Dawn and I *loved* going to Disney’s Pleasure Island on the weekends. Part of the reason is that we loved dancing and music, and the other part was definitely because the Mannequin’s nightclub had one of the most elaborate lighting rigs on the planet.
After Hours
I spent many hours working with the technical crew at Mannequin’s on developing new lighting products, testing my software and proposing new lighting designs for the club. Dawn and I enjoyed hanging out in the lighting & sound booth during the evenings.
A Unique Perspective
One of the most unique things about Mannequin’s was its 40′ diameter rotating dance floor. I had this great idea to mount an array of 120 DMX controlled strobe lights to the underside of the rotating dance floor. The floor had long strips of clear Plexiglas that could let light shine through, so why not attach tons of controllable strobe lights under it. In order to accomplish this, we would have to attach massive slip rings to the center hub of the floor to carry power, and use wireless DMX to transmit the data. Here’s a picture I took while in the access hole under the floor:
I can safely say that not very many people went under that floor. After years of people partying and drinking, the underside was disgusting.
Ultimately, Disney didn’t go with my proposal. It was beyond their budget…