Axel Fahrenhorst integrates discreet track mount moving lights into Hamburg’s latest gastro and party hotspot

Since late last year there has been a new player in the Hanseatic city of Hamburg. Set in Hamburg's Ottensen district, chef and author Jonas Straube appears to have effortlessly combined seeming opposites. Der Player (‘The Player’) is a restaurant, bar, games lounge and nightclub all rolled into one. The innovative fusion concept posed a challenge for lighting and video planner Axel Fahrenhorst, from Hamburg-based creative consultancy lineareal GmbH. This is because when one seamlessly merges into the other, the lighting requirements change in next to no time.

In order to be able to offer the necessary flexibility, Fahrenhorst decided to install 14 of the ultra-compact GLP impression FR1 TM (track mount).

“I was actually brought on board for the video elements and during the course of the discussions I brought the topic of coloured lighting to the table for the first time, which immediately appealed to the customer,” he recalls. “Der Player is pursuing a really innovative concept and was open to considering event technology and classic architectural lighting – not separately, but rather in an integrated way. This is because there are great advantages here that customers and even many lighting designers are not yet aware of.”

On the ground floor, Der Player contains a restaurant with an open kitchen that offers fine Asian fusion cuisine, as well as a bar, while the upper floor houses another bar. In the late evening, the restaurant is initially transformed into a bar, and at an even later hour it becomes a club. The concept called for a lighting system that could accommodate both restaurant and bar operations as well as the completely different needs of a nightclub.

“As a creative concept provider for spatial solutions, we work primarily in places where you would typically not expect event technology: restaurants, agencies, offices and other types of spaces that normally only need decorative lighting,” explains Fahrenhorst. “We are now specialists in combining event lighting with architectural lighting, often implementing integrated control for these combined systems.”

Combining dimmer or DALI-controlled lighting with DMX-controlled moving production lighting has long been part of his day-to-day business. However, moving light installations are still the exception because “there are very few devices that are even suitable in terms of size, energy consumption and installation options.”

Classic DALI-controlled architectural lighting was primarily installed in Der Player by lineareal, as well as LED products. The impression FR1 TM fixtures have been installed on 3-phase power rails, through which they are supplied with fixed current. Various LED bars, LED video elements and a large mirror ball complete the equipment.

As soon as Der Player switches to nightly party mode, the downstairs bar, with DJ position, takes centre stage. Consequently, a large part of the impression FR1 TM inventory was deployed around this area of activity, while other devices perform their function on a small stage on the upper floor.

impression FR1 TM: discreet moving light for track installation

The impression FR1 TM is an extremely compact moving light. Equipped with a high-performance, homogenised 60W RGBW LED, the FR1 TM enables not only variable white light (2,500–10,000 K) but also saturated colours and delicate pastel tones. The spotlight works homogeneously over the entire zoom range (3.5 to 35 degrees) and generates clean, crisp white or coloured beams that move either very gently or rapidly, with endless rotation in both directions.

It was these features that made the track light first choice for Axel Fahrenhorst at Der Player. “The FR1 TM is small and unobtrusive enough not to be a nuisance during the day and to create coloured surfaces, accents or simply variable lighting moods in the restaurant as part of the ambient lighting. When it comes to dynamics, punch and colour late in the evening in the club, the fixture shows its second face. If you consider that moving-head spots are usually just a ‘nice-to-have’ product for customers in the architectural sector, the price–performance ratio naturally also plays a role. Here, too, GLP ticks all boxes right across the board with the FR1 TM,” says Fahrenhorst.

Because the entire lighting system, including the DMX-controlled lights, is designed in such a way that the customer can change the pre-programmed lighting modes independently during operation, Der Player does not require in-house lighting or video technicians.

Julian Münder, managing director of Der Player, is completely satisfied with the chosen solution: “In lineareal we have found an interdisciplinary, creative partner who has managed to design and implement tailor-made solutions for us at short notice, and adapt to our special framework conditions. As a result, we now have a modular system with which we can also try out new solutions.”

In conclusion, Axel Fahrenhorst says: “I would like to see more small, configurable products like this that fit well into the architectural sector. GLP has done pioneering work here by transferring the high reliability and light quality as well as the advanced mechanics from event technology into a form factor that is relevant to the installation market.

“The collaboration with GLP, and Oliver Schwendke in particular, also went extremely smoothly on this project.”