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The super-cool Zyllion Club in Antwerp is built on an old sports complex and owned by Media Hall, headed by Frank
Verstraeten.
The musical policy is broad, with a dance base, but the idea is also to cater for all types of people, rhythmic inclinations and events including student nights, corporate parties, gala balls, live music, television presentations, fashion shows as well as themed evenings with named DJ’s. The club is particularly popular with students midweek, and Wednesday has now2 become students night. Considerable effort has been made to make Zyllion accessible to all. The entrance fee is about £5 and drinks average about £1, a stark contrast to the pumped up prices of most UK clubs!! The sound, lighting and visual presentation inside is stunning, with two moving dance floors and huge moving lighting pods in the main area. There is also a chill out room, the Ziproom, where the antics of the large dance floor can be observed quietly through glass walls. To keep the movement flowing and reduce congestion at the bars, visitors receive a plastic ‘credit card’ on entry which is swiped throughout the evening, and the one bill paid on exit. Zyllion’s lighting rig is spectacular in the extreme, with a plethora of moving lights, heavily Martin orientated and including 10 x PAL 1200s, 5 x PAL 200 effects, 12 x MAC 1200s, 14 x Roboscan 1220s, 46 x Roboscan Pro 518s, 152 x Roboscan 812’s and 6 x Martin Image Scans. In addition to those, there are 19 x Martin Pro 400 colour changers, 6 x Pro 400 x fibre Optics, 64 x Robocolor II heads, 16 x Robocolor II PSUs 5 x Martin Robozap MSR effects and 40 Martin ‘Punishers’. This enormous intelligent lighting contingent plus a substantial list of conventional fixtures including strobes is controlled from two Avolites consoles - a Diamond II and a Pearl 2000, both of which are operated by the flamboyant Sacha. The moving dance floors are also controlled through the Diamond II, which takes care of the majority of the fixtures, using 3,500 of its 3,720 channels! The Pearl is used for controlling a 14 x 7 unit matrix of Martin 812’s which are used for creating scrolling text effects, ‘writing’ names, etc. The desks were supplied to Zyllion by EVDV Trade, Avolites Belgian distributors, who are also Martin dealers. The Diamond II was chosen by the club owner because it was felt to be the only desk with enough power and ‘direct access’ to control this complexity of fixtures in a totally flexible manner. He uses a graphic Tablet with the Diamond, primarily for live tracking, which can be a lot of fun in a club that size! The Graphic tablet also comes into its own for colour mixing and fast building of preset focuses . Until Zyllions opened, Sacha hadn’t used an Avolites board, but he picked up the basic techniques very quickly after training at EVDV. He is now a keen Avolites advocate “I like being able to have direct access to all the fixtures - the facilities are right there – no sub menus or fumbling around!” he declares “It allows me to pick up any light and change things live. The preset focus and colour changing mechanisms are very simple and user-friendly”. He adds “The Diamond II is the best desk around at the moment and I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone” Sacha works at the club every night it is open (currently 5 nights a week). He undertakes a major re-programming session every month for complete variation, and tweaks from night to night, often on a spontaneous whim as the vibes are taking him and the club! |