Then he was headhunted by David Alberto, chief executive of Avanta, the company which operates the nearby Media Village Business Centre, and the two men set about converting the somewhat drab, integral basement 'canteen', known as the Winchester Club, into the resplendent all-white Vanilla.
Common to both Destandau's' enterprises has been the Sound Division Group. Yet the two venues could scarcely have required a more different approach, as Matthieu Destandau explained. "At Firevault, the loudspeakers were in evidence and the sound more in your face - but here everything needed to be a lot more discreet and a lot more flexible."
One of the features he had lamented about Firevault was the rigid interior, and the fact that it couldn't readily be changed to accommodate a themed party. "I was determined at Vanilla that if we wanted to throw, for instance a Pink Party, we could do so by changing the interior using LED's. I thought how cool it would be to change the environment at a flick of a switch, and how great it would be for the corporate market."
Working with Carole Cobban from the architectural firm Amalgam, Matthieu Destandau himself conceived the backdrop in which all this would work. The result is a venue fabricated in crystal white - an idea, he says, which he borrowed from the Supper Club.
The Sound Division Group were given an exact brief, and to achieve the operator's dream, they enlisted the help of Lighting Effects Distribution, who provided lengths of LED X-Chip that would wash, uplight and backlight the bar front and rear (including bottle washes), the kitchen front, the coves and even the toilets. The system was designed so that the gentle crossfade could be almost imperceptible over a period of time, or revved up later at night. "You can really feel the difference when the venue transforms from from pink to blue," observes Destandau.
While technical project manager David (Woody) Homewood was programming a number of simple-to-operate lighting states into the AR12 controller, Sound Division's installation manager Elliot Patterson together with Richard Astley (of JL Contracting) was designing the venue into four zones, controlled and remotely operated by a dbx ZonePRO 640.
He brought in 8-Track Music Solutions to provide the music library of soft jazz, chill and R&B, delivered to both the formal restaurant and lounge bar areas via a pair of Apple Mac G4 computers, fitted with soundcards and the necessary software. The playlist is updated on a monthly basis.
In the restaurant Sound Division has provided four corner mounted JBL Control 23s driven by a Crown Xls 202, while in the main bar and central lounge area the company has opted for a JBL Control 24CM flush ceiling solution. Four JBL Control 28's provide a punchier solution in the front dance area, with a groundstacked Martin AQ12 sub hitting the lower frequencies. Crown XTi 1000 and Xls 402 (in bridged mode) drive this element of the system.
(Jim Evans)
