Owner and local entrepreneur Declan Muckian had the place gutted and re-designed from the ground up, transforming the same footprint into a classy and more functional new 650 capacity environment combining four bars, a restaurant area, dance-floor and live music facilities. He called in Eamonn O'Neil from Vibe Sound & Lighting to supply a top quality audio, AV and lighting package, and he in turn asked i-Vision's Geoff Jones onboard to design and supply the specialist environmental lighting requirements.
"It's already a very visual and stimulating environment," says Jones, "so my aim with the lighting was primarily to complement and enhance this by highlighting certain areas with colour and movement."
They chose single red Lumos 1 step lights to highlight all the stairs in the building with a lush luminous glow, some placed in the middle of the step and some at the sides - a total of 70.Six arches containing frescoed artwork flank either side of the two staircases to the first floor, and each is lit with colour-changing Lumos 1200/36 optic RGB strips to very dramatic effect - and are clearly visible from both floors.
Upstairs the exposed main roof beams straddle the ceiling space, and are emphasised with two RGB Lumos strips per beam. The pillars delineating the end bar upstairs are lit with special Lumos 3 up-and-down lighters - made so narrow shafts of light beam down, whilst softer, wide angled beams spread up the walls. I-Vision custom made these housings, and have now added them to the standard range following their success here. There are six Lumos Pinspot LEDs inground into the floor upstairs, and the pièce de résistance is the vaulted ceiling, which is illuminated with 66 strips of colour changing Lumos Link 3. This looks most spectacular when on a medium-fast colour changing chase.
For control throughout the rest of Brubakers, Jones specified one of their Lumos Touch 8 button controllers which offers 8 preset patters/sequences and has been developed by i-vision for installations like this, where lighting can easily be controlled by non-technical staff.
The lighting at Brubakers has already become a great local talking point, with plenty of people checking it out for themselves - and the venue is popular throughout the week and packed every weekend. "I'm absolutely delighted with the result," says manager Kevin Carthy. "The lighting is doing exactly what we wanted and playing an important role in the ambience of the place that's drawing people in".
(Lee Baldock)
