Cyprus’ Face Club Creates ‘Wow Factor’ With New ADJ Fixtures

Owned by Breeze Group, a company which has been established in Limassol for almost 20 years and owns a number of bars, restaurants and nightclubs in the area, Face Club operates throughout the winter season when the group’s open-air venues are closed. Limassol is a city that attracts tourists all year round, and Face Club is a popular nighttime destination for both visitors and locals, hosting a wide variety of different events featuring everything from EDM to traditional Greek music. Ahead of each season’s opening, the team from SP MegaSound Ltd is brought in to service all the venue’s equipment and refresh the lighting to provide regulars with a new experience each year.

For the 2023-24 season, this meant a complete redesign of the venue’s lighting system, with all existing fixtures repositioned as well as a significant quantity of new additions. The design process began with a meeting between SP MegaSound Ltd’s owner, Stelios Petrides, and the owner of Breeze Group, Andros Georgiou, where a vision was outlined for adding ‘wow factor’ by creating a new focal point for the club. This would involve a central circular truss loaded with moving head beam and LED strobe fixtures out from which pixel-mappable LED strips would radiate. This idea was met with a positive response and the concept was further developed by Lighting Designer Dimitris Nicolaou who utilized the Capture 3D design software to map out the new rig and produce renderings that allowed the club’s management to visualize how the new lighting system would look in their space. Once these were approved, Project Manager, Demetris Thoupis,  was able to order the new equipment and plan a work schedule for SP MegaSound Ltd’s installation team to install the equipment and then for Dimitris to program the new rig.

The club currently utilizes 26 of ADJ’s Vizi Beam 5RX automated beam luminaires, which – despite being discontinued – continue to perform reliably. However, over time, the venue plans to transition their inventory to the new Vizi Beam 12RX model. Powered by the brilliant 260W Philips® Platinum 12R LL MSD discharge lamp, it produces a razor sharp 2-degree beam of light and offers a wide variety of beam-shaping tools, including 14 colors + open (with color indexing), 16 GOBOs + open (with GOBO indexing), two rotating prisms (6-facet linear and 24-facet circular) and a frost filter for wash effects. Face Club’s transition to the Vizi Beam 12RX began with this recent lighting renovation when eight fixtures were installed above the stage at the back of the venue. Dimitris selected this location for the new fixtures because they have the widest reach of any of the moving heads in the club.

“The Vizi Beam 12RX is extremely powerful,” comments Dimitris, “but also lightweight for a fixture of its class. I love the tight 2-degree beam, which is very sharp and crisp, as well as the 24-facet prism. When there is plenty of space for this effect to open-up over an extended projection distance – which is the case at Face Club – it looks incredible. There is also a dark orange on the color wheel, which you won’t find on most competing fixtures, so you can create effects that really stand out as different. It’s a great fixture that I love to work with!”

The stage’s lighting rig also features a pair of Encore Burst 200 LED-powered warm white 2-cell blinders, positioned above the DJ booth, and a pair of Inno Color Beam Z19 moving head wash fixtures, located at either side. In addition, above the stage are four Sweeper Beam Quad LED units, which each feature eight independently controllable RGBW LEDs mounted to a motorized tilt assembly. Together, they create a curtain of light beams that swing down in front of the stage to great effect.

Positioned above a central bar, the club’s new center piece installation features a circular truss loaded with eight Vizi Beam 5RX moving heads. These units are interspersed by eight of ADJ’s multifunctional Jolt 300 LED-powered strobe / blinder / wash fixtures. Featuring a central strip of 144 x 0.5W white SMD LEDs, surrounded on both sides by 144 x 0.5W RGB SMD LEDs, these powerful fixtures can be used to create strikingly bright white strobe effects as well as vibrant color washes and animated zone chase effects.

“The Jolt family is an amazing collection of lighting fixtures that can be used for a wide range of applications,” enthuses Antonis Skotinos, SP MegaSound’s Customer Sales & Sales Support executive. “You need your sunglasses with you though, as they are incredibly bright! For this project, the Jolt 300s add a new dimension to the rig, a new age of technology. Projecting out from the central circle, they can fill the whole club with vibrant colors and when the strobe kicks in the effect is truly intense.”

Extending the center piece installation out to fill the entire mid-section of the club are 18 of ADJ’s Pixie Strip 120 linear LED fixtures, which are attached to the circular truss and extend out from it in a fan-shaped configuration. Measuring 2-meters in length (approximately 79”), each of these units feature 120 independently controllable SMD RGB color mixing LEDs which can be used to create captivating pixel-mapped effects. Adding to the flexibility of this fixture, each one is supplied with a choice of four different cosmetic lenses – frosted white round, frosted white square, smoked black round and smoked black square – which each blur the LED output and provide a subtly different finish. At Face Club, the SP MegaSound Ltd team opted for the smoked black round finish.

“With 120 separate pixels on each strip, you can do anything with the Pixie Strip 120s,” explains Dimitris, “there are so many possibilities in terms of programming. They are bright fixtures and I really appreciate the quality of the color mixing, which is very smooth with no stepping or shadows. The dark filter means that the LEDs disappear into the black ceiling of the club when they are off and then when they are lit you can’t see the separate dots but a smooth blended effect that is very pleasing to the eye.”

In programming the Face Club’s new lighting system, Dimitris divided the venue into three zones: the center piece, the stage and the side walls. He created programming such that the Lighting Operators can layer different effects on each of these zones to generate a wide variety of combinations. The side zone features the club’s remaining Vizi Beam 5RX fixtures – eight down each side – as well as 16 of ADJ’s UB 12H linear LED wash fixtures, also split 8 per side. Utilized in their full channel mode, which provides zone control over each pair of LEDs, the fixtures are used to bathe the club in color as well as for additional pixel-mapped effects.

Beam-enhancing atmosphere in the club is generated by a pair of Entourage 1400W high output faze machines. In addition, two Fog Fury Jett LED-illuminated vertical fog machines shoot big bursts of smoke down onto the dancefloor to create the effect of CO2 cannons. These effects, combined with the wide variety of ADJ lighting fixtures creatively deployed throughout the venue and skillfully programmed by Dimitris, provide Face Club with a versatile and effective lighting system that truly delivers the promised ‘wow factor’ on a nightly basis.

Venue
Face Club
www.breezegroup.com.cy/faceclublimassol

Installer
SP MegaSound Ltd
www.megasound.com.cy

Project Manager
Demetris Thoupis

Lighting Designers / Programmers
Dimitris Nicolaou & Andreas Petrides

ADJ Gear List
8 x Vizi Beam 12RX
18 x Pixie Strip 120
8 x Jolt 300 
26 x Vizi Beam 5RX
16 x UB 12H
4 x Sweeper Beam Quad LED
2 x Entourage
2 x Fog Fury Jett
2 x Encore Burst 200
2 x Inno Color Beam Z19
2 x Flat Par TRI18XS
2 x Strobe SP1500 MKII