When it comes to
lighting nightclubs there is no-one with a finer pedigree than Stephen
Lieberman.
Based in Southern California he has been
lighting clubs and discos for 25 years — at least half of that time under his
company, SJ Lighting. But he is equally at home providing production for major
festivals such as the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC).
Asked about his profile, Lieberman says,
“I’d like to consider myself a part of the electronic dance music community as
well as a part of the nightclub community. I’ve grown up in this
industry; I embrace it, support it and do my very best to perpetuate it.”
Over the years he has turned to many
different lighting solutions to fulfill his concepts, but recently added the
name of SGM to his tool-box — specifying new generation LED X-5 strobes to
implement a redesign at prominent Chicago club/restaurant Studio Paris.?“Aside
from SGM, this was also my first project for Studio Paris and we immediately
clicked,” he said. “The owners are very professional and strive to offer a
world class product to the Chicago community.”
The nightclub sits on the second floor,
above the restaurant — and the design directive handed down to SJ Lighting was
to create a new decora-tive look for the existing space.
“My philosophy for the club was to give
them layered effects based around several key pieces of technology, including
LED video,” said the designer. “We created a big look on the ceiling
highlighted by LED lighting and an LED video wall on the back wall, with moving
lights on the ceiling; plus, of course, the new SGM LED strobe lights to
provide that extra punch.”
Lieberman had first seen SGM’s X-5s at last
year’s LDI Show in Orlando. “I was immediately intrigued by them,” he said. “The
colour temperature seemed to replicate a real xenon fixture and the output was
impressive for an LED fixture.” By the time he saw Beyoncé’s now legendary
touring SGM strobing blitzkrieg wall he had already specified the
fixture.
He had taken the immediate decision after
LDI to install six of the X-5s — four for use in each corner of the outer area,
the main part of the club, and two on the inside. “Presently, we are using them
as typical strobe effects — we haven’t really attacked the pixel type programming
on them yet. Think of them as punctuation at the end of a sentence!”
Aside from the impact, the designer could
also see economies and efficiencies in terms of both operating and maintenance
costs — particularly given the available power limitations of many venues.
He explains, “Having to specify a 20amp
breaker for just a single fixture is a problem with a lot of venues — therefore
the strobe detail suffers in these instances. To be able to have a high
powered strobe fixture that only draws 4amps at 120v is a huge benefit for my
designs.” And he is also able to dispense with the less-than-reliable colour
scrollers with the traditional strobes.
The Studio’s lighting tech also immediately
jumped on board. “Having tweaked the fixture profile in the control software he
had them up and running before I walked onto the jobsite,” says Lieberman.
In summary, he says, “I really like where
SGM is heading right now. The X-5 offers designers a high-power fixture with
low consumption… it’s the best of both worlds.” As for the club, the original
order was for four strobes after which they added two more. “And that sounds
like a positive endorsement to me!”
