Over the past couple of years François Roupinian, principal founder and designer at the Montreal-based lighting firm Lightemotion, has been called on to supply his talents to a wide range of projects. In fact, he’s traveled from Montreal to the States to Singapore to Italy to work on show, museum and event installations, but it was a job in his own backyard last year that might have been the most demanding.
Many of the students at Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg can’t wait for the new 15,000-seat auditorium to open on campus. The senior class, in fact, can’t wait — it won’t open until 2009 in the earliest, and most will graduate before then. Not that there’s a lot of grumbling on campus. Students are aware that tithing dollars from faithful LDS Church followers around the world are funding the construction that surrounds them.
Church balances modernization with historical integrity
Certainly any kind of installation work demands a high attention to detail, and everyone from architect to designer to installer to end user needs to be on the same page. The team that worked on the two-year renovation of the Salt Lake Tabernacle on Temple Square in Salt Lake City, Utah, took that pressure, doubled it and then doubled it again.
After all, these pros were working on a building that was originally opened in 1867 and has been at the center of The Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-ter-day Saints for 140 years, as well as the venue for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s weekly broadcast. Yet, this was not just any kind of renova-tion. “It was more than an install,” reports Lorin Morse, lighting designer and operator in the LDS Church Audio/Visual Department. “It was a gut-it and start over.”
MIDI pilots lighting to new heights
In the world of nightclubs, there are certain ingredients that ensure immediate success — a booming sound system, a top-notch staff and an exclu-sive guest list. JET nightclub in The Mirage, one of the hottest nightclubs in Las Vegas, has added a fourth: a dramatic and exciting lighting system. Ever since JET opened in 2005, the club’s main room has boasted a lighting system designed by the team at John Lyons Systems.
For a number of years, the name Oaks Christian has evoked exclamations from sports fans across Southern California and beyond. That will happen when your teams dominate the local sports scene, your starting quarterback goes to Notre Dame and your football team wins the California State Championship game.
Yet, last August, the name Oaks Christian was uttered in awe by locals who had just seen the all-new 30,000-square-foot Bedrosian Pavilion that includes one of the most technologically advanced performing arts centers and media production facilities in the area. Sports fans were also pleased because the performing arts center doubles as a gymnasium that will be used for the school’s basketball and volleyball teams. The fact that these two venues are housed in the same two-story building on a 15,000-square-foot plot was just as amazing.
Howard Ungerleider is one of the best LDs in our industry. He has a very distinguished career, having worked with bands such as Rush, Def Leppard and Queensrÿche. In addition, he has been involved with everything from corporate auto shows and interactive design to architectural multimedia shows, as well as theatrical productions, motion pictures, rock videos, nightclubs and television commercials. Howard is purely an LD and does not program his own consoles — he always works with a programmer.
Koster Design installs an inspired rig.
Christmas at the Evangel Cathedral is one of the growing number of eye-popping spectacular Broadway-style productions being put on in today’s modern houses of worship, except the Cathedral has a history and reputation for doing it better than most.
A cast of hundreds, live animals, the works — and now they have a digital lighting system worthy of not only their biggest events, but one they use creatively in their “regular” services as well. And while it certainly was not their intention, nor are they likely interested, in the process, they have made entertainment technology history by having the world’s largest installation of High End Systems DL.2 digital luminaires.
Updates reduce control footprint.
“We’re not reinventing the wheel,” says Brendan Quigley, head electrician of the Broadway hit Wicked. “But we are addressing unique problems presented by each venue. This is true for the national tour, as well as the specific designs for the Chicago and Los Angeles productions.”
Las Vegas’ Green Valley Ranch takes in a big club install for the Ovation nightclub.
Nightclubs behave differently than your standard show. Whereas a backstage area normally provides a relative sanctuary from the crush of the crowd, nightclubs are a different beast. Every inch of the space is a stage unto itself, with every guest trying to put on their own show. This presents a lighting designer with a combination of challenges and opportunities unique to the club installation.
Reno’s 210 North Nightclub
Change will happen.” Sound like a trite motto? Think again. For one designand- build contractor saddled with executing another designer’s vision in just over a week, it was more like a mantra. The tale of the installation at Reno’s 210 North nightclub isn’t just the story of a little nightclub that could — it’s an example of how a group of disparate technicians “set ego aside, admitted there was a good idea,” and got to work.
San Diego’s U.S. Grant Hotel’s $52M Renovation left the architects asking for more.
It’s an unusually cold, nasty winter night in San Diego, and Tony Hansen is 11 stories up on the roof of the historic U.S. Grant hotel. He’s with the architects spearheading a $52 million renovation, and he is showing them some possible solutions to lighting the exterior of the building. All he has to do is flip the right switch on his computer to turn on the LEDs hung on the outside of the building to produce the right color of amber as specified. His fingers slip, and the lights come up a different color.
The high stakes game of Vegas entertainment takes on another player in the Palms.
Las Vegas suffers from no shortage of performance venues. Throughout its history as a resort destination, performers have made their way to Vegas to play any one of the many hotels and casinos that call Sin City home, but the Palms hotel and casino has upped the ante with the addition of their new venue, the Pearl.