"Together with Frateur and Red&Blue management, we started out with some drawings to get our thoughts and demands for the lighting down on paper," commented Tim Torfs, who manages the club together with Nourdin Bens. "After several brainstorm sessions we came up with a fantastic idea, which Frateur then put into action. It resulted in the magnificent piece of lighting design we have today."
The most difficult part of the design for Red&Blue was to keep the building - a former shipyard engine building - alive in its original structure, shape and character. "We wanted to accomplish a clean, minimalistic and timeless design," Tim says, "one that was very versatile anno 2015 yet reflected the 'less is more' design principle."
Elation was chosen as lighting tools for the design because of the reliability of the product and the good service and timely delivery, Tim says. "Also because of the good relationship we have with Bert Schmeits of Elation in Holland," he adds.
The lighting upgrade at Red&Blue consists of Platinum Spot LED II, Platinum Wash ZFX Pro and Rayzor Q7 LED moving heads, along with Cuepix Strip Tri linear LED strip lights and Opti Tri Par LED lights, while ELAR EXTQW PAR HP's are used to light an outdoor area.
The new, energy-efficient LED moving head fixtures, spread throughout the club among small 'squares' in the ceiling with the majority mounted above the dancefloor, fit in with the existing LED lighting fixtures at the club. They can also be directed toward the stage for performance lighting purposes. The Cuepix Strip Tri's are wall mounted behind the DJ booth and provide extra color wash for the room.
"With LED there is easier maintenance, no bulb changes, and it's cheaper in the long run," comments Raf Frateur, owner of Elation dealer Frateur, who served as installer and interior designer on the project while also handling any service needs. "I chose Elation after comparing them with quite a few other companies. The quality has been good and I was very happy with delivery, which was on time. Service from Elation Europe has also been good. We had one small problem early on but it was fixed immediately."
(Jim Evans)
