Surrounded By Light: Drai's Nightclub In Las Vegas

Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
Drai’s Nightclub, the brainchild of owner and Nightclub Hall of Fame inductee Victor Drai, is located on the 11th floor roof of the Cromwell Hotel in Las Vegas. The new club, which opened on May 22 with a lighting and video design by Stephen Lieberman of SJ Lighting, is an indoor/outdoor rooftop environment that creates a truly immersive experience by surrounding clubgoers with sound, light, and video elements. “We are creating a 360° experience,” says Drai. “Wherever you turn, you will be awed by the design, the technology, the music, the service, and, most importantly, the experience.”
 
The 65,000sq-ft. multi-sensory venue takes entertainment to new levels. With more than 150 various indoor and outdoor seating options to accommodate its 4,500-guest capacity, the main room features 14 premier dance floor tables, eight upper dance floor tables, two VIP balconies, 12 mezzanine level booths, eight elevated tables behind the DJ booth, and 16 elevated VIP booths. The main room features more than 4,000sq-ft. of high-definition LEDs, including a towering, unique 80-sided LED disco ball centerpiece and custom rooftop firework shows. Drai’s is a definite detour from the ordinary nightlife experience, and Lieberman’s design is sure to raise that bar to a new level for future clubs. 
 
This was the first project that Lieberman worked on with Drai. “I had the latitude to do my own thing,” says Lieberman. “Victor gave me the mandate to go full-tilt and to create the best system in town. ‘Do whatever it takes, and make it look amazing,’ were some of my mandates, along with ‘knock it out of the park.’ I had no specific direction other than to make it look amazing. We’ve gotten nothing but kudos on the result.” 
 
Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
Lieberman’s design philosophy is to “embrace the environment,” the designer says. “I wanted the design of the space to be one cohesive element that makes sense. The space needed to flow, so I worked with the geometry of the space as well as fitting into the infrastructure. The systems can’t feel like they are crammed into the architecture.”
 
The lighting and video systems are designed with flexibility in mind to keep the show fresh and changing. The operators can easily build shows and create unique environments. Lieberman used Philips Color Kinetics iCoves to highlight and edge details. “The architectural details are included in my design,” he comments. The moving light package is layered into the design as well. “I use wash systems for broad strokes, spot systems for edge lighting, and beam systems for aerial effect lighting,” he says. “I can create some big, overwhelming lighting looks very easily. I can layer in details on top for some punctuation. I also use the strobe lighting for an edgy detail and have lined the soffits with blinders. I create an LED incandescent look as well with the blinders.” 
 

Blinded By The Light

 
Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
More than 100 Elation CuePix WW LED Blinders are included in Lieberman’s design. “They can provide a lot of different looks with different curves, like its incandescent curve as well as warm up and cool down curves, too.” The package also includes a laser system with four 12W RGB lasers and a CO2 effects system, all to keep it fresh and to allow Lieberman to create layers in his design.
 
The ceiling is massive, and Lieberman refers to it as “visually overwhelming.” He’s created an 8'-diameter spherical, 80-sided octagonal chandelier with lighting and video elements. “It’s built all over a custom steel frame and includes custom 10mm triangular-shaped LED panels,” he says. “I used iCoves on the edges, and at every intersection is an LED pinspot. It has a classic disco feel to it; the LEDs give it a very analog look. It’s one of my favorite effects and is very intriguing. I have lighting and video 3D-mapped onto the chandelier.” The chandelier is hung from a winch to raise and lower it for different looks. 
 
In addition to the blinders on the soffits, Lieberman has wrapped the soffits with 7mm high-res LED video modules. “The entire soffit is fully immersive and wraps almost 360° around and ends at the exterior wall,” says Lieberman. “It flows up into the ceiling and radiates out in spokes from the centerpiece. It looks like sunrays that orbit out from the center. I use basic geometry in creative ways.”
 
Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
There is an 80'-wide screen that covers the porte-cochère by the pool area. “I can blend the interior and the exterior spaces and tie them both together,” says Lieberman. “I use the CuePix blinders, LED strips, video, and moving lights up on the rig to change the looks.”
 
Among the challenges that Lieberman and his team had to deal with was a ceiling plan that kept changing. “About three months into the project, we pushed to change the ceiling, which wasn’t working. I think that it was a change for the better. By flipping the soffit, it made the room larger and more circular. We had to redo our whole design, but I feel that it was worth it.”
 

Virkhaus On Visuals

 
Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
Lieberman brought in longtime collaborator Vello Virkhaus to provide and design the video control system. Virkhaus, principal of V Squared Labs says, “I designed the front end for the visual system, which incorporated 3D mapping and realtime rendering. The nightclub lighting and video designed by Stephen created an amazing LED screen canvas for us to paint.”
 
Virkhaus developed the system that pushes custom content out to the screens. “The EPICv4.0 system is very flexible and very realtime,” he comments. “We were able to create 3D composition in 3D space, live space. I have created a system that’s in use in a lot of clubs that can create generative, realtime video. It has a clip library with 4,000 clips online, with a library of another 8,000 clips that are available. With a video sampler, they can jam and create generative art. The video has a patch grid and can be driven by audio feeds.”
 
The system doesn’t use flat videos but 3D planes of geometry. Virkhaus’ system uses 3D realtime lighting shaders since his system is based on video game engines. “For Drai’s, we created custom 3D models to map the geometry of the space,” Virkhaus explains. “We can put in live video inputs as well; it’s all very complex. They can input SD or HD feeds into the system as well. We created frames for presentational scenes and can split the videos into the frames. We take 1,500 channels from the master controller for our system.” The club’s resident VJ is Julie Hardin.
 
Photo Credit: Shane O'Neal
 
“I feel that we were very lucky to get to work on this project,” says Virkhaus. “Stephen is my number one supporter in the nightclub market. We spent about three months working on this project, and it was really challenging. In the end, I am very pleased with the results.”
 
Lieberman notes that his close collaboration with Drai is reflected in the success of the design. “He was the driving force,” says the designer. “He was very hands-on and very driven. We modeled and rendered it all out in a Google SketchUp model. We worked together on a day-to-day basis on this project. I am pleased with the whole project and was very happy to be given such latitude with my design.” 
 
Lieberman and Virkhaus are co-creative consultants for the Electronic Dance Music Master Classes for Lighting +Projection at LDI 2014 in Las Vegas November 21-23.
 
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