Elation Upgrade Helps Breath Life into Building 24 Lighting System

	Building 24 with an all-Elation Professional lighting rig

Building 24, a live entertainment and club venue located inside The Works, a large indoor entertainment facility in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, has enjoyed the benefits of an Elation Professional lighting system since being installed in 2010. Five years on, the venue was looking to upgrade and add to their lighting system and again chose the Elation brand.

Elation dealer AURORA Sound & Light Design (www.AuroraSoundLight.com), who has sold Elation lighting rigs to such prestigious venues in Philadelphia as SoundGarden Hall and Rumor nightclub, was called in to design the new lighting system, which would marry new Elation lighting fixtures with the venue's existing Elation lights.

"We supplied the new lighting equipment, did the design and programming, and educated the venue staff on how to install the equipment," says Ian Hoffer, president of AURORA Sound & Light Design, who also explains that the venue wasn't getting the most out of their rig due to an insufficient and outdated lighting controller. Ian specified a new all-LED Elation lighting package to complement the existing system and rectified the control problem by specifying a more contemporary lighting console.

Building 24 is used as both a nightclub and live music venue for national and regional acts. Its performance stage hosts all types of music from DJ to jazz and also sees use for theatrical plays and other events. The 1,200-capacity venue, housed in a turn-of-the-century industrial complex, which also includes a restaurant, game room, and go kart track, wanted to make the biggest improvement possible within the allotted budget while reusing their existing Elation Opti Tri PAR, Design Spot 250, and Elar 108 fixtures.

"It's a versatile space that needed a versatile rig," Hoffer says. "The client wanted club effects as well as lighting that could be used to light the live performances. They wanted as much excitement and possibility as they could get out of one fixture so we chose to install Cuepix Panels," he says of Elation's bright, full-color LED matrix panels. "We have them mounted along four overhead trusses and they are used for a bit of everything such as blinders, pixel chases, stage wash and low intensity color wash, and even as work lights for personnel."

The new lighting package also includes Arena Q7 Zoom LED PAR lights used as front lights on the stage; Opti 30 UV lights used for blacklight glow parties; and compact Rayzor Q7 LED moving heads used in a side room bar to "give the space some life." Elation Driver 1 Pro's, an RGB LED driver, were also installed to custom modify the existing LED tiles above the side room bar to be DMX controllable, giving them the ability to chase and color mix and bringing them back to life.

As an important element of the upgrade, Hoffer replaced the venue's outdated controller, which was limiting the functionality and flexibility of their existing lights, with something the staff could use. "Now they can get functions out of their existing lights that they never knew were possible," he said. "The client was amazed that the existing lights could do so much and now combined with the new rig we can do all sorts of chases and sweeps and other effects. They can do so much more."

The existing Elar 108 RGBW lights, which were not even in use prior to the upgrade, are now used to light the stage curtain while the existing Design Spot 250s, hybrid spot and wash fixtures located on the overhead trusses, are used for color and mid-air effects for club looks or can be repositioned toward the stage for live performances. The Opti Tri PARs are used as truss warmers. Hoffer also added Elation eNode4 Ethernet to DMX interfaces to the rig, which are ideal for hanging in truss or remote areas of installations and have cut back on the amount of cables needed.

The lighting and control upgrade at the 10-year-old facility has breathed new life into the venue with a flexible lighting system that will certainly be in use for years to come.