LOS ANGELES -- Beachcombers, a world-renowned Mexican nightclub, has seen its share of bright lights lately . . . in more ways than one! The popular San Felipe nightspot was "lit up" with new special effects from American DJ Supply as part of a recent renovation project. Then, shortly afterward, Beachcombers enjoyed the "spotlight" of publicity, when Rolling Stone visited the club, took photos and featured it in an article.
Its not surprising that Beachcombers was singled out by Rolling Stone as a spot where young, hip travelers go south of the border to have a good time. Although located in a small Mexican beach town, Beachcombers is known as an urbane, sophisticated club that can hold its own with establishments in world-class cities like New York and L.A. The club is actually one of the reasons why San Felipe has become an increasingly popular destination for partying college students, as well as for vacationers to Mexico in general.
So it was only natural that when Beachcombers' owner decided to build a 1200-capacity addition onto the club, he wanted to offer cutting-edge visual excitement by installing the latest techno-style special effects. To accomplish this goal, he chose a package of intelligent lighting and other effects from American DJ, along with lasers from Mobolazer, a Thousand Oaks, CA-based company.
"Beachcombers has a reputation for being a very out-of-the ordinary urbane-style beach club, like those in Miami or Los Angeles," said Jim Hardaway of Mobolazer. "That's why it's so popular and why a magazine like Rolling Stone would want to come down and do a story on it.
"So of course when they expanded, they wanted everything about the decor to be truly extraordinary, including the lighting effects. They also needed well-built, professional products that would perform reliably, be user-friendly and easy to operate, and would be versatile enough to set different moods and create different types of light shows. They found what they were looking for with American DJ and Mobolazer products."
Included in the large package of American DJ lighting units installed at Beachcombers are six Virtual Beams, four ADJ Maxx units, four Mighty Scans and a Patend Light 1200, as well as an assortment par cans, strobes and other effects. There are also a variety of laser effects from Mobolazer.
This diverse conglomeration of lighting units is operated by a single controller, American DJ's new Show Designer, a powerful unit capable of controlling a variety of DMX intelligent lighting fixtures from different manufacturers. The world's first controller with "on-line intelligence," the Show Designer can control up to 512 channels and hold up to 1024 scenes, and it comes pre-loaded with a large library of fixture settings for many major brands of lighting equipment.
"The Show Designer is the key to Beachcombers being able to coordinate all of its many different types of effects into a single integrated light show," said Scott Davies, general manager of American DJ Supply. "We developed the Show Designer to meet the growing demand from clubs for a controller that could be used not only with a wide variety of fixtures, but also with equipment from different manufacturers, so that they could create a light show that's all their own and unlike anything anywhere else.
