James Keeley Designs Lighting for R&B/Hip-Hop Artist Cupid and XtremeFoamParties.com's 1st Birthday Bash

Since winning an Elation Education Experience Award for aspiring lighting designers, James Keeley has become a respected lighting guru who so impressed Elation Professional and its parent company, American DJ, that they hired him as a consultant. Answering a few questions for American DJ customer Matt Bushweiler via Facebook helped Keeley get the job of designing and running the lighting for the XtremeFoamParties.com First Birthday Bash, which recently took place at Good Times Bar & Grill in Reedsburg, Wisconsin.

The R&B and hip-hop performer Cupid, best known for his dance club hits, "Cupid Shuffle" and "CU-Step," was the headlining act for the first birthday bash. Wisconsin-based acts Motion, Dr. Diction and L. U. V. also performed at the event, and XtremeFoamParties.com's own DJ Fusion and Foamalicious owner/DJ Chris Smooth kept the music going all night long (XtremeFoamParties.com is a division of Foamalicious Inc.). The company sent Interscope Records' national recording artist Nox to the party as a surprise for all of those gathered to celebrate the foam party company's first birthday.

Kelley used his lighting design skills to create an upbeat and energetic mood to go along with the music the DJ's were spinning, Nox's performance and Cupid's beat-driven dance tunes. He used Global Truss trussing to construct a concert-sized lighting rig to support the fixtures he used in creating dramatic, sound-activated effects such as strobing, color changes and sweeps. These fixtures included: six Elation Platinum Spot 5Rs , two Elation Design LED Tri Bricks, two Elation E-Spot LEDs, one ADJ TriPhase, one ADJ UV16, two ADJ Mega Pixels, carious lengths of three-pin and five-pin Accu-Cable, and Elation's Compu Show PC software.

The response and feedback Keeley received from attendees at the party indicated that the event was a huge success. "There were a lot of people that told me that the lighting really added to the feel and look of the show," he said "Matt and the owners of the club are in the process of planning shows in the near future (and) I will proudly be a part of the XtremeFoamParties.com lighting crew again."