Shoppertainment Beneath the Cloud

In Las Vegas, everything is larger than life, over the-top or out of the box. Fashion Mall’s recent makeover is a case in point.

The Rouse Co. (Columbia, MD), a real-estate company with more than 150 properties in 22 states, metamorphosed the Fashion Show — a key retail property located on the Strip — from a lackluster mall to a huge retail center, unlike anything else in the United States or, for that matter, the world (see ST, February 2003, page 78).

"Fashion Show has become more than a place to shop. It’s also a place to entertain and be entertained, and is now the new must-see destination of Las Vegas," said Anthony Deering, chairman and CEO of the Rouse Co.

Because of its stature, Fashion Show has become the company’s flagship retail property and the single, largest redevelopment project in Rouse’s 65-year history.

Image is everything

After it opened in 1981, Vegas’ first mall suffered image problems — visitors said it was too inaccessible and limited. Not anymore. The mall’s exterior architecture and signage now attract people to stay for the entertainment and shopping.

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The revamped Fashion Show, which opened in October 2003, features 2 million sq. ft. of retail space, garners approximately 25,000 visitors a day and comprises more than 200 stores. Also in the works is a 15-vendor food court with numerous restaurants. The mall’s seven retail anchors are Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Dillard’s, Robinsons-May, Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s Home. Mall management claims that no other retail center or regional mall in the United States has the flagship lineup offered at Fashion Show.

Annually, Las Vegas boasts 37 million visitors who "play, stay and pay" on the Strip. Approximately 100,000 visitors walk or drive along the Strip daily, many of whom will hopefully visit the mall.

The Cloud

There’s nothing typical or traditional about the Fashion Show. Its layout includes a tenant area for offices and services, and a vast, interior courtyard, known as the Great Hall, which showcases the retail center, alive with various retail venues and performances.

Because Fashion Show is an outdoor retail center, it required a gigantic shade structure to be used during the hottest part of the day. Almost immediately, the shade/canopy was christened, "the Cloud," which, due to its gigantic dimensions, has become a Las Vegas icon and architectural landmark.

During the day, the Cloud shades the exterior plaza in front of the Fashion Show, on the Strip. By dusk, its "underbelly" serves as a gigantic projection screen, onto which huge advertising projections are beamed. Logos, images and colored lights bathe the Cloud in a colorful swirl of Imax-sized advertorial announcements. The projections are easily viewable from the Strip.

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Hovering above Fashion Show’s plaza, the Cloud measures 479 ft. long, 160 ft. wide and 21 ft. deep, at its thickest point. Hoisted into position as a cantilevered canopy, the Cloud’s zenith "floats" 128 ft. off the ground; at its low point, it measures 96 ft. high. Supporting the Cloud, two adjoining, gigantic columns measure 26 ft. long x 17 ft. wide. Each column rises 185 ft. and serves as a tower to anchor the horizontal canopy in place.

Rouse Co. senior project manager for the Fashion Show, Randy Byrd, likened the Cloud’s completion (construction began in June 2002 and was completed in October 2003) to fitting together a gigantic jigsaw puzzle.

First, construction crews excavated the footings for the base of each of the two 185-ft. supporting towers within an existing garage and plaza deck. Next, an oval-shaped ring was built, and, once completed, it was lifted up and tensioned into place via a cabling system.

Byrd described the entire Cloud system as a series of nodes, struts and cables that essentially formed a "space frame grid" that was suspended over Fashion Show’s plaza area. With the Cloud’s support ring in place, crews hoisted the cladding onto the grid. The Cloud’s bottom surface comprises a series of interlocked aluminum skin panels that also connect to the ring’s underside. Once the bottom projection screen was in place, the top cladding followed, and the ring frame was skinned, looking more like a surfboard than the Cloud.

The Cloud’s canopy hangs from its side supporting towers. At each tower, a set of 15, post-tensioned upper cables, and eight lower cables attached to oval column rings, holds the 21-ft.-deep canopy in place. Sixteen, 12-in.-diameter pipe compression struts also connect the space frame to the masts. According to John Conrad, general manager of Advanced Structures Inc. (Marina del Ray, CA), which served as the Cloud’s structural engineer and fabricator, the struts and cables dissipate dead load and minimize sway.

To display its advertising imagery, Fashion Show uses PIGI large-format, film-projector systems that feature 6,000-watt projection lamps capable of transmitting images 120 ft. onto the Cloud’s projection screen.

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Once a final image is completely composed in Photoshop, it’s transformed from a JPEG file to a film transparency, which then becomes part of a PIGI film-canister component. The film canister is inserted into the PIGI projector, which scrolls each image frame into the projector optics. After an image is displayed for a suitable time period, the projector pulls the next image into place for display.

Each film scroll measures 80 ft. long, and the scrolling unit is programmable, which allows the projector to either display a linear progression of images, or hop around in a seemingly random mode. The variable programming mode changes the image so the presentation doesn’t become predictable. To create superlarge-format images on the screen, three projectors each display part of an image to fill the central area of the Cloud’s projection screen.

The Cloud’s underbelly comprises approximately one-and-a-half acres of projection space. Thus, to cover the entire bottom projection area, the Rouse Co. incorporated five PIGI projectors.

Byrd explained, "The large main image area, which is placed in the bottom center of the screen, is filled with three PIGI projectors, more or less, side by side. The other two PIGI projectors are on the Cloud’s left and right sides, and cover its outer edges."

To protect the projectors from outside conditions, and keep them in an air-conditioned environment, the PIGI units are housed in glass shells that serve several purposes. First, they control the air conditioning around the projector. They also serve as mounting rigs onto which a series of background-lighting instruments can be connected. Finally, the shells serve as wayfinding stations that feature retail-center maps.

Shoppertainment

Signage forms layers throughout the mall. The outermost layer, the Cloud and the four Dancing Videoscreens, face the Strip. Sharon Bair, the mall’s director of sales and marketing, noted that such spectacular elements "break through a lot of the existing signage clutter that’s all over the Strip and provide a recognizable difference that easily identifies the Fashion Show as a place to visit."

Two pylon stanchions support the cloud structure and serve as anchors for approximately 44 x 24-ft., vinyl banners, which are visible from the Strip in either direction.

The next layer of spectacular signage — three, 7.2 x 13.3-ft., |2111| Media (Belgium) LED video screens — hangs directly in the Great Hall and plaza inside Fashion Show. These screens, also accompanied by an audio system, allow every viewer to sit in a virtual, front-row seat at runway shows and other live performances.Barco

A complementary, floor-level viewing system, comprising 11 plasma screens, present Fashion Show events and advertise local products within the retail center.

Advertisers work with the Rouse Co. and Clear Channel Spectacolor (New York City), a media conglomerate that develops spectaculars and displays in Times Square and Las Vegas. In fact, "Impact Source" is the name of the mall’s marketing strategy for the coordination and integration of advertising for spectacular signage.

According to Jon Sandler, Clear Channel Spectacolor’s director of specialized markets, the Fashion Show has a great physical presence and, now, a tremendous visitation demand. Thus, advertisers are encouraged to utilize all the mall’s onsite sign formats. He reminds prospective advertisers that the sign package: