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ecoglo® has added another dimension to Oklahoma's Mabee Center, an arena with a complex sub-arena partitioning system.
The Mabee Center is a 10,500 seat multi-purpose arena at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, that hosts basketball games, concerts, conferences and exhibitions.
The center has a "fly" system that enables the arena's curtains to "fly in" and block out sections of seating, creating a smaller arena customized to the size of the event. A curtain bag system enables the curtains to be out of the way when the facility is utilized to its full capacity.
This fly system means the arena can be modified to suit any audience size, and can be used for anything from sports events to major performances such as the popular Spirit of the Dance show. Its most popular configuration is the 2700-seat Johnson arena.
In late 2000, the Mabee Center was in the market for a path-finding solution that would cover its entire arena. The arms of seats within the Johnson configuration were electrically lit, however seats or steps outside of this configuration were not lit at all - causing safety concerns for the Mabee Center and its patrons.
Mabee Center building manager Tony Winters says the center's policy was to keep the house lights on at 20 per cent strength until patrons had made their way safely to their seats - even if the performance had already started.
However, lighting directors of arena performances demanded that the lights be completely out once the performance had begun.
Mr Winters needed an alternative solution to the costly and inconvenient option of electrical lighting. He discovered ecoglo® at an IAAM conference in Nashville during 2000, and by February 2002 the photo-luminescent step nosings had been installed throughout the lower section of the arena.
"We were thrilled to find a solution that not only alleviated our safety concerns, but kept the lighting directors happy. From their vantage point the arena is pitch black during the performance, but our patrons can easily see ecoglo® working its magic. We haven't had a single fall down our steps since it was installed," Mr Winters says.
The ecoglo® installation at the Mabee Center was more complicated than for standard arenas because of the center's cambered and fully carpeted steps, so Mabee Center staff adopted an innovative approach to ensure the step nosings would stick.
This meant cutting away part of the carpet on each step to install the ecoglo® step nosings - and after trialling this method to check its effectiveness, the full installation went ahead. The step nosings also needed to be slightly modified to cater for the camber.
"We hadn't planned on cutting the carpet, but this was a much more effective option than installing the step nosings on top. And now, we may have even lengthened the life of our carpet by doing this - the areas that were cut were quite worn, and would have needed to be replaced fairly soon," Mr Winters says.
The Mabee Center recently experienced the full extent of ecoglo's glowing capabilities.
When popular southern gospel singer Bill Gaither performed at Mabee, ecoglo® performed with equal gusto - glowing consistently for almost five hours before intermission.
"This sealed our faith in ecoglo® - it was the ultimate experiment for its longevity and it easily surpassed our expectations," Mr Winters says.
"ecoglo® looks great in the center. The arena has a warm feel to it due to the carpet and flowing drapery, and ecoglo® has added to that effect."
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