Puttshack is a tech-infused mini-golf game, powered by proprietary Trackball technology. Founded in London, England in 2018, Puttshack with locations across the U.K. and North America. The more immersive and technology-driven the venue, such as Puttshack, the higher the demand, and for operators balancing tight margins, those system costs can quickly erode profitability: high-voltage infrastructure was simply the price of creating atmosphere. The arrival of the QoraLux Low-Voltage Lighting Platform from SAVI iQ has changed that.
SAVI made it possible to deliver the high-impact visual experiences guests expect, while dramatically cutting power draw, installation complexity, and long-term operating costs. So, when Puttshack prepared to open its new 29,000-square-foot Minneapolis venue in the fall of 2025, it faced that same challenge: how to deliver a high-energy, visually striking experience without the high-voltage overhead. The lighting design was initially drawn up around a conventional 277-volt system, reflecting the approach used across other locations. But as construction costs rose and sustainability targets tightened, the brief evolved to preserve the design team’s creative intent and signature lighting effects while achieving them with simpler infrastructure, lower power demand, and seamless integration across lighting, audio, and video systems.
Working with the SAVI iQ team, Puttshack re-evaluated the original high-voltage specification against a low-voltage alternative built on SAVI QoraLux, a power-over-category (PoC) lighting platform that carries both power and control over standard Cat cable. What began as a lighting rethink quickly expanded into a full audio-video-lighting (AVL) integration, all centrally managed through the SAVI platform. The result achieved the same dramatic visual impact the designers envisioned, while eliminating the conduit farms, panel rooms, and high-voltage coordination that had complicated previous builds and laying the foundation for a new generation of smarter and more profitable Puttshack venues.
Puttshack’s venues are defined by their layered, theatrical lighting, from the soft ambience of the main bar to the color-rich accents that bring each mini-golf course to life. The creative brief demanded a nuanced, highly zoned environment that could shift seamlessly between everyday operation and special-event settings. SAVI QoraLux enables full-spectrum RGBWW color tuning, allowing staff to re-theme courses, lounges, and dining areas with a few taps.
“What makes SAVI QoraLux so powerful for designers is that it removes the old electrical constraints without sacrificing nuance,” said Derek Wilson, SAVI’s chief strategy officer. “You get micro-zone control, smooth dimming, and rich RGBWW rendering, all on low-voltage cabling. It’s a single, coherent ecosystem rather than a patchwork of panels, drivers, and third-party interfaces.”
During the design phase, the team modeled a direct comparison between a conventional 277-volt high-voltage scheme and a low-voltage SAVI QoraLux alternative of identical scale. The difference was measurable at every stage. The fixture package showed a 43% reduction, while installation costs saved 45%.
In operation, the model showed total draw dropping from 188,357 watts to 54,400 watts, a 71% improvement for lighting alone across the year. The entire load now runs on just eight standard 20-amp circuits, with all other power and control travelling over Cat back to the drivers and controllers neatly housed in the AV rack.
Previous Puttshack builds often wrestled with long panel lead times, conduit coordination across multiple trades, and ampacity upgrades that could ripple through the entire construction schedule. By shifting to low voltage, the Minneapolis team eliminated many of those dependencies. The design replaced hundreds of outlets with simple Cat runs, reduced field labor, and simplified inspection.
While lighting led the project, the full advantage came from bringing audio, video, digital signage and lighting under one unified control environment powered by SAVI. Integration is the backbone of the project, traversing audio, video, lighting, and control (AVLC), including the venue’s entire LG commercial display network powered by