Masterworks Lighting Invents New "Digital Chandelier"

Masterworks Lighting, based in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, recently solved a huge problem facing event producers and designers when it comes to decorating and lighting large spaces.

"Necessity is truly the mother of invention," says Paul Dexter, Masterworks president and creator of the Digital Chandelier. "We had an event in March called "Radical Craft," a three-day design event, attended by innovators from all disciplines from advertising to architecture, coming from around the world to Pasadena for the 2006 Art Center Design Conference. Considering our overachiever audience, I had to make the entertainment space immensely different from what ordinary lighting means could offer."

The space was a 160' x 50' tent, provided by Classic Party Rentals, linked to another 80' x 40' tent. The problem not only involved lighting a vast space, but making it intimate for lunches, dinners, and after parties.

"Making white wall tents intimate is a challenge for any event producer that uses them for large events," says Dexter. "They are just inherently cold, but it didn't stop there, either." The event producers had multiple sponsors, including New York magazine, GE and Target that requested specific color combinations to associate with their corporate branding; they also needed predominant space to which to shine their famous logo designs.

Sakow Event Management presided over concept design for the entertainment tent. Owner/producer Pam Sakow says "Paul described these huge chandeliers, with CAD visual aids, using panels framed like pictures. It sounded good to us and we were excited about it, but we had no idea, until they were physically up in the tent, what it was going to be like. It finally hit us that they became huge lights that could change to any color, but also could be projection surfaces for the sponsor's logos. It looked amazing and the compliments are still coming in, even after the event is over."

Masterworks submitted the chandelier design to the US Trademark and Patent Office and is waiting for the design patent and plan to market the Digital Chandelier, and variations of it, to the many large events looking for a new solution to customize four-wall temporary installations. For more information, visit the Web site listed below.