Enhancing Wasted Ceiling Real Estate

The question was answered authoritatively and forever in the middle of the 16th century, by none other than Michelangelo, when he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and produced one of the greatest works of art in history. The question was: Do you mess with a ceiling, or just leave it alone? From the looks of many club and bar ceilings, we have an industry notable for a lack of imagination in this regard. We get black ceilings. We get white ceilings. We getpaste-board and cork-board ceilings. We get blah.

Looking Up
The ceiling may be a big opportunity for flair in club design. “It’s real estate,” says Ken Ranucci, president of Creative Nightclubs LLC. “And it’s just sitting there. It’s forgotten space.” Ranucci’s company designs chandelier systems that turn ceilings of wasted space into dreamy skies that are dynamic. According to Ranucci, many club and bar owners work very diligently to make sure that they’ve created a terrific environment for their customers, but they forget to look overhead. “They think they’ve done something if they have some lights and a disco ball,” he says. “They bring sophistication to every other area of the club but this one. It’s a missed opportunity.” Ranucci argues that ceiling design can help with flow of traffic, steering patrons to certain areas and, of course, it can do much to enhance ambience. “Take the Hard Rock in Vegas,” he says. “They spent something like a million dollars on that chandelier. The big-time operations take every aspect of the business seriously.” The great news is, you don’t have to
have a big budget to do away with all the wasted space. For instance, Ranucci’s Illusionflex system, with its New Grand Ice Chandelier, is an affordable way to turn the massive bore above into a heavenly canopy. The Ice Chandeliers can be molded into different shapes, and they come in different sizes. Lighting options vary from florescent, fiber optic to LED. And they work with DMX controllers. “Our big 12-foot Ice Chandelier only weighs about 20 pounds, and you connect it with aircraft cables,” Ranucci explains. “Because it’s so light and secure, you don’t have to worry about questions of liability. Also, you’re talking about spending $5,000. This is not an expensive system.”  

Affecting Flow
One of the functions of such a system, aside from important aesthetic concerns, is that it can be used to get people where you want them to be, and it also creates special spaces within a club or bar — giving customers the feeling that the club or bar is varied and that there’s a lot going on to enjoy. “Take what we did at Kaffe Krystal in Miami,” Ranucci says. “We wanted to define the hot areas of the club. We used two square Ice Chandeliers to denote the VIP area. We used a big 12-foot Ice Chandelier to denote the main bar and a long rectangular one for the second bar. Every area had it’s own ceiling design that was distinctive.” It’s all about turning wasted space into something inviting and exciting. Your nightclub shouldn’t be the kind of place where people have to hang their heads.