Setting the visual creativity bar this high could be perilous for some, but not for developer/partners Cirque du Soleil and The Light Group, or for John Lyons Systems (Hollywood, CA), which provided the lighting design for this new nightspot at Mandalay Bay Hotel.
Part Cirque show and part dance club with 38,000sq.ft of space and a 35' high ceiling, Light features acrobats spinning overhead and world-famous EDM DJs spinning up front. To add to the multi-layered sensory experience, video is everywhere; 6mm video panels line the club's massive walls, its ceiling and cascade downward to the DJ booth.
Lighting a space a huge as this, where beams need to highlight performers on a vertical plane as well as a horizontal one, and where the lighting must integrate with and work around video wall surfaces, wasn't an easy undertaking, according to lighting designers John Lyons and Richard Worboys of John Lyons Systems. Adding to this challenge, the LDs were also asked to illuminate an adjacent 50,000 sq. ft. outdoor Mediterranean-style pool/beach club area called - what else? - Daylight.
To conjure up the extraordinary visual experience the owners had in mind, Lyons and Worboys chose Platinum and LED lighting fixtures from Elation Professional. Between the indoor and outdoor venues, more than 450 Elation products were used.
On the inside at Light, this total includes 144 Elation Platinum Series moving lights (48 x Platinum Beam 5R, 44 x Platinum Spot 5R Pro, 12 x Platinum Spot 15R Pro, 12 x Platinum Beam 15R Pro, 28 x Platinum Spot 35R Pro). The high-power Platinums' bright beams thrust out in every direction, ricocheting off the club's video-covered walls and ceilings like the aerial acts themselves. The
"It's not only a very large space, it also has a very large volume of air space. This empty space is necessary for the Cirque performers to do their stuff in mid-air," explained Lyons. "So we couldn't have a lot of objects in the way. Yet we needed the lightshow to be able to fill the voids. So we had to use fixtures that produced very powerful beams and had the throw to fill that space, and were also able to move quickly with very smooth movement, as the Platinums do. If you're able to get enough of those in a space, then you can create some fantastic choreography in air."
Other Elation fixtures used in Light's interior include the Opti Tri White, Opti Quad Par and Opti 30 UV--- all LED pars - plus two inground LED fixtures, Elar Inground RGB and Elar Inground WW.
The Platinums are also making a splash outdoors at Daylight, which utilizes 32 of the Platinum Beam 5R Extreme -- an even faster, more "extreme" version of this extreme ACL beam effect. Another standout in the pool area is the brand-new Rayzor Q7, Elation's smallest, fastest moving head LED to date (11 lbs.) with RGBW Quad-Color mixing and 4-zone chase effects.
(Jim Evans)
