How do you build a club in Washington D.C. and expect it to live up to a name like Ibiza? The task is akin to calling your new car Indy 500, then slipping it into fifth on a suburban highway. It might not be a racetrack, but with the top down and radio blaring, it can still be a rush.

And the rush is just what the District’s new 30,000-square-foot mega-Ibiza hopes to evoke (although unlike the Spanish party island, this Ibiza is set to close at three a.m.). Creating the vibe of lavish partying was the main goal for co-owners Jon Han, Adam Needham, Allah Tung, Aldo Vuong and Eric Clay.

“The vision was to create a club that drew high-end clientele and A-list celebs, but also had the dance and the party atmosphere of a large-scale open dancefloor,” says Clay. “The name Ibiza embodies that.”

So, over-the-top they went. The club boasts a posh-as-any-mega-club rooftop, plus seven bars, scores of plasmas and a lounge that converts into a restaurant, complete with its own Starbucks. Yes, Starbucks. And, yes, lattes flow during club hours.

With no specific theme other than extravagance, hints at the island namesake include a fish tank at the concierge desk, a bar with water cascading under it, a pond, and wall of moss on the rooftop. The visual candy continues through internationally imported furnishings, hi-def video feeds from club to web, and multi-layered digital, LED, and fiberoptic lighting schemes.

Of course, if you really want to emulate the clubbers’ mecca, the party has to have unquestionably intense beats behind it. And while they’re also quite visually impressive, the colossal line arrays flanking the DJ booth are the cornerstone of the $1 million Martin Audio sound system, a splurge intended to draw big names to the booth.

“The goal was to bring in a huge club that great DJs would feel comfortable playing in,” says marketing director Marquis Perkins. “The best DJs always end up on the best sound systems.”

So far, the plan is working. Lured by its larger capacity and pumping new system, Panorama Productions just moved its long-running progressive party Glow from neighboring club Fur to Ibiza, starting July 14. It brings with it a covetable built-in Saturday night crowd and booking “in” with major DJs.

Circle In The Square
What began as a notion to light the space with basic club fixtures became a more technologically savvy, three-dimensional décor-in-motion when installer Scott Chmielewski of local company Digital Media Designs (digitalmediadesigns.net) came onboard. “I proposed an immersive multimedia experience, rather than just lights that hanging overhead,” Chmielewski says. “It becomes interactive as opposed to just standard gobos and colors.”

Since the 2,000-capacity main room is a basically a massive box (the space was formerly a warehouse), Chmielewski went with a circular lighting scheme using trusses in S-curves and arches, bearing Martin Professional MAC 250 Kryptons, and High End Systems Studio Command 700 halogen fixtures and DL.2 “digital lights.” By breaking up the linear elements of the room, he aimed to make the lights stand out rather than blend in.

Average clubgoers, however, are more apt to notice the LEDs – Color Kinetics iFlex SLX strings – that rim the mezzanine and fill the huge front surface of the main DJ booth. Controlled by the LJ, the lighting strip is typically pulsing and traveling to the beat of the music; the display on the front of the booth becomes a show unto itself.

“We’ve integrated video into surfaces of the clubs through LED and fiber- optics,” Chmielewski adds, “using it as decoration and a technological design element.” Behind the stage is a white wall projection surface, but for additional video outlets the club also brought in local A/V company Touch Media Systems (touchmediasys.com) for plasma installations.

“The TVs are going to be part of the infrastructure of the club,” says Touch’s Dale Dykes. “They will be built into the VIP booth, not just hang on the wall. The TV will become a part of the experience”

The plasmas will be used for digital signage, and also to display feeds from the video cameras around the club. “If in that big room people are dancing, you can show that to the people outside or downstairs,” Dykes adds. So, the dual screens at the entrance, which appear to be mirrors during daytime, can lure and tantalize patrons to come inside.

Clubland paradise.

Coffee Beats
To attract big acts to the alter-like booth, and the considerable stage, the system needed to sound as big and loud as it looked. “With a name like Ibiza and the reputation that island has for club-going, we needed to bring in the best possible system,” says McClure.

As the club’s walls were being built, McClure searched for a system that would produce the “really loud and really hi-fi” type of sound the owners wanted in the warehouse space, and perform equally well for DJs and live bands, plus smaller corporate events.

Though he was familiar with Martin Audio, this was McClure’s first time hearing the products in a nightclub environment. “I knew it sounded great, but not sure what it would do in a nightclub,” he says. When he tested it for the owners, the decision was nearly instant. “There is some great stuff out there,” McClure adds, “but for the money and the sound quality, Martin is by far the best.”

For the main dancefloor – a 100 x 70-foot space that sprawls before the lofted DJ booth, with stage at right, bleacher-like seating at left, two 30-foot bars and a narrow mezzanine of VIP booths wrapping three-quarters around – McClure opted for a dozen of the company’s W8LC enclosures. They hang in line arrays on either side of the booth, with an impressive line of six WS218X high-power subwoofers beneath it.

McClure’s system is powerful enough for a small arena, with speakers meant to throw close to 1,000 feet, and is supported at the back of the room with fill from Blackline H3 speakers and H3H horn-loaded sub-bass enclosures.

A second system in the Reggaeton/Hip-Hop Room (which becomes a house room when the main room isn’t) features H3 speakers and WS218X subs, with more subs plus F12 speakers for fill in the room’s balcony area. The F12s, WS218Xs and S18s are also used in the restaurant/lounge, giving the Starbucks an arguably better sound system than any of the chain’s other locations. Amps from Lab.gruppen power all of the systems, with digital signal processing by four of Dolby’s Lake LP4D12 processors, centrally controlled with a wireless tablet computer.

The Trendification Project
With the local media abuzz as the Ibiza project progressed from warehouse, to polishing the District’s largest dancefloor and the country’s only in-club Frappuccino den, naturally the heat was on.

And naturally, like nearly all grand openings, the club wasn’t quite ready in time. But with only a week’s delay, the sleek obsidian-looking building opened its glass doors just after Independence Day with celebrity DJ AM on the bill (perhaps the delay wasn’t such a mishap after all).

Add titillating B-list socialite hosts (like Kim Kardashian) and paparazzo flashes, step, and repeat. The masses scrambling through the doors would never notice that the Starbucks wouldn’t actually open until the following week.

Instead, droves of clubbers traversed the dim block befuddled and anxious. One was overheard saying, “I can’t believe they opened a club right next to another one!” (meaning down-the-block neighbor Fur). Clearly, the District isn’t home to a Collins Avenue or West 27th Street or The Strip. While its scene is strong, the nation’s capital hasn’t exactly made it to clubland’s A-list. But that is exactly what the Ibiza owners were hoping to change. And as AM scratched his entrance, Cirque du Soleil-inspired performers swung overhead, and glass stairways became impassable, the neighborhood temporarily took on a hipper identity: NoMa (for North of Massachusetts Avenue).

The plan to fill the 3,000-capacity club consistently – or at least operate it successfully – is a multi-faceted one. The lavish celebrity-driven parties will continue on Fridays, with people like model-slash-DJ Sky Nellor and Mark’s sister, Samantha Ronson, already booked. Thursdays will address the city’s large co-ed population with a college night. Saturdays belong to Glow. And the other nights will be open to corporate and private events, as well as live concerts, for which Ibiza also is equipped.

“The main complaint of clubs is either bartenders or security are rude, or the music sucks,” notes Perkins. “We want Ibiza to be a place where people know it’ll be a great DJ. We don’t have bouncers like a bar, we want them to be dressed nicely, know the regulars, and make everybody feel comfortable partying when they get here.”

www.ibizadc.com

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