Pala Phenomenon is a new multipurpose entertainment centre in the North of Italy. It has already become a meeting point for a large number of young and not so young people principally – but not only – from Piedmont and Lombardy. It hosts a space for live bands with a 150 sq.m stage and live music five evenings a week. It has a disco bar with pre-disco, after dinner and post-live-music events, a classy restaurant, and large halls where graduation parties, birthday festivities, wedding banquets, confirmation celebrations and any other ceremony can be held, with a wide choice of customized menus. There is also a swimming pool, open from May to September, which is covered with transparent panels during the winter to become a truly unique dance floor with “Blue Lagoon” effects!
Denis Biaggi was the scenic and lighting designer for the whole establishment. He told us that “one of the owner Marco Cerutti’s basic requirements was to create a stage that could be adapted to different types of show: concerts, conventions, theatre and dance. In view of the various different purposes the structure needs to serve, my first concern was to set up widespread convenient suspension points for any future shows, and an adequate number of power and signal distribution points for the entire stage.
The second part of the project involved designing the lighting so that it would be useful for the various possible applications a structure like this must have. The stage design came first. The idea was to find trusses that, besides providing simple and effective support for hanging spotlights, would also become a true decorative component of the stage.
“In consideration of the characteristics of the place, I chose to use three enormous circular QX30 truss structures, at a slope of about 30° to their axis in order to facilitate the positioning of the lights. At the back of the stage, there is another ring of trusses, four metres in diameter, which acts as a central scenic element.”
After that came the choice of lights.
“I opted for the new Clay Paky 300s as motorized lights, specifically the ALPHA SPOT HPE 300 and ALPHA WASH 300 versions. I chose them for their high performance in terms of effects and brightness, with a careful eye to the non-negligible factors of dimension and weight. When they told me the place was also to have a theatrical stamp,” continued Denis Biaggi, “I had no doubts about the choice of motorized lights. I had already used Clay Paky models for theatre and conventions and knew I could trust them.”
However Mr Biaggi had not yet seen the Alpha 300s at work, so he decided to visit the Clay Paky show room in Bergamo: “I was immediately impressed by the quality of the effects, their speed, and the really low noise levels!”
He told us about a few colleagues who work in musical productions that recently visited the entertainment centre and expressed their appreciation of the spotlights in particular. “No one believes they are 300 W lights!”
Denis Biaggi decided to use an MA lighting console to control the lights. In virtue of the versatility of the place, he then arranged 50 more separate power sockets on the ring and 12 DMX lines ready for any additions to the existing equipment (a Micro MA, which deals with controlling the whole system, using more than 700 DMX addresses split between the two controller lines).
Roberto Isotta’s ISOLUTION service Srl from Castelletto Ticino (NO) dealt with purchasing and setting up the lights.