SJ Lighting received praise as theatrical lighting design consultants for the original design at Marquee when the club debuted in 2010 and were called on again to give the club a fresh makeover. "Any venue in an A market needs to update technologies to stay competitive because they play such a strong supporting role in creating the atmosphere," Steve Lieberman states. "At Marquee, we wanted to create a new design that would carry them through the next several years, something that was low profile but has a couture element that wouldn't get old."
The focal point of the club is the main room with dance floor and DJ stage and it is here that the club's all-night energy originates. Steve found an opportunity to do something special by replacing a series of large white fabric sails that were getting tattered and discolored after four years of collecting dirt and dust. "They covered large parts of the ceiling and we opted to pull those down and put in something more digital, something that would accentuate the architectural space," he said.
The decision was made to install a ceiling of Pixel Bar 40s, one-meter-long pixel-controllable RGB LED strip lights that add a special layer of visual excitement to the space. The slim colour-changing bars are laid out specifically in the space to highlight the soffits, recessed coffers, and beam lines and travel vertically up the wall inside the dance floor all the way to the outer walls of the room.
Surrounding guests in a shower of colourful pixel-mapped effects, the fixture's 850 Nits of brightness is plenty bright enough for Marquee. They also provide a dynamic backdrop for the room's distinctive moving head pods. The Pixel Bar system is, according to Steve, "about as dynamic as it gets."
(Jim Evans)
