Hornitos Tequila Ball LED Lighting Design
The twelve-foot diameter “Tequila Ball” was commissioned by Hornitos Tequila as the centerpiece of several “viral” videos to advertise the liquor. The storyline was that a small group of desperados hijacked the New York Times Square Ball, and spirited it away to an underground rave. DJ Aoki and several other local DJs were featured.
The ball was also used in the production of two subsequent commercials for Hornitos.
The structure was designed and built in Burbank, California, and transported to the Bowery Ballroom in Manhattan. The steel-and-aluminum skeleton was built in six sections. The surface was composed of nesting pentagons and hexagons – like a soccer ball – divided into small equilateral triangles.
As the budget did not allow for full color RGB LED strips like the Times Square Ball, each triangle was lit instead with four feet of InPhase white LED tape. Standard theatrical gels were used to create the different colors underneath the custom-cast lenses.
To control the ball, 8 of our DMX lighting controllers were used to control each of the triangles.Custom software was written that allowed pre-programmed looks and animations to be built, as well as letting an operator control the ball in realtime to follow the DJs’ performance. Later, and interface was added to allow a ‘Guitar Hero’ controller to be used to manipulate the light show.
Designer: Damien Byrne
www.damienbyrne.com
Builder: Vision Scenery, Inc.
www.visionscenery.com