Minneapolis-based Allied Productions & Sales turned to its inventory of Ayrton GHIBLI LED spot luminaires to light the pre-Super Bowl LIV “Super Saturday Tailgate” event held in downtown Miami by private jet service Wheels Up. ACT Lighting is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
Allied is a full-service production company, installation company and rentals house. It was an early adopter of Ayrton GHIBLIs adding the fixtures to its production and rental inventories. “We wanted to replace ageing lights with LED fixtures, looked at the options and GHIBLI met all the requirements,” said Production Manager Ethan Johnson, who works in Allied’s Nashville office. “The fixtures work well in corporate ballrooms and convention centres and in entertainment settings, too. The GHIBLIs never disappoint.”
Wheels Up’s “Super Saturday Tailgate” event before the big game was a family-friendly afternoon for members and guests. “When we worked on the event two years ago at the Super Bowl in Minneapolis it attracted around 1,400 people,” Johnson recalled. “This year the crowd was pushing 3,000. Four different entertainment groups performed, and Wheels Up vendors and supporters created fun booths to visit,” with topics from cocktail mixology and restaurant samplings to celebrity workouts. Sportscasters and Wheels Up athlete members gathered on stage during the Chalk Talk panel to analyse the Super Bowl and predict the result.
Allied supplied lighting and production design for the event and partnered with Beachview for the Miami warehouse’s decor and Epting for catering.
Allied mounted 12 GHIBLIs on 16-foot truss lines for room lighting and on the downstage truss to illuminate the band. The fixtures painted the space with “Miami Vice colours of teal, turquoise and pink,” Johnson noted. “Custom palm tree glass gobos added to the tropical feel. The GHIBLIs are so versatile that they adapt to very different applications.”
He used grandMA3 light and grandMA2 light consoles to control the event’s lighting. “We’re an all-grandMA house,” Johnson said. “They are our console of choice for all of our major shows.” ACT Lighting is also the exclusive North American distributor of MA Lighting products.
Wheels Up has called on Allied to support their multiple events during Masters Golf Tournament the last two years and will do so again this April. “For that event, we run a spine truss in a large outdoor tent and create colours and textures more suitable for a nightclub-style party,” Johnson reported.
He gives kudos to the GHIBLIs’ reliability and performance noting that: “I’ve never opened one on-site in the three years we’ve had the fixtures, which makes me very happy!”
He added that events in tents and warehouses may not offer a lot of power, “so it’s huge that GHIBLI can run at a lower rate of power. Some other brands of lights we just can’t put in the mix due to their power consumption.”