SACRAMENTO, CA -- Since 1985, Faces has been a leader and innovator in the citys nightlife scene, consistently voted Sacramentos #1 Dance Club. So when the club undertook a several-million dollar expansion earlier this year, constructing a two-story addition totaling more than 5,000 sq. ft., everything about the design - including the lighting - could be nothing short of spectacular.
The goal was to make Faces a “visual destination,” says lighting designer Richard Rutherford ((Rutherford Design, Northridge, CA). The clubs building designers had set the stage by constructing a dramatic circular opening in the floor of the new second-story VIP lounge, through which the main-level circular dance floor could be seen below.
Using this floor-ceiling opening to its fullest advantage, Rutherford filled the space with a massive color-changing centerpiece that resembles a gigantic wind chime. It consists of a 21 diameter colored circle at the top, from which six 6 vertical lighting rods hang, casting changing colors and gobos. Calling his creation “color chimes,” Rutherford constructed it with products from Elation Professional and its co-divisions, Acclaim Lighting and Global Truss, obtained from Pro Sound & Stage Lighting (www.pssl.com ).
The 21 circle at the top was created with triangular trussing from Global Truss, wrapped with a translucent acrobat fabric and lit with 120 Acclaim RGB-color-mixing LED X-Sticks. The hanging “chimes” themselves, which measure 6 tall and 30” diameter, are also made from fabric and are lit with Elation 250-watt Vision Color 250 color changers, concealed inside each rod.
“We used the Vision Color 250, because it has a gobo in it,” explained Rutherford. “On the bottom of those fixtures is a plexi-glass mirror that we actually concaved a bit to bounce the light slightly erratically back up into the fixture. The problem was that we wanted to conceal those fixtures, so we didnt want them sticking out of the top of the chime. But we wanted the light to go all the way back up to the top. The way to do it was to bounce light back up through the fixture itself by putting in a mirror.”
The giant color chime hangs from the ceiling in the VIP lounge, directly over the floor opening, so that patrons on the dance floor below can look straight up and see it. Other fixtures in Faces new addition - including Elation Design Spot 250 and Power Wash 250 moving heads -are also located in the opening between the two stories, positioned on circular truss along a pipe in the circumference of the cut in the floor. This way, the moving heads can be used to light both the upstairs and downstairs levels. “We can get some drastically different looks, depending on the programming in the room,” Rutherford said. “That was the idea - not to be stuck with lighting in only one direction.”
Additional dance floor lighting is provided by 12 Elation Vision Scan 250 moving-mirror scanners, situated on the first floor. “For just downstairs, we didnt need the 360-degree rotation of moving heads, plus we wanted the speedier movement of mirrors,” said Rutherford. The idea with the downstairs lighting was to “expand the party off the dance floor.” Also, since Faces sometimes has live acts, all of the first-floor lights, as well as most of the Design Spots and upstairs lighting, were positioned so they can hit the small staging area. With lighting coming at the stage from all directions, “it gives a great big performance look in a relatively small space,” said Rutherford.
With its innovation and visual drama, Rutherford calls the Faces installation “one of the most fun projects weve had in the last several years.” He said that initially, he and Faces management talked about moving some older lighting fixtures from the original building into the new area and adding a few new pieces. “But the pricing and quality of Elation made it silly to do anything but to put all-new stuff in there,” Rutherford said. “When they realized what they were getting for the money, they were delighted.”
For more information, contact Elation Professional toll-free at 866-245-6726 or visit www.elationlighting.com. Rutherford Design can be contacted at 818-775-0046 or www.rutherforddesign.com