Bar Kicker

The original lighting behind the bar was wired like a house. Someone laid a row of white LED modules flat on the floor, hoping the light would bounce through thick amber acrylic. There were nine of these kicker panels at Que Bueno Suerte, built from plywood and weighing 25 pounds each.

I pulled them down, repaired the damaged wood, and built custom neon flex using square tube and WS2814 pixels. I siliconed the flex along the waveform cuts on the back of the acrylic and taped it until it cured.

Because I was also lighting the alabaster bar top above, I had to keep pulling the kickers back off. Getting them back in was a physical fight. I had two inches of clearance blocked by a steel rail. I wedged my heel on the rail, pried a 25-pound sheet up with my toe, and disconnected leads blind with my free hand. I dropped two panels doing this. The impact ripped the silicone right off the back. I remounted the flex with industrial tape on the fly.

When I finally powered the rig up, the physical materials dictated the programming. The amber acrylic completely ate the blue spectrum. I dropped blue from the palette entirely. I built a series of slow sweeps using only red, green, and warm white, giving the lower bar a heavy, saturated accent.