Last week, I was in the City of Angels for yet another LA-area project installation for our company, and in the evening I headed toward LA LIVE to take in the atmosphere. It was opening night of the World Series, but you wouldn’t really know it as the Lakers and Clippers were squaring off in the STAPLES Center in one of the NBA’s first games of the 2019-20 season.
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First of all, if you haven’t been, I highly recommend a visit to the LA LIVE area if you’re in that neck of the woods. The venue is bursting with energy, entertainment, plenty of good food and, I must say, some quality video screens.
The highlight of the evening for me though was seeing a recent addition to LA’s skyline, the new accent lighting on both of Circa’s high-rise towers. SNA Displays manufactured three huge LED video displays at Circa as part of a MEGA-SPECTACULAR project in the booming area. The displays were mounted around the outside of the west tower, essentially wrapping around an entire block.
Recently, SNA Displays’ project management team wrapped up Phase II of the project, accent lighting on both towers.
The huge video displays are impressive enough, but the coordinated accent lighting really seals the deal. SNA Displays supplied LED sticks from its THRUMEDIA™ product line to accomplish this architectural lighting accent which can be scene from miles outside downtown LA. Typically, THRUMEDIA products are installed as transparent video displays a la Capital One Arena in D.C. or the Carpenters Center in Boston. But for each Circa tower, we assembled eight LED stick columns running vertically, some reaching the top of the buildings, about 400 feet from street level.
The result is a merger of full-color display technologies that is visually pretty amazing.
The accent lighting and video screens are controlled together in the content management system, allowing for synchronization of colors and themes. For example, since the STAPLES Center was hosting the Lakers-Clippers game, each tower was accented with one of the LA team’s colors… purple and yellow for the Lakers vs red and blue for the Clippers. Excellent for setting the mood outside the arena.
The strips were custom-designed to fit within the vertical channels of each building. Also, extremely narrow power supply packs were integrated in the channels, and the system’s logic boards and field controllers were installed on the roof levels, maintaining a sleek look throughout the building façades.
The next time you’re in LA, you should really stop by the Circa/STAPLES Center/LA LIVE area. As big as LA is, this particular part of town has really undergone a significant facelift in recent years, and there’s plenty more development around the corner. In fact, I’ll be back soon to take a look at a couple other mega projects we’ll be wrapping up soon.
Stay tuned.