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INSTALLATIONS
P R O J E C T I O N L I G H T S & S TA G I N G N E W S
Belly Up In Aspen:
An Evolution of a Club Redesign
Year Long Process Had Vision, Even if Lacking Time
By Kevin M.Mitchell
Patrons of the Belly Up Aspen club were
saved from one of those over-hyped,
usually annoying “re-launches” as the
creatives behind the live music venue decided
to take the scenic route to their redesign.
“We spent a year redoing the club,” says club
LD Adam Skapple, adding that he always
had a vision for the club, but the day-to-day
demands on his time made it only possible
to do it piecemeal. “I’m the only LD here, and
the amount of shows we do is incredible —
in the past five months, the club has been
closed less than seven days!” he laughs.
It’s an industry case study suggesting
that, in the high-pressure, high-stakes world
of nightclub redesigns, perhaps “slow and
steady wins the race.” The club was opened
by Michael Goldberg in January 2005, and
is an all-ages club that holds a modest 450
people. It is mix-used, with DJs doing the entertaining
when live bands are playing. But
there are a lot of great bands that play Belly
Up, bands that certainly sell out larger clubs.
Flaming Lips, Citizen Cope, Shpongle, Rufus
Wainwright and Jane’s Addiction are just of
a few of the acts that have come through
lately.
“I’ve updated pretty much every aspect
of our venue,” states Skapple, noting that his
first change was to replace the club’s bigger,
older fixtures with “a small fixture that
had CMY and zoom. I went with Elation Spot
300 Pros.” Then he added a 30-foot wide LED
screen lining the back of the stage. This is
run through an ArKaos GrandVJ with a Livid
Ohm64 controller and touch screen.
“We have 12 Altman Spectra PARs for
wash lights, and a ChamSys MagicQ 200.”
The setup also includes 21.5W RGB lasers
from Laser Production Network controlled
with Pangolin QuickShow via another touchscreen.
28 PLSN june 2011
From Austin to Aspen
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Skapple was hired in October of 2009,
but hails from another hip town at the
beginning of the alphabet: Austin. He
had been doing lights for small clubs and
bands when he got hired by the Jacob Fred
Jazz Odyssey quartet to light them. “After
some more research, they didn’t a have a
budget for a full lighting system, so they
asked me if I knew video projection, and
I said, ‘Sure!’” he laughs, confessing that
while he had little experience in video at
that point, it immediately became an educational
priority. “I learned on the job and
continued doing shows for them as well as
some summer festivals.
With an evident affinity for bands with
four-worded names, he next went to work
for Sound Tribe Sector Nine. There they
were looking for a tech to work with their
LED screens, and once again he learned on
the job.
The opportunity to be LD at the Belly
Up was intriguing enough for him to accept
and move his wife to the snowy
mountains of Aspen. “They were doing
over 300 shows a year, and the lighting
rig needed some work,” he says. “They had
some Mac 550s that I cleaned up and refocused,
things like that, but about four
months into the job Michael [Goldberg]
was like, ‘what do you want to do?’”
Lighting, Video, Lasers
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Skapple had some ideas. First, he opted
to jettison the old projectors, which he
never felt looked that good, and to bring
in some LED screens. Working with Bryan
Knutson, who owns Brown Note Productions
out of Louisville, CO, he brought in
a 34-foot-wide screen that literally wraps
around the back stage and also the DJ
From left, LD Adam Skapple, owner Michael Goldberg and production manager Jai Vatuk.
booth, in a cohesive manner, and gives a
3D look to that section of the room. Skapple
credits Knutson for his work in helping
to set it up and dial it in.
The next big decision was to bring in
new spots. Skapple narrowed it down to
Elation and Clay Paky, but went with the
former. “We wanted something not too
overpowering for a 450-person room, but
had color mixing, zoom, and iris features.
A lot of smaller lights don’t have those features,
and we got a great deal on them.”
Using an upcoming New Year’s Eve
event as a motivator, he looked to incorporate
a better media server and went with
the ChamSys MagicQ 200 Execute. “It’s
really intuitive and interfaces beautifully
with our ArKaos media server.” Then, with
the end-of-year party quickly approaching,
he moved to get lasers. While others
said “not enough time,” LaserNet out of Miami
came in and set him up with a touchscreen
to activate laser displays. “While
it was Dec. 12 when we contacted them,
they came in and did a great job. They set
up mirrors, helped map out the layout — it
was a great experience.”
Also in the mix are eight Martin MAC
101 LED moving head wash fixtures. “They
are amazing lights. I’m floored with them
— the colors are beautiful and, once again,
since I’m the main guy setting them up, instead
of moving around 55-pound profiles
every day, I’m moving these 10-pound fixtures
around, and that’s way better.” Also,
since the Belly Up stage is a modest 25 by
30 feet, he can squeeze them into tight
spaces and light the band better.