Small Craft Advisory: Oasis Of The Seas, Part 2: Dazzles and Comedy Live Nightclubs

Bedazzled
Unlike Blaze aboard Royal Caribbean’s Oasis of the Seas, Dazzles nightclub had no ceiling height constraints. The space is three decks high and includes a balcony, band riser, and dance floor. As guests walk into the mid-ship lounge, they can look out onto one of the decks through a huge window with diamond-shaped panes set in steel beams. Designer Michael Riotto used a selection of Elation Professional Impression LEDs above the riser, and some of his looks catch the steel beams and reflect off the glass, creating unique looks behind any band performing on the stage.

The performance space in this venue allowed Riotto to create theatrical looks as well as club lighting. He uses six Elation Design Spots to cover up-, mid- and downstage, and three FOH positions hold Acclaim Lighting X Drum wash fixtures. “We like them because they are easy to install,” Riotto says. “There is only one cable coming off them instead of two, and they are very bright but have a low profile. That’s important as the coves are not that deep so it is hard to hide fixtures.”

Dazzles houses a Barco High End Systems Road Hog console with four universes, one for the floor, one for FOH, one for the stage area, and one for the house lights. “The whole fleet is Hog-based, which simplifies things when technicians are moving between different ships,” Riotto says.

The designer turned to Traxon once again for LED panels, this time under the dance floor, using 72 10"x10" panels under a 4"-thick glass floor. The light source is about 18" beneath the floor, giving even color distribution.

Laugh It Up
One detail that stands out for Riotto at Comedy Live is the entrance tunnel. BG Studio International designed the space, and Michael Riotto Design built a scale mockup to demonstrate the different LED colors and intensities. “It ended up being a very collaborative process that turned out to be a very creative transition space from a public gathering space outside, to a colorful entertainment venue inside,” Riotto says.

In this venue, Riotto relied on the X-Drum from Acclaim, calling it “an affordable, built-like-a-tank RGB LED fixture that was designed to be used in-ground or underwater. However, we have been using them as wash fixtures, where applicable.”

Stay tuned for more on Oasis of the Seas, or check out the full story in the June/July issue of Live Design.

Hannah Kate Kinnersley began her publishing career at TCI/Lighting Dimensions in 1992, at the age of three. She has contributed stories to every version of the magazine since then, despite occasionally breaking away to work for lesser organs such as The Wall Street Journal and SavetheChildren.com. For this issue, she brings her pond kayaking skills to bear on the largest ship in the world, Oasis of the Seas.