Theme is the Thing
Creative Environments Helps Concepts Stay Fresh 

“What we’re finding is that the key element in designing a space is the theme,” says Ken Ranucci, president of Creative Environments, based in Boynton Beach, Fla. Ranucci says many operators he talks to do not have a theme in mind up front, and that’s a mistake.
    “Really what you’ve got to do is come up with a theme, whether that theme is ice, fire, Caribbean, Key West — the nightclub industry is following life, and life is becoming more and more animated.”
    “A good example is the club e4 (in Scottsdale, Ariz.), that we worked with Aron Mezo on,” Ranucci says. “He gets it. Just the name itself (means) ‘experience to the fourth level.’
“When we’re going to a club, it’s really a destination. It’s really a departure from our mundane, boring lives, and we’re going to a club to play out a fantasy. Going to the club to get smashed is the past.”

Alternate Universe
    “We are not your typical nightclub design firm,” Ranucci says. “We don’t like demolition; we like to re-face. If you’re going to go big money, you’re going to get a nightclub design firm. They’re going to want to come in, demo the whole place and reinvent. Everybody knows that in the nightclub business, you have to reinvent yourself. The window’s getting smaller and smaller. It used to be, you could probably keep a club 10-15 years without having to worry about it.”
    Now, he says, that window is closer to 2-3 years. Creative Environments brings to the table a viable alternative for more affordable environmental change.
    “A total retrofit could be in the millions of dollars,” he says. “If you have to keep spreading that out into your operating expenses and your profit, that’s taking out a big chunk. But if you don’t do it, you’re doomed to death. So, what we do, is we say ‘Don’t demo; re-face.’”
    Creative Environments began in 2000 with one product, Illusion Flex, and now also offers Liquid Floor. “Between those two products, there’s literally thousands of applications that we’ve created in six years,” Ranucci says.
    For walls, the company offers its Illusion Flex film that goes like wallpaper on any solid surface. Ranucci says the company’s products work on walls, ceilings, floors, bar tops, bar fronts, bar backs, tabletops — just about anything.
    “Liquid Floor is a really cool product. It’s two sheets of commercial, super-heavy-duty plastic that is welded on all four sides and injected with two different liquids — one a water base and one an oil base — and you can dye those liquids any PMS color you can think of. As you walk on it, literally the liquid moves around your feet. Those floor tiles can be lit from above or lit from beneath.”

Theme Makers
    “Today, everything is about experience marketing and creating a theme,” Ranucci says. “If you can create memorable experiences in a nightclub environment, then you’ve hit a home run.”
    “At the end of the day, when I’m done with a club owner, and he’s completely re-faced his entire image, club and branding, and done it for less than $100,000, that’s a lot more profit in his pocket than if he had to do a complete retrofit for $1.5 million.
    “We don’t take the place of lighting and certain other aspects, but it’s amazing that people just assume that’s what they have to do.”                                       NCB