Still owned and operated by Cherokee Nation despite its new name, the casino was looking to give itself a facelift, when the branding and renovation opportunity with Hard Rock arose. Along with the obvious advantages of aligning itself with the world-famous pop culture icon came the challenge of assimilating $2 million worth of rock music memorabilia and other Hard Rock design parameters into the casino's Native American roots.
Nowhere was this blending of the old and new played out more dramatically than on a large plastic light sculpture that hangs over seven banks of slot machines in the casino's 125,000sq.ft gaming area. Designed in a Native American motif with seven elongated feather-like points, the massive sculpture was comprised of a black metal frame containing pieces of different coloured plastic, lit by fluorescent tubes from inside. Although much too bright and prominent for Hard Rock's decor requirements, said Hard Rock designer Warwick Stone "the (Cherokee) chief liked it," so the sculpture had to stay.
Thanks to some help from David Brecheen of Production Essentials (Edmond, OK) and Acclaim Lighting LEDs, Stone was able to transform the light sculpture into a more subtle colour-changing piece that blended in with Hard Rock's design elements, while preserving the fixture's Cherokee-inspired heritage. This was done by replacing the fluorescent light source inside the sculpture with Acclaim X-Cube Pro RGB LED fixtures.
Additionally, the coloured plastic was removed from the exterior of the sculpture and replaced with a thin frosted plexi material, so that the LEDs can shine through it. The basic structure of the fixture was thus kept, allowing it to maintain its Native American identity, but instead of being a somewhat "jarring" bright red and yellow plastic piece, it now enhances the décor with smooth colour changes and more low-key, updated look.
The X-Cubes are controlled by Compu PC-based lighting control software from Acclaim's sister company Elation Professional. Each X-Cube is addressed individually, with a total of 588 DMX channels being used (three channels per unit for R, G & B).
(Jim Evans)
