The marquee of a 1930s Art Deco theater in Longmont, Colorado, just received a much-needed facelift. The sign, which has been dark for 25 years, recently got a makeover that included new Flex LED Neon lighting to replace the old red, white and blue neon.
The Longmont Performing Arts Center is 75 years old. It was built in 1939 by Fox Studios as a movie theater. It remained a movie theater until Longmont Theatre Company bought it in 1991 and turned it into a live theater destination. The owner at the time wouldn’t sell the building unless the buyer agreed to keep it as a downtown theater.
The theater company refurbished the outside of the building, removing aluminum siding and returning the building’s Art Deco look.
“At that time, they made the decision to add a neon cascade and neon around the canopy,” says Steve Carver, president of Longmont Theatre Company. “We don’t believe that was part of the original design. What was going on in the late ‘20s and ‘30s is that neon was a big part of movie theaters in downtowns. They were capturing that kind of history in renewing the Art Deco of the ‘30s.”
The original neon was damaged by Colorado’s infamous hail and was never replaced, Carver says.
Because the theater company is a nonprofit agency, it didn’t have the money to replace the neon until now.
“We decided that to celebrate the 75th anniversary, we would relight the marquee. Refurbish the marquee, repaint the building and get it back to the glory of when we bought the building,” he says.
The company researched what could be done to the building. Because it is a historical building, the theater company had to clear any changes with the Longmont Historic Preservation Commission. It looked at what old theaters across the country were doing and saw that most were making the switch from neon, which is hard to maintain, to an emerging technology that shines as bright and as seamlessly as neon.
“What’s interesting about the LED is when you look at the product before it is installed, it looks like plastic tubes, but it is brilliant when you plug it in. It is gorgeous,” Carver says. “It looks exactly like neon. Just exactly like what it is supposed to look like. I was stunned at how much it looks like neon. With the technology, we captured the look we wanted.”
LED lighting is much more energy-efficient and less expensive to run than neon, and plastic is more durable than the glass tubes used in real neon, he added.
The best part about the technology is that it is installed in strips that are interconnected. If you lose one strip, you don’t have to replace all of them, just the section that went dark, he says.
Tyler Cathey, owner of Efficient Lighting Solutions in Loveland, is the person who worked on the lighting of the marquee. An electrician for 20 years, his company mostly specializes in lighting solutions.
The Longmont Theatre on Main Street was only Cathey’s second project using neon replacement technology.
“We do everything in LED anymore. This was by far the largest project we did with neon replica stuff. There’s not a lot of call for it, but more and more people are wanting to use it to replace their old neon,” he says.
Cathey has worked with Longmont Theatre Company for about a year and a half on the project because the theater was waiting for funding to come through. When the Longmont Historic Preservation Commission finally gave the project the go ahead, Cathey and his team had just a little over a week and a half to install the Flex LED Neon before the theater’s Aug. 20 “Illuminate the Marquee” celebration.
“We took measurements and a bunch of pictures and tried to copy what was previously on there, mostly because the historical society wanted the building back to the way it originally was,” he says.
The Flex LED neon is snapped into a track that makes the neon replacement stand out from the building by about ? of an inch, much like neon tubing.
Most people think the project used LED rope lights, but even though there are similarities between the two products, they are different, Cathey says. You can see the individual lightbulbs in rope lights. In the Flex LED Neon product, the bulbs are well disguised so the ropes do a better job of replicating the look of old-school neon.
The marquee was just the beginning of the Longmont Theatre refurbishment project. Efficient Lighting Solutions also is installing LED lights in the lobby, the theater, behind the sign that announces upcoming shows and LED bulb lights under the canopy to represent the typical Broadway style canopy, Carver says.
“We couldn’t be happier with the way it turned out. It looks like old-fashioned neon. It brings the retro look right back to the theater, which is what we wanted,” Carver says. “When we didn’t have the lights on, people didn’t know we were there. It will be a big marketing tool for us to have it on in the middle of the Arts and Entertainment District.”
The marquee will be lit up every night of the week from 6 p.m. until 11 p.m.
Carver says he would like to give a “huge plug” to Cathey and his crew. “They worked closely with us to make sure we got the look we were going for. They did a nice job for us.”