Dbar Lounge/Club in Mexico Overhauls Lighting Rig With 100 ADJ Fixtures

A popular nightlife venue in Mexico has undergone a complete internal transformation ready for its 2020 season. This included the installation of a totally new lighting system comprised exclusively of ADJ fixtures including Vizi Beam RXONE and Vizi Q Wash7 moving heads alongside Sweeper Beam Quad LED motorized battens and Saber Spot RGBW LED pinspots.

Located in Villahermosa, the capital city of Tabasco State in southeast Mexico, Dbar is well-established as a gathering place for the area's elite. With a top 40 music policy, the venue attracts a client base predominantly in the 21 to 40 age demographic who dress to impress and come to let their hair down. Offering premium drinks and bottle service to an upmarket crowd, it is essential that the venue's décor sets the right tone, which is why the management completely overhauled the interior space ahead of the 2020 season.

The concept for the new design was created by award-winning architect Filipao Nuñez, who used striking lines and curves, combined with plush furnishings, to create a luxurious and modern space. The scale of the 800-capacity venue is accentuated through the extensive use of mirrored walls, while a feature bar fills one size of the rectangular main room and the DJ booth takes pride of place at the far end of the space.

Adimsa, a company with an impressive track record of providing innovative lighting installations in nightclubs and lounges throughout Mexico, was brought in to supply and install all of the lighting for the project. The company's director general, Edson Rivera, served as the conceptual lighting designer, while Lili Tamez used AutoCAD and DIALux software to create the technical designs for the installation.

A long term ADJ customer, Rivera has extensive experience of using the company's fixtures to create impressive lighting installations. "For this project, we chose ADJ lighting for its versatility and because the quality of the light optics are appropriate for this club because of the size," says Rivera. "We also like the great functions that are offered by ADJ lighting, as well as the reliability of the fixtures and the good customer support we receive from Abraham [Levit, director general, ADJ Mexico] and his team."

To create mid-air beam effects in the large space, Edson selected ADJ's extremely popular Vizi Beam RXONE fixtures. Ten of these units are mounted in pairs running the length of the space, with another pair positioned above the DJ booth. Harnessing the power of an Osram Sirius HRI 1R long life (6,000 hours) discharge lamp paired with precision-engineered optics, this compact fixture generates a powerful and crisp beam with a narrow three-degree beam angle. A variety of beam-shaping tools can then be applied -- including 14 colors + white (with split colors), 15 gobos + open, a rotating 16-facet circular prism and a 21-degree frost filter) to create a wide variety of engaging effects.

Adding another unique effect to Dbar's lightshow, Rivera and his team have also installed 12 of ADJ's Sweeper Beam Quad LED fixtures throughout the space. Each unit features eight 8W RGBW LEDs focused into sharp 3.4-degree beams, all mounted to a low-profile linear batten that offers 270-degrees of swift motorized tilt motion. These fixtures are again mounted in pairs, spaced throughout the venue, with each unit positioned perpendicular to the long sides of the room to allow the beams to sweep through its entire length.

The mid-air effects created by the Vizi Beam RXONE and Sweeper Beam Quad LED fixtures are complemented by color washes generated by 16 of ADJ's Vizi Q Wash7 moving heads. Each packing in seven 40W RGBW LEDs, these versatile fixtures not only generate vibrant washes in a wide palette of colors, but also offer motorized variable zoom. This allows the beam angle to be altered between five and 55 degrees, allowing the same units to provide tight shafts of light one moment and wide swathes of color the next.

As a lounge/club, Dbar MX is filled with comfortable seating and booth space. To incorporate this key element of the venue into the lighting design, Rivera utilized 50 of ADJ's Saber Spot RGBW LED pinspot fixtures to individually spotlight each of the tables in the room. These compact fixtures each feature a 15W RGBW LED light source which is focused through a built-in ACL lens to generate a razor-sharp four-degree beam that is ideal for this type of application. With full DMX control, the fixtures can be set to illuminate the tables in a static color during the early evening and then integrated into the rest of the lighting system with color chases and strobe effects when the party atmosphere gets into full swing.

Six of ADJ's UV COB Cannon fixtures complete the lighting system, filling the space with a blanket covering of UV light. These powerful units feature a 100W COB (Chip On Board) UV LED and a wide 33-degree beam angle to offer the perfect modern alternative to traditional UV cannons that relied on notoriously temperamental incandescent UV lamps.

The Adimsa team have also used a pair of ADJ D6 Branch signal splitters / amplifiers to distribute the DMX control signal throughout the venue. Each of these compact units take an incoming DMX signal and boost it out over one thru and 6 output connections, allowing for a DMX signal to be easily and reliability distributed around a large rig spread over a sizeable area.

In addition to the 100 ADJ fixtures, Rivera and his team have also integrated a large number of individual LED pixels and neon-style LED strips into the venue's walls and ceiling. These are combined with the moving beams and washes, as well as the static spots and UV Cannons, to create one seamless lighting system, controlled by DMX, that completely envelopes the whole space with synchronized movement, color, and patterns. The result is a stunning venue with a modern up-market atmosphere that is sure to secure Dbar's place as the pinnacle of Villahermosa's nighttime entertainment scene.

Venue
Dbar MX
Avenida Paseo de la Choca
Villahermosa, Tabasco 86035
Mexico
www.facebook.com/dbarmx

Installation Company / ADJ Dealer
Adimsa
www.adimsa.com.mx

Architect
Filipao Nuñez

Lighting Designer
Edson Rivera

Technical Designer
Lili Tamez

Photographer
Edson Rivera