Historic Dinner Show and Event Venue De Avenue Upgrades Lighting With ADJ LED-Powered Fixtures

The building which today houses De Avenue is steeped in history. It was originally constructed as a Roman Catholic ‘hidden church’ at a time when Catholic churches had to be kept secret from the protestant authorities in the Netherlands. Later, in 1837, a striking external façade was added, when the building’s true identity no longer had to be hidden. In the 1990s it was converted into a venue for hosting dinner shows, while retaining its historic interior design featuring impressive columns and an ornate plastered ceiling. After years of success, by the mid-2010s the venue’s business model, which relied purely on dinner cabaret, was proving insufficient and De Avenue was on the brink of closure. However, it was rescued by Rens de Grauw, who had worked as an AV Technician for the dinner shows and saw the venue’s untapped potential. He bought the business in 2017 and slowly began to turn it around by simultaneously improving the quality of the dinner shows and diversifying into other events.

Upgrading the venue’s outdated lighting system was central to Rens’ plan to modernize De Avenue, not only making it more efficient, but providing the flexibility necessary for hosting a wide variety of different forms of entertainment. The first step in this years-long rolling process of renovations was the replacement of the stage lighting in both the larger main room and smaller, more intimate, upstairs space. Rens opted for ADJ’s Encore FR Series of LED-powered Fresnel fixtures, installing four of the 130-Watt Encore FR150Z units downstairs alongside a pair of the more compact Encore FR50Z 50-Watt variant. Four additional FR50Z fixtures have also been installed in the upstairs theater, while a single Encore Profile Mini WW serves as a center spotlight in the main theater.

“The old system used conventional fixtures, which generated a lot of heat,” explains Rens. “This not only made it uncomfortable for the performers on stage but also led to increased power costs for running the air conditioning to regulate the temperature for guests. The new Encore fixtures instantly improved the quality of our stage lighting and also significantly reduced our electricity usage, both for the lights themselves and the aircon, so this was a good first step. The Encore Series fixtures are great lights – before we made the purchase we did a shoot-out with a number of competing LED-powered Fresnels and the FR150Z and FR50Z were clear winners. They offer the perfect combination of brightness, quality, and affordable price for a venue like ours.”

Another priority for Rens in carrying out the upgrade was to create a versatile system that can be easily adapted to the wide variety of events for which De Avenue now caters, including club nights organized by outside promoters, private parties, weddings, and corporate presentations. When the venue re-opened following the COVID pandemic, Rens recalls Technicians being in high demand which meant that he had to work overnight in the venue himself repositioning lighting fixtures and setting up for the next day’s event. This led to a desire for a more automated rig that would need less work to switch between productions or types of events.

The primary automated fixture Rens selected was ADJ’s Focus Hybrid, a versatile moving head luminaire capable of functioning interchangeably as a spot, wash, or beam. Combining an extremely efficient 200-Watt white light LED engine with precision engineered optics, it offers impressive output from a compact and nimble fixture. It is also packed with beam-shaping tools, including motorized zoom and focus, two GOBO wheels, an independent color wheel, two rotating prisms and a replaceable frost filter. In total, Rens invested in 32 Focus Hybrids, installing 16 in the roof of the downstairs venue, 8 in the upstairs space, and storing the final 8 in a flight case to be deployed on either stage as required.

“Before upgrading to the Focus Hybrid, we had 12 ADJ Vizi Beam RXONEs, which were very reliable and great for creating aerial effects for dance parties,” comments Rens. “However, because we also do a lot of dinner shows and other events, I wanted to add spot fixtures that could be used for atmospherics, GOBO projections and lighting performers. I also wanted the impact that can be created by having a large quantity of the same type of fixture, but we were limited by both available space and budget. This meant that a Hybrid fixture was the obvious choice. We demo’ed a few different options, and the Focus Hybrid came out on top. I was amazed by its brightness, especially coming from an LED light source, and was also impressed by how quiet it is, which is another important consideration for when we are presenting theatrical performances.”

In the main room, Rens has also incorporated ADJ’s compact, quick, and punchy Focus Flex LED wash-zoom into his rig design. Featuring seven potent 40-Watt 4-in-1 RGBW color mixing LEDs, each of which can be controlled independently, this versatile fixture is capable of creating wash, beam, and pixel effects. A total of ten units are installed at De Avenue; four along the rear of the stage to provide back light and six – hanging in pairs on three trusses above the audience – available to provide additional stage washes, aerial effects or color washing for the dancefloor, as required.

