Whitty Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 hey everyone, here's the deal (at length) with what I'm wanting to do.. THE BACKGROUND:I run a weekly club night in a small bar area measuring about 5m x 15m with an outside beer garden.the main focus of the night is to be different from the rest of the cool/chic club nights with their "I'm so much cooler than you'll ever be" house DJ's and to provide an awesome club experience for people who usually hate clubs (ie. me)I DJ with my mate, dropping the best party hits we can think of (anywhere between daft punk, britney spears, rage against the machine, justin timberlake, bon jovi etc) while trying to interact with the audience by dancing around, jumping up tables and our 1 sub while yelling into a toy megaphone every now and then and the crowd love it!hopefully this gives you an idea of the sort of night we put on. THE CURRENT SETUP:Currently, the room is decked out thus far:Strings of christmas tree lights (white and coloured) across the roof, top and bottom of the bar, the beer garden, plus a few random pot plants.A small swann b/w security camera mounted just behind the DJ mixer and running to a cheap projector aimed at the roof, displaying a large shot of our head on the ceiling as we play.A funny hat with a wireless camera mounted on the front, worn by the bar tender and displayed on a small tv situated on the bar for a "being john malkovich" kind of effect1 large + 2 small mirror balls with coloured pinspots mounted on the ceiling and corners over the baroccasionally a nintendo 64 hooked up to a projector in the beer garden for 4 player mario kart (when its not raining)2 Bubble machines located on top of the entry girl's booth out the front for attracting attention6 mini strobe lightssome whack ass little lazer unit called "the lazer crab" + I've just acquired 2 large red and blue "police" lights and a cheap fog machine which I haven't put up yet FINALLY... THE QUESTION!:does anyone have any more potential ideas about how I can crank this night up another notch visually/entertainment wise?essentially I want it to be like a Flaming Lips gig (look up Flaming Lips Live on youtube) and blow every other club out of the waterthe only problem is that I'm on a shoestring budget here. I've sourced all of my christmas/strobe lights and stuff from my work (I work at Tandy's, a crappy, consumer level electronics chain that occasionally have cool kids party effects) so, has anyone made/seen any really cool effects that can be bought and set up really cheaply? stuff which has had an awesome impact on fun-ifying the night?I've had a browse through the forum and am currently trying to devise a way of turning a leaf blower into a confetti launcher.but if you have combined two small items to make them look even more awesome or have just had an idea about what you've always wanted to see when you go out drinking on a friday night, let me know! (I'm in australia, so if you're already doing some of this stuff over in the uk then chances are people aren't going say that they've seen it before!) also, I happen to be in a band and am wanting to put on a pretty spectacular live show (flat out ripping off the Flaming Lips show again) so if you have any ideas on what I could do on stage too, that'd be appreciated. (at the moment I'm just going to take the current club set up and take it on the road when we play... maybe have the hose of my confetti launcher sticking out the fly of my pants for hilarious "spoog" effect a-la rammstein) thanks for taking the time to read my thesis :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Modge Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Some decent "on-a-shoestring" idea's there.One thing I could add is get some UV reactive paint, some UV tubes and go to town with the décor. In fact go to town décor anyway - drapes and the like are the way forward, the UV just adds an extra dimension. Papier mache "things" have been know to work as well - a guy I've worked with in the past has a big paper mache head he puts a smoke machine in, with a gaping mouth for the smoke. This is painted suitably for what he does (i.e. it's orange and purple in this case) and looks ... appropriate (to hard dance events). Whilst a striate rip of that wouldn't work for you possibly you could take the idea and run with it.... dragon made be? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charlyfarly Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Yes, colourful drapes painted with day-glo designs can transform a place but remember to "Flamebar" them first! :P Keep an eye out on eBay for any second hand Optikinetic Solar 250 projectors....still very effective and going strong after 30 years! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter F Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Yes, colourful drapes painted with day-glo designs can transform a place but remember to "Flamebar" them first! :P Keep an eye out on eBay for any second hand Optikinetic Solar 250 projectors....still very effective and going strong after 30 years! Beat me to it!Solar 250's.UV Lights and paint.Camouflage netting (the light coloured desert variety) Peter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekij Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I am currently trying to devise a way of turning a leaf blower into a confetti launcher.If you launch confetti into my drink I'm not going to be pleased. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wuddy Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 I am currently trying to devise a way of turning a leaf blower into a confetti launcher.If you launch confetti into my drink I'm not going to be pleased. Australia to N. Ireland, now THAT! would be SOME! confetti launcher. