Turkey – Clay Paky Sharpy and Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300 luminaires are being used in one of Turkey’s most internationally renowned superclubs as part of a major reimagining of its lighting and décor.
The Sharpys and Alpha Beam 300s were specified as part of the transformation of Bodrum’s infamous Halikarnas outdoor nightclub, which has been operating for more than 30 years. During the peak summer season, Halikarnas attracts top international DJs and up to 4,000 clubbers a night and they come with high expectations.
To ensure the club retains its long won cult status, respected lighting designers Matthew Button and Trent O’Connor of Arch Lite provided lighting design, production and programming. Button discusses: “When I went to do the first site visit for this project I was impressed by the grandeur of the place: Sweeping palatial steps, huge pillars, the massive expanse of the sky above, I knew beam lights were the only option.”
At the time that Arch Lite was commissioned for the Bodrum project live music lighting designer Button had been lighting a number of bands, exploring the creative possibilities of the Sharpy and Alpha Beam 300 fixtures. “I originally chose the Alpha Beam 300s and Sharpys for their fast response, speedy movement and straight beam action. The more I used the Alpha Beam 300s, and the Sharpy in particular, the more they became firm favourites. I took full advantage of their speedy reaction and pencil sharp beams, which can transform into a wash in a heartbeat, to work in synchronicity with the music.
“The colour wheel flicks to any colour and is equally fast,” continues Button. “It takes me back to the days of golden scan HPEs, which changed the way I looked at lighting. The Alpha Beam 300 is almost as quick but has a great deal more functions, not quite as bright as the Sharpy so a healthy mixture of the two seemed to be the way to go. We needed to fill a huge dance floor from a distance, and make the club look amazing from every angle that the light show could be seen from.”
For one particular themed night Button and O’Connor even used Sharpys to colour a castle about 1Km away across the bay from the club. “The Sharpys did a fantastic job. Originally we were going to use search lights but the local government would not allow us to use them, the Sharpys were a great replacement.”
Button and O’Connor started the design process with the stage and dance floor. They examined a number of possibilities of the architectural design, which went from having 40 Sharpys under a glass floor firing beams up the building. In the end they finished off with a futuristic design that encases the lights within the stage roof.
“The design work I’d done with the bands, using the Alpha Beam 300’s and Sharpys, meant I was already confident that I could create epic looks with a small number of good quality, feature rich lights, rigged in strategic positions and achieve it with a relatively low power draw. We applied this same philosophy to the club lighting design, lighting the dance areas and stage shows from strategic positions to minimise the visual impact of the lights themselves. The fact that these fixtures are relatively small made them the ideal choice.”
Pio Nahum, chief commercial officer for Clay Paky says: “It’s fantastic to see these luminaires being using in such an imaginative design for a fixed installation. Their presence brings the dynamic, interactive atmosphere of the live music experience into the club environment which inevitably keeps the heightened surroundings alive.”