A number of designers working independently on various projects aboard Oasis chose the same lighting - Acclaim Lighting. More than 650 LED fixtures and some control solutions from Acclaim are being used to light Oasis.
The largest application of Acclaim products is in the ship's 1380-seat Opal Theatre, where scenic designers Vicki Baral and Gerry Hariton (Hariton/Baral Design, Los Angeles) used 400 Acclaim X-Panels to create a wall of lights for the ship's production of the Tony-award-winning musical Hairspray.
As with so many things about Oasis, Royal Caribbean made a revolutionary departure from traditional cruise ship entertainment by acquiring the rights to produce a full 90-minute Broadway show at sea. Directed by Harrison McEldowney, the show features all new choreography and production design. In addition to Baral and Hariton, the design team included Jordan Ross (costumes), Jennifer Schriever (lighting), and Mark Pranzini (lighting programming). Scenic construction was by River City Scenic, with scenic technical direction by David Spencer and theatre technical direction from Royal Caribbean's Christopher Vlassopulos.
Producing Hairspray on a moving ship presented many design challenges, said Baral and Hariton. One of these challenges was to pay tribute to the iconic light wall used in the original Broadway production. "We needed an affordable, lightweight LED product with an extremely low profile," said Baral. "The Acclaim X-Panels provided the answer."
Acclaim LED products, supplied by FUNA International, were also chosen by lighting designers Christopher Vlassopulos (RCCL) and Michael Riotto Design (New York) to illuminate some of Oasis' other entertainment venues. To light the edge of the Studio B ice rink, the designers used 50 Acclaim X-Bar HIP RGB units. An indoor version of the unit in both RGB and Warm White models (X-Bar HP RGB and X-Bar HP WW) was used in the Comedy Central comedy club, along with Acclaim's X-Drum HIP.
Much emphasis, thought and planning went into the lighting for Oasis, added Vlassopulos. "With 50+ venues featuring state-of-the-art technologies for entertainment, we paid very close attention to both architectural and show lighting design, using designs that offer low maintenance and low operational costs; LED is wonderful for that."
(Jim Evans)
