Crestron Lights Iconic Flagstaff Hotel Background
For more than 100 years, the Weatherford Hotel has been the most prominent hotel in Flagstaff, AZ, enduring many changes and historical milestones. At a time when the downtown area was in a state of disrepair and decline, Henry Taylor purchased the hotel in 1975 in an attempt to keep it from demolition. Since then, Taylor and his partner, Sam Green, have been continually renovating the structure, with the goal of restoring the hotel to its original grandeur. The Weatherford Hotel is famous for dropping a six-foot-tall, 70-pound pine cone in celebration of the New Year each year. What began as a 100-year birthday party for the historic hotel ten years ago has become a much anticipated holiday tradition drawing thousands of revelers to downtown Flagstaff. The Challenge The Weatherford owners and system integrator, AVDomotics aimed to bring a modern element to the historic downtown hotel. Upgrading the audio distribution system and integrating it with the lighting system on a single platform provided a foundation for implementing property-wide system integration, including the Pine Cone and exterior LED lighting, video distribution and indoor LED lighting in the hotel's Exchange Pub. The Pine Cone Drop has evolved from its origin as a trash can wrapped in holiday lights to the current customcrestron. com Weatherford Hotel Flagstaff, Arizona Hotel designed, six-foot-tall pine cone. Outfitting the iconic Pine Cone with programmable, color-changing LEDs was a natural step in adding to the spirit and festivities of the New Year's Eve event. The objective was to implement color changing LEDs on the Pine Cone, eaves, and the cupola, or "witch's cap," while providing the scalability to add more lighting annually. This brings an enhanced dynamic effect to the building, beyond the static nature of typical holiday lights. In addition, every holiday of the year can be represented by changing the colors appropriately, automatically by date. The Solution Northern Arizona-based, AVDomotics was retained to design and integrate all systems, including Color Kinetics LED lighting, audio distribution, and system programming. The integrator selected a Crestron control system because of its flexibility, superior system integration capabilities, and scalable design features that future-proof any system. "From my years of experience, Crestron is the only solution that meets the needs of sophisticated automation projects," said Charlie White, AVDomotics Chief Technology Officer. "From extensive luxury homes to commercial settings like the Weatherford Hotel, the Crestron solution is unmatched." Hotel management can make real-time adjustments, schedule events, and make property-wide changes, all from a central location. In addition, the Crestron processor provides the ability to integrate additional audio and video zones, and other building control features. Lighting and audio throughout the hotel can be controlled by authorized staff from numerous locations across the property, enabling the perfect ambiance for guests in the bar, dining room, and outside on the patio for evening enjoyment and special celebrations. Systems at a Glance The Color Kinetics LED lighting coupled with the Crestron control system provide eye-popping light shows throughout the year based on any number of user inputs or variables. For example, the date automatically triggers a green light show on St Patrick's Day and a patriotic red, white and blue show for the Fourth of July. In addition to providing custom and automated color-changing light shows, the LED lighting system offers a much more energy efficient solution than incandescent bulbs. The objective was to implement color changing LEDs on the Pine Cone, eaves, and the cupola, or "witch's cap," while providing the scalability to add more lighting annually. This brings an enhanced dynamic effect to the building, beyond the static nature of typical holiday lights. Integrating the Color Kinetics systems and audio distribution on the same platform required custom programming by AVDomotics. "Crestron allowed us to build a communication link directly to the Color Kinetics systems," noted White. "Programming the custom user interface with the Crestron XPanel to control the LED lights provided the hotel staff with an intuitive user interface alongside distributed audio controls." Designed to provide flexibility to system integrators and managers, XPanel software transforms any computer into a virtual Crestron touch screen, allowing complete access and control of a Crestron system from any PC or Mac®. The XPanel in the main office provides scheduling functionality and detailed audio adjustments, source selection and systemwide functions. AVDomotics is also experimenting with the new R2 ControlTM App for AndroidTM for remote control of the light shows, for example from the street level outside of the hotel. Each color changing LED node is addressed and controlled individually. Within the Pine Cone, there are hundreds of LED nodes and LED flood lighting, in addition to the hundreds of LED nodes inside and outside the building. "Our goal is to introduce color changing LED technology and building-wide control with Crestron processors to the entire downtown Flagstaff area," said Andy White, AVDomotics CEO. Lighting and audio control is conducted by a 12 button keypad for quick and easy adjustments at the bar. AVDomotics pre-wired the public areas with Crestron DigitalMediaTM, the integrated solution to distribute, control and manage the array of multimedia technology. DigitalMedia was selected because it's the only solution that seamlessly handles true high-definition signal routing, switching, and long distance distribution of all digital and analog audio/video sources across a single wire. Benefits The hotel patrons and staff enjoy high quality audio distribution in the bar, dining room and outdoor patio dining area. The ease of system control via the Crestron keypad makes adjusting audio volume, changing audio sources or changing "light shows" seamless. This allows the staff and bartender to easily adjust the ambiance based on patron preferences, with a few button presses. Both the audio distribution system and awe-inspiring LED light shows attract attention to the hotel in a modern, high-tech fashion, while respecting the historic integrity of the building. From its meager beginnings as a decorated garbage can, the over-sized aluminum Pine Cone, outfitted with energy efficient LED lighting, now hangs from the roof of the hotel as the high-tech centerpiece of Flagstaff's holiday glow. Crestron, the Crestron logo, and DigitalMedia are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Crestron Electronics, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Mac is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Android is a trademark of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. R2 Control is a registered trademark of id8 Group R2 Studios in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks and trade names may be used in this document to refer to either the entities claiming the marksand names or their products. Crestron disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. ©2011 Crestron Electronics, Inc.