“I love the speed of the Focus Flex, it’s extremely fast but also nicely quiet, and the zoom range is very good. I also like the animation macros, because my desk was getting full, so I needed to patch them in a lower channel mode but can still make use of their individual pixel control. Another important point is the LED calibration, which is perfect. I’ve had LED washes before where the colors are visibly different, which I’m not sure the audience noticed but it really annoyed me! Finally, of course, they are very small – which is important for a venue like ours – but they are still very bright. We originally bought two but were so impressed that we quickly ordered eight more.”

De Avenue’s lighting rig also utilizes a variety of other ADJ fixtures, in smaller quantities, to cover specific tasks. A pair of Jolt 300 multifunctional strobe / blinder / color wash fixtures are positioned above the stage pointing towards the audience in the upstairs room, while two of the larger Jolt Panel FX variants are installed downstairs. Four Par Z120 RGBW fixtures, which feature efficient color mixing LEDs housed in a traditional Par 64 enclosure, are utilized as back light on the upstairs stage, while nine more fixtures are rigged to the three overhead trusses in the main room to provide dancefloor/audience color washing. A pair of 32 HEX Panel IP LED-powered, UV-infused, color mixing wash fixtures are hidden above the stage to provide colorful downlight. Rens also uses two of ADJ’s LED-powered Ikon IR GOBO projectors; one to display the venue’s social media tags on the curtain before shows and another to project its logo onto the street outside.

The venue’s lighting system is also enhanced by a number of ADJ atmospheric effect fixtures. In December, De Avenue hosts a series of Christmas-themed dinner shows in its main room. To create a magical festive atmosphere for these events, four ADJ snow machines are installed in each corner of the room, capable of filling the space with faux snow almost instantly. Two of ADJ’s top-of-the-range Entour Snow units are positioned at either side of the stage, each capable of shooting synthetic snow over a distance of up to 12 meters. Meanwhile, filling in the back of the room are a pair of VF Snow Flurry HO units, which ensure audience members are completely engulfed in snow. The venue also owns a pair of Fog Fury Jett LED-illuminated vertical fog machines, which can be deployed on either stage for dance parties.

House lighting in the main room is provided by four elaborate chandeliers, which are hung from electric winches that are used to move them out of the audience’s sight line after dinner as the show begins. For dance events, the chandeliers can be removed from the hoists and replaced either with 40 cm mirror balls or Starburst LED-powered rotating sphere effect lights, depending on the preference of the promoter. In addition, Rens also has a pair of ADJ’s retro-style Asteroid 1200 multi-dimensional rotating spherical LED fixtures, which can be used to add additional interest to the stage for DJ-based events. Despite being long since discontinued, these fixtures are still going strong, demonstrating the longevity of ADJ equipment.

“I have been using ADJ products since 2011, so I know that they are reliable,” concludes Rens. “However, a change I’ve noticed recently is that ADJ fixtures have begun to retain their value much better than in the past. The resale price of ADJ fixtures is now very good, which makes an investment in ADJ an even better proposition. We know that, for example, we can use our Focus Hybrids for a good number of years and then, when we’re ready to upgrade again, we can sell them for a decent price to help fund our next purchase. ADJ fixtures – especially the moving heads – have also become very popular in the Netherlands. You see them used for many high-profile events, which means that I think no visiting Lighting Designer to De Avenue will have a problem using them, something that I can’t say for some of ADJ’s competitors that also offer affordable fixture options.”

Venue
De Avenue
www.de-avenue.nl

Owner / Lighting Designer
Rens de Grauw

ADJ Gear List

Main Room (Downstairs)
16 x Focus Hybrid
10 x Focus Flex
9 x Par Z120 RGBW
4 x Encore FR150Z
2 x Encore FR50Z
2 x 32 HEX Panel IP
2 x Jolt Panel FX
2 x Entour Snow
2 x VF Snow Flurry HO
2 x Ikon IR
1 x Encore Profile Mini WW

Second Room (Upstairs)
8 x Focus Hybrid
4 x Par Z120 RGBW
4 x Encore FR50Z
2 x Jolt 300

Portable Fixtures
8 x Focus Hybrid
2 x Fog Fury Jett
4 x Starburst
4 x M-1616 Mirror Ball
2 x Asteroid 1200