Chauvet Professional Puts Neiman Marcus in Lights at Grand Re-Opening of Bal Harbour Store

	Neiman Marcus grand re-opening of their Bal Harbour store with lighting from Chauvet Professional.

Neiman Marcus made history in 1971 when it opened its first-ever store outside Texas in Miami Beach's upscale Bal Harbour Shops, an open-air shopping center populated by luxury retailers. So, recently, when the groundbreaking Bal Harbour store underwent a major renovation, the company fittingly proclaimed the event with a momentous grand reopening celebration featuring appearances by world-renowned fashion designers, musical performers, cocktails, and hors d'oeuvres -- and, to strike the right blend of pomp and elegance, lighting from Chauvet Professional.

Lighting designer Ruben Laine of DMDS7UDIOS (www.DMDS7UDIOS.com) used a trio of Chauvet Professional fixtures to dress up the entire store for the event, focusing on its "heart" -- a three-story atrium that surrounds three vintage glass elevator shafts -- and illuminating its many sharp, white columns and support structures, which "span vertically and horizontally throughout the venue creating multiple highlightable focus points." The Chauvet Professional fixtures included: 52 WELL 2.0 battery-operated wireless-DMX RGB uplights; seven Ovation E-190WW warm white LED ellipsoidals; and 10 COLORado 1-Quad IP RGBW LED wash lights.

According to Laine, the fixtures helped meet the multiple challenges involved in lighting the Neiman Marcus event, which took place on an evening in early December. One challenge was that as a re-opening celebration, the store itself had to remain 100% operational during event hours. "So we focused mainly on doing décor lighting, uplighting just about every surface facing the heart of the store, and the surfaces facing directly to the store doors," Laine explained. Second, given the timing of the event, the lighting had to work in spaces that were already copiously decked out with holiday décor. "The concept of the event was 'artsy paint splatter,' so we went for saturated red, blue, magenta, amber, and avoided green, so that the store concept wouldn't collide with the holiday season colors."

Another challenge was presented by the department store's powerful ambient lighting. "When you walk into a major retail venue, you immediately notice that daylight neon is king," Laine pointed out. "You are instantly nuked with 4,500K-5,000K from every angle imaginable."

According to the company, the WELL 2.0, with its battery-powered operation and pre-installed wireless DMX receiver, proved to be just the solution for these challenges. Used to uplight the store's structural columns and walls, the unit's cable-free operation and reflective casing made it non-intrusive and discreet on the retail floor. At the same time, its high-output 12 x 3W tri-color RGB LEDs allowed the luminaire to counter the blazing white light. "We needed an elegant, punchy, battery-powered unit strong enough to break through the overpowering white and allow color to bathe the walls, and they did just that," said Laine. "With their dual focusing positions, chromed body and cable-free operation, using the WELLs was a no-brainer."

The other Chauvet Professional fixtures utilized at Neiman Marcus -- the Ovation E-190WW and COLORado 1-Quad IP -- were hung from truss towers primarily on the second and third floors, where they shone down through the open atrium. "At any time you could look up and down the glass atrium and enjoy the paint splatter look," said Laine. "The COLORado 1-Quad IPs did an amazing job at evenly covering the horizontal surfaces around the elevator shaft. Our client provided these funky custom paint splatter gobos that were used on the Ovation E-190WWs all over the third floor and the first floor to highlight the soffits and store branding."

Laine had special praise for the Ovation E-190WW, which recently won the WFX 2013 New Technology Award, citing the warmth and definition of its light field, along with the ability to daisy chain power and data. "As a theatrically trained lighting designer, I don't get any pickier with any new gadget than I have gotten with this new wave of LED ellipsoidals that seems to be flooding the market," said Laine. "Chauvet has set the standard to beat with the Ovation E-190WW."

View a video of the Bal Harbour Neiman Marcus Grand Re-Opening at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JB6GFdsDKts.

See Chauvet Professional at PLASA Focus: Nashville, February 18 - 19.