Rhonda of The Main Event was designing a birthday party in the bottom floor of Discovery Place, a science museum in the heart of Charlotte, North Carolina. She wanted a fun, club-type atmosphere with Madden ’08 for the guest to play. The difficulty was the large space consisting of nearly 6,000 sq ft with only a couple hundred guests. The budget was great for the number of guests but wasn’t great for the size of the space.

Filling large spaces is easy when lighting the back drop behind a crowd, but when designing parties I typically consolidate effects making powerful center pieces. Young designers seem to want to fill every inch of a space with the Cracker Barrel approach to design. Spreading out effects or props typically makes a room anti-climatic and mono-thematic. Consolidated design captures guests’ attention. No one notices an empty wall when an explosive design is in front of them. Think about it this way, would you rather hire five average looking hosts for your party or 1 stunning super model: one Celebrity or 5 unknowns. When designing, focus on impacting the guest not filling up the room. If the room is crowded, great design pieces encourage positive conversation enhancing the atmosphere of the party. However, there is an additional concern when designing parties. After a couple hours, equipment and empty walls become very noticeable at uncrowded parties. When a party is spread out, guests are more likely to wander. With fewer distractions, the fixtures and special effects are completely exposed to the guest curiosity. Much like a knowing all your presents before Christmas, the mystery and excitement are gone. In empty rooms, designers have to be especially creative with camouflage. I like to use furniture. I seek out couches, toys, and distant walls. By hiding the fixtures behind the furniture, the lighting can still remain mysterious and capture the magic.

I do not like TV’s on walls at events. It is boring and cages a room. Everyone is looking away from the party and towards the walls, encouraging anti-social behavior. Instead spring for a goalie truss system and plant the TV in the center of the room. TV’s are used at parties to keep someone’s interest until they start talking to another guest. By providing topics of conversation and temporary distractions, TV’s give a less-connected guest opportunity to connect with others, and this keeps the guest at the party and makes newcomers more comfortable. The video gamers or TV watchers are now in the center of the room. Center room TV’s keep the focus on the party. Instead of having to physically turn around and see who came to the party, the guest’s only have to lower their gaze. New arrivals don’t have to recognize the back of their associates head, but get to confidently approach them without awkwardness.

For the party we had two PlayStation IIIs. Each console was playing Madden ‘08 on a 42” TVs mounted on a goalie post system of 12” Box Truss. A Colorado LED Par uplit each leg of the truss forming a dynamic center piece for the game room. Instead of pulling the guest from the party to the video game, no one played more than a few minutes before a friend pulled them away to mix, meet, and mingle.

A long hallway separated the game room and the DJ lounge/dance floor. The hall didn’t contain anything. We wanted to encourage guest to travel through the hall without stopping for obvious reasons. Rhonda had already asked me for custom “LB sports” gobos. Normally I don’t like gobos on the floor because they cannot be seen once the room is crowded. However, our goal was to keep people moving through the hall so floor focus was perfect. In this application the gobos kept the guest’s gaze down and moving forward into the next room. Simple and impactful, everyone commented how cool the gobo was and no one mentioned the empty hall. That was a 50 yard return . . . photo op . . . . cha chink.

Finally, I put the DJ on a multi-level platform, underneath an oddly shaped staircase. Adding light underneath the staircase, the reflected light from the light color paint formed a light box. Visible from the beginning of the hall the light at the end of the tunnel further pulled the guest into the party room. For the disco lights, we staggered 4 Chauvet Q-Spot 250s on truss towers scattered around the DJ table. Sweeping and strobing as they scanned the open rafters, the moving fixtures added the finishing touches to the event.

Long corridors, stair ways, and huge rooms provided welcome challenges to Mr. Brown’s Birthday. By hiding the fixtures behind the furniture and tucking them into corners, we were able to transform the bottom floor of discovery place to one of character and interest. The bold color changes created the club atmosphere the client desired. Strategically keeping the TV’s in the middle of the room we prevented the gamers from disconnecting from the party. Making Mr. Brown’s Favorite Game, Madden ’08, a social center piece and not a distraction. Using tactically placed gobos we carried the party down the hall to the DJ Dance Lounge. Sweeping the ceiling with shapes and swoops, moving lights stood their ground as the DJ stormed the field carrying this party for a touchdown.