Dubai’s PLAY Restaurant & Lounge exudes extravagance, with dark modern interiors and breathtaking 36 floor panoramic views. This sleek eatery and lounge located in The H Hotel is bringing a whole new level of luxury to Dubai’s famous Sheikh Zayed Road. And per Nabil El Rayes, General Manager of local distributor and technology integrator Gal Tech LLC, much of that upscale experience can be directly attributed to the newly installed ELAN® Entertainment & Control System that invisibly automates and controls the entire venue’s lighting and audio.
“The client asked me to design and install a system controller for the club lighting, architectural lighting, background audio, and club audio,” Rayes explained. “ELAN® is the perfect automation system for this space because it provides easy control for the staff while also allowing them to build out unique automated event scenes that create a variety of ambient moods throughout the day and night.”
Rayes and his team installed an ELAN gSC10 Controller to control the LED lights, rotating club lights, and six zones of audio. The team configured all audio to distribute through an ELAN S1616A Multi-Room Audio Amplifier and play through dozens of Niles® CM7HD in-ceiling speakers. The result is crisp, clean sound throughout the entire space. Instant control of the lighting and audio is accessible through an ELAN TP7 touch panel and Apple iPad, which are available for staff and the resident DJ to use.
According to Rayes, lighting is one of the club’s most important design elements because it helps to create a specific ambiance for guests. Gal Tech integrated 165 individual lighting channels into the ELAN system, including LED and DMX Moving Head Club lights. At 9:00 PM, the lighting and music operates as the ‘dining’ setting with dim lights and pleasant background music. At 12:00 AM, the lighting and music changes to the ‘club’ setting, revving up in color and in volume.
The lighting integration was not without challenges for Rayes and his team. “The main challenge during the entire project was to integrate the DMX Moving Head lights into the ELAN system,” Rayes commented. “These lights are controlled using a ‘lighting desk’ and are not easily integrated for one-touch control or automation. Thus, we built our own unique ELAN driver that allows the DJ to synchronize club lights through the system. The ELAN® platform has the flexibility that allowed us to do this.”
For audio, Gal Tech built two sound systems – one for background dining music, the other for club music. “The ELAN system automatically makes the switch between the two systems at midnight, transferring from ‘background’ music to ‘club’ music,” Rayes explained. “None of the guests notice the change. There is no lapse in music. It’s entirely seamless.”
According to Rayes, the PLAY Restaurant and Lounge is already making waves in Dubai’s hospitality scene. “The space leaves a lasting impression on guests, and much of that has to do with the technology that is perfectly integrated throughout the space — all of it controlled by ELAN,” he concluded.
