Making it Rain at For the Love of Chocolate, 2017

Posted March 6th, 2017 by Cate Muller

This year at For the Love of Chocolate Muller+Muller made it rain, quite literally.

The theme: “Noir; An Evening of Mystery and Mayhem”.

The idea: to evoke the rain-soaked, moody street scenes of the Film noir genre, from which the event was inspired.

Franco Pacini, the Board chairman, had imagined creating a piece like this for some time. An interactive installation that would cover a portion of the dance floor and allow guests to “swim” through the luminous strands. Muller + Muller worked to develop a system for hanging and tying these strands, as well as the most suitable materials. Many experiments, a lot of knots and 21,000 glittering lanyard strings later the result was beyond what we had hoped. After initially being wary to touch or mess up our creation, guests lost their shyness and “swam” through, shared social media images all night long.

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“…you made a dream come true for me with the development of the “Rain Dance Floor”.- Franco Pacini, Board Chairman, For the Love of Chocolate Foundation

 

Opposite the rain dance floor; The CATZ played their swingin’ Big Band music behind custom bandstands which we designed, constructed by FreeLance Studios. Mr. Pacini insisted we have a prominent place in the design, for our services to this and past events.

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Additionally, on the 6th floor we designed a brownstone DJ booth for Anachron. It was complete with a painted-brick façade, water tower, pigeon coop and a fire escape, as well as flanked by a streetscape of lampposts and park benches. This was also constructed by FreeLance Studios, whom is a master at taking these ideas and bringing them to fruition.

 

We are honored to participate in the event. Every year we get to explore the outer reaches of our creativity (and time-management skills). Next year’s theme will re-use our rain installation (it was such a hit!). However, we will undoubtedly have a new design challenge with which to experiment. Until next year!

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