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J&C Joel Embraces the Night
J&C Joel supplied several specialist drapes and dressing to Sheffield’s largest and one of its most popular nightclubs when it was taken over, gutted, re-vamped and re-launched as Embrace by Brook Leisure earlier in the year.
J&C Joel has worked on many previous projects for Brook Leisure and they returned to the drapes and materials specialists again to add an extra touch of tactile magic in the club, to match the stunning interior design created by their in-house team led by Glyn Dyer.
The major centrepiece over the dancefloor in the club’s main “Decuba” space is a massive 4000-strand fibre optic chandelier (supplied by Fibre Optic Systems) which is dressed at the top with 72 panels of Bedouin-style white polyester trevira canopy, internally lit with eight LED PAR can fixtures. The brief was to supply a cool-looking white fabric that would take the light really nicely. The completed chandelier creates a massive ‘wow’ factor with immediate impact for anyone entering the club.
The challenge for J&C Joel’s installation team was in accessing the high ceiling for rigging the canopy. By the time they came to do this, a comprehensive trussing structure containing the dancefloor lighting rig below was already in place, resulting in some long sessions working at height in harness up the truss! However, all of this was no trouble for J&C Joel’s experienced rigging and installation team.
The trevira panels are attached at the top to the lower rail of a truss rigged right in the ceiling void. At the base, they are fixed to a series of wooden battens covering the crown of the fibre optic truss, which also features a small silver ‘liquid lame’ border to match the curtain rigged on Decuba’s back wall, fitted to a steel pipe framework.
The bar on Decuba’s balcony level is styled and lit in a classic 1960’s ‘Happy Days’ fashion. Behind this, J&C Joel supplied and rigged several drops of sumptuous Venetian Scroll silver embroidered black fabric, specially sourced from by J&C Joel’s Stuart Fraser.
“We worked very closely with the client on these ideas,” explains Fraser. “They were very precise about what they wanted and the amount of detail they went into is impressive. All the draping was developed with architectural and feature lighting in mind, which is a very exciting approach as it completely changes the texture and look of the fabric. We helped advise as to the best fabrics to produce those exact effects throughout the different areas.”
The NY Loft, one of the club’s smaller rooms, features several sets of interesting dark chocolate brown voile fabric curtains, enhancing the intimate and exclusive feel to this bar and tabled area.
In another area, Mink – for lovers of current dance, electro and retro classics – J&C Joel supplied a set of white voile curtains for each side of a large window. This material was specially sourced, along with some white banners which are hung above the dancefloor and used for projected lighting effects.
Draping is also used to finish off Embrace’s entranceway and stairwell – with lush velour cabaret curtains swagged, retro theatre-tab style, in the stairwell recesses. The velour contains tiny flecks of silver that glint in the light, and projected images are beamed into the middle of the two recesses creating plenty of eye candy for revellers coming in to the venue.
The timescale was also very tight by the time it came for all the drapes to be fitted - just five days – which also entailed the Joel’s crew working around the clock - and around all the other contractors on site - in the usual frenetic pre-opening period.
2nd January 2008
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