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WiLL Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Yes, colourful drapes painted with day-glo designs can transform a place but remember to "Flamebar" them first! :P Keep an eye out on eBay for any second hand Optikinetic Solar 250 projectors....still very effective and going strong after 30 years! Being as the venue has a public license and is not a performance venue per say, do the soft furnisihings need to be flamebar'd? I'd be very surprised if pub curtains were. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 My local B&Q still had various bits of LED ropelight (Christmas stuff) going cheap at the weekend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbm Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 Yes, colourful drapes painted with day-glo designs can transform a place but remember to "Flamebar" them first! :P Keep an eye out on eBay for any second hand Optikinetic Solar 250 projectors....still very effective and going strong after 30 years! Being as the venue has a public license and is not a performance venue per say, do the soft furnisihings need to be flamebar'd? I'd be very surprised if pub curtains were. Call me crazy but maybe they need to be Flambar'ed to, er, prevent them catching fire..? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitty Posted January 7, 2008 Author Share Posted January 7, 2008 thanks for the speedy response. keep the ideas comin in if you've got em. flamebar'ed? no idea what that means. sorry I'm real newb at this whole thing, I'm just a chump who likes funky ass effects.yeah, the place is usually a live venue (with bands playing in the upstairs bar while I'm downstairs) though I think its technically licenced as an art gallery to get around certain liquor laws. heh heh.drapes are a good idea and so is uv paint and lights though might make it too much like a rave party if overly done.we've got one of those rotating liquid projector units upstairs for the bands. they do look well awesome. though I didn't know they were that old and that cheap. I'll look into it.can LED rope look a bit naff if done incorrectly?I like the idea about the drapes. another night that uses the space painted the whole room white and its a little too bright ya know? does anyone have any advice/opinons about lighting and effects vs over-brightening the room vs too dark?I feel the room is a little bright at the moment with all that white paint and could border on being too light, so people feel a little too self conscious to dance. on the other hand I dont want it to be too dank and give off that rape-pit sort of vibe.. I've kind of noticed that coloured lights add a lot of colour (duh!) to the room which is good without seeming to add to the brightness, which is also good. is this true? and can I use anything to my advantage? smoke spitting dragon head eh? that'd be spun out! :P oh, and we've got our tenth night coming up shortly and want to make an stupid and obscure reference to the movie Jason X: Jason in Space. any ideas how we can give it space vibe? I'm toying with the idea of aquiring a bunch of those silver air conditioning duct things. they look pretty futuristic. :) P.S. has anyone seen groove armada live and totally tripped balls when those massive lazers kicked in? I'm gonna go ahead and assume that there's no way of replicating that, short of hijacking an AV truck... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ekij Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 flamebar'ed? no idea what that means. sorryFlame...bar"Flame" as in burning"Bar" as in trying to stop it Adding a chemical to the material to make it much less flamable.Alas there is no such thing as flame-proof. I am currently trying to devise a way of turning a leaf blower into a confetti launcher.If you launch confetti into my drink I'm not going to be pleased.Australia to N. Ireland, now THAT! would be SOME! confetti launcher. :PIf you were able to hit my drink in N.I. from Australia I'd be very annoyed as you would have created a global polution catastrophy of epic proportions.What I was trying to imply was "If I was at a club and the staff shot confetti into the club such that it ended up in my drink I'd be anoyed". Firstly because you ruied my drink but also becase you'd have got in in my hair and down my neck. I'd be pulling the stuff out of my belly-button for a week (despite changing all my clothes and having a shower, where does the stuff hide). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leecey Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 If you know somewhere you can hire it from...Arcline! http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=11360 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B4bKQaJguQ...feature=related If you have the standard goalposts with decks underneath DJ arrangemen, having "lightning" going up the posts and over the top would look pretty cool! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vbm Posted January 7, 2008 Share Posted January 7, 2008 If you know somewhere you can hire it from...Arcline! http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=11360 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B4bKQaJguQ...feature=related If you have the standard goalposts with decks underneath DJ arrangemen, having "lightning" going up the posts and over the top would look pretty cool! The lovely chaps at Coloursound Experiment have Arcline, you can find 'em on the interweb. Its a cool idea but its not really on the cheap... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel.anderson Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 Where abouts in Australia are you located? I could probably give you a hand. PM or e-mail me. I have just done a few gigs where it was just theming (god I hate theming!) Give us a yell. Cheers, Ando. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jamtastic3 Posted January 8, 2008 Share Posted January 8, 2008 What a festoon of egg strobes? That's a cheap alternative to Arcline. If you've had enough of the random flashing then stick a switch on the end of the line to turn it off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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