— Located in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, the new Culture Club location features 16,000 square feet and four floors of powerful dance club sound and lighting, all sourced through GC Pro —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, April 9, 2012 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, recently worked closely with Culture Club, a hip 1980s-themed New York City dance club, to supply state-of-the-art lighting and P.A. systems (as well as other gear), as it moved from its original location downtown to its new club in Midtown Manhattan. Culture Club owners Robert Watman and Najib Succar turned to GC Pro for loudspeakers from JBL; amplifiers from Crown; mixing consoles from Soundcraft; lighting from Antari and Elation Professional; DJ products from Denon, Rane and Pioneer; and a full host of equipment from several other manufacturers.
The new location, on 20 West 39th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, opened late in 2011, and features four stories and 16,000 square feet of floor space. “It’s a very, very large dance club,” noted Co-Owner Robert Watman. “Each of the club’s four floors hosts a separate DJ with a distinct playlist. Each system is on its own floor and there’s no bleed, so if you’re on the second floor, you don’t hear what’s happening on the other floors. So you can imagine that a lot had to go into consideration. This is a brand new space that needed tons of gear, and we wanted to do it right. We wanted to make sure the P.A. was a killer system, and that it would be able to handle the amount and volume of music that it would be pumping out every night. So we turned to GC Pro, who became our one-stop vendor for the amplifiers, speakers, DJ mixers and turntables, lighting – everything, really.”
Among the hundreds of items sourced through GC Pro were several dozen JBL loudspeakers, including PRX612M, Control 29AV, ASB6125 and AM51212/95 modules; lighting equipment from Elation Professional, including EES487 spotlights and Design Wash LED 60 units; acoustic treatment from Auralex; Crown XLS2500 and XLS1500 Amplifiers; and much more. DJ equipment included Serato Rane SL 2 for Scratch Live, Pioneer CDJ-850 Performance Multi Players, and Denon DJ DNX500 Professional Rack DJ Mixers.
Watman is longtime personal friends with Guitar Center Manhattan store manager Judd Goldrich, who was happy to connect them the GC Pro staff as well as work closely with GC Pro personnel to augment the sound system with ancillary DJ and M.I. products and accessories. Watman recalls, “They came over, and for what they were offering in terms of a turnkey solution, they definitely came in at the right price. It was a good fit. We ended up acquiring a massive number of JBL P.A. products. It was that and lighting – intelligent lighting, LEDs, spotlights and washes. It was the right gear at the right price.”
Co-owner Najib Succar adds, “We’ve been in the club business for a long time, and had a distinct division when we were planning the new Culture Club. Working with GC Pro and Guitar Center, our vision became a reality. But the bottom line is, Culture Club has become a destination. Our patrons are from not only the tri-state area, but from around the country and abroad. They continue to come back, week after week, for the Culture Club experience.”
“It was great working with Robert and Najib to help make their concept of Culture Club a reality,” stated Judd Goldrich. “I have known Robert for most of my life, so on a personal level, Culture Club has a very special meaning to me. We want all of our customers to be happy and succeed, and this is probably one of the best examples of helping out a friend, and now we have a customer for life.”
For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.
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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.
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