Malta - Located in Malta’s nightlife capital, the Paceville district of St. Julian’s, The Playground is a well-established nightclub that specialises in techno and other genres of underground electronic dance music. The club has recently undergone a complete renovation of its audio and lighting system, carried out by local integration specialists FutureTech Pro. Designed to perfectly complement both venue layout and music policy, the new lighting system features ADJ’s Focus Beam LED automated luminaires, pixel-mapped Pixie Strip LED battens, and multi-functional Jolt Panel FX LED strobe/blinder/wash fixtures.
Located alongside the larger Sky Club, which also features an extensive inventory of ADJ fixtures installed by FutureTech Pro a few years ago, The Playground is an intimate venue that has been established in St. Julian’s for decades. It hosts specialist music nights each weekend that run all year round and attract both locals and tourists visiting the island. During a month-long refurbishment in March 2024 the club underwent an extensive renovation, which included the installation of a completely new lighting system. This was designed by FutureTech Pro’s founder and owner, Stefan Farrugia, working in collaboration with Andrew Zammit from InnovaLED Technologies, also based in Malta. The installation was carried out by Farrugia’s experienced team from FutureTech Pro. Established in 1996, the company has installed audio, video and lighting systems in countless clubs, bars, restaurants and hotels across Malta and has been ADJ’s exclusive distributor on the island for decades.
“The customer is already well acquainted with ADJ’s products as we’ve previously installed them in his other venues, including Sky Club,” comments Farrugia. “This meant that it was a no-brainer for him when we presented our suggestion of an all-ADJ rig. He knows the product, he knows it is reliable, and he knows that he will get great after sales support from both ADJ and FutureTech Pro.”
The Playground is an L-shaped space; it has a wider area in front of the DJ position and narrows further back, with a bar running down the longest wall. The moving head fixture selected by Farrugia for this installation was the Focus Beam LED. His team installed a total of 16 of these fixtures, divided into two parallel lines of eight units, hanging from bars that run from the DJ position at the front all the way down the venue’s narrowed section to the back. Compact yet powerful, the Focus Beam LED features an efficient 80W white light LED engine with an impressive 50,000-hour average lifespan. Despite its lower power consumption, the fixture’s optics and LED source have been specifically engineered for beam usage, allowing it to generate a sharp and punchy beam that is ideal for creating aerial effects.
“Because the club has a low ceiling, we needed a compact fixture, but one that could still create a very intense beam,” explains Farrugia. “The Focus Beam LED is very bright for its class and offers excellent value for money. It has a good collection of features, allowing for a wide variety of effects to be created, which is particularly important for this project as it is the only moving head used within the venue. The fixture delivers exactly what we needed to fill The Playground with extremely powerful and razor-sharp beams.”
Positioned between the two lines of moving heads, the FutureTech Pro team then installed a row of six Jolt Panel FX LED luminaires, hanging from a third central bar. Each of these flexible fixtures incorporate a central strip of 48 x 5W cool white SMD LEDs, surrounded on both sides by a total of 800 x 0.3W RGB SMD LEDs. This provides lighting designers with the creative potential of generating both strikingly bright white strobe effects and vibrant colour washes from the same compact fixture. In addition, both types of LED are grouped into independently controllable zones (6 white and 40 colour), allowing for the creation of eye-catching animated chase patterns.
“The Jolt Panel FX is ADJ’s coolest fixture,” enthuses Farrugia. “It is incredibly bright and extremely versatile. It does everything; you can use it as a strobe, a blinder, a colour wash and to create chase patterns. Especially for the playground, where we only used a limited number of fixture types, this is very useful. The same units can be used to illuminate the room with saturated colours, add energy with pixel chases and fill the whole space with intense strobe hits.”
Running between each set of fixtures on each of the three lighting bars are ADJ’s Pixie Strip linear pixel-mappable LED battens. A mixture of the 2m Pixie Strip 120, 1m Pixie Strip 60 and 1/2m Pixie Strip 30 models are used to create seemingly continuous runs of pixels that cover almost the entire length of the club’s long and narrow main space. Each Pixie Strip features vibrant tri-colour RGB SMD colour mixing LEDs with a consistent 16.5mm pixel pitch. Easily connected using proprietary four-pin cables that combine power and data transmission, these fixtures can be controlled using the Kling-Net, ArtNet or sACN protocols via a dedicated driver unit.
“The Pixie Strips are compact, bright, have a good pixel pitch and offer great colour mixing,” says Farrugia. “They are ideal for adding interest to ceilings and walls to create a dynamic backdrop to beams and other lighting effects. As The Playground is a long and narrow room, it was a perfect opportunity to create long continuous runs of Pixie Strips. We installed three of these, which stretch from the back of the room right to the front, drawing attention to the DJ booth.”
The lighting system is completed by four UV COB Cannon LED-powered UV wash fixtures, which cover the entire venue. A pair of Entour Venue professional faze machines has also been installed, which produce a fine beam-enhancing haze from standard fog juice. All the lighting and atmospheric equipment is controlled by ADJ’s myDMX software, except for the Pixie Strips, which are driven by the Madrix generative visual software connected via Kling-Net.
By combining three key fixture types - the Focus Beam LED, Jolt Panel FX and Pixie Strips, complemented by a background UV wash and atmospheric haze - Farrugia’s lighting design provides The Playground with a simple yet extremely versatile lighting system. Perfectly complementing the venue’s music policy, the rig allows for a generally dark atmosphere. This is embellished by intricate animated patterns running the length of the ceiling on the pixel battens and punctured by crisp beams from the moving heads as well as intense strobe flashes and vibrant colour washes from the LED panels. The new system has been warmly received by the club’s management, as well its regular clientele, and has readied it for successfully hosting underground dance parties in Malta for many more years to come.
