy for its tight beam, but chose the Elation fixtures as a more affordable alternative.
In the oval room, and for all the bar/architectural LEDs, Hoffer chose e:cue/Butler XT units, citing the ability to create a nice touchscreen interface.
As for the Acclaim X-Tubes configured into the grid pattern above the dance floor, Hoffer chose the units for their light output and for the ability to control individual segments.
“I like to float my thoughts with [vendors] to see if they have any new products, or even a suggestion I didn’t think of,” he adds.
As far as wish list goes, Hoffer has plans for another hazer in the oval room, along with more moving lights and an LED panel on the bar room wall.
Of his console choices, Hoffer notes that, while he learned on another console, he switched to the grandMA2 for its flexibility. “I’m all MA now,” he says. “I picked the Ultra-Light because it fits the budget, and I don’t like the virtual consoles.”
As for programming, Hoffer calls it “an art,” but adds, “when programming for nightclubs, you shouldn’t just stay in the control room. Go sit on the dance floor and see how what you create really looks like to your customers.”
For sound, Hoffer chose an all-Meyer Sound setup for Rumor’s main room, using four CQ-2 loudspeakers and six 600-HP subwoofers, and for DJ monitoring, two UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers and one UMS-1P subwoofer. The bar room features three more UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers.
Overcoming Challenges
If word about Rumor appears to be spreading — the club, however spacious, gets packed on weekends — it wasn’t an easy venue to develop. Challenges included drilling through the depository and the steel-lined walls. The Vault’s space lived up to its name, and workers needed to “break into” the area to provide it with the power, plumbing, lighting and audio needed to transform the space into a VIP lounge.
Along with the heavy drilling, the space required a new transformer (at the tune of $50K) to support the new lighting and sound rig. And those were just some of the construction challenges that had to be overcome. Copious amounts of trash left by the previous occupants had led to other problems, including a mild infestation of rats. All in all, it took about eight months to transform the space, and an additional six weeks to install lighting and sound.
The running joke was that it truly was a “Rumor” there was going to be a club built, but the work has clearly paid off, transforming the decrepit space into a polished gem for downtown Philly club-goers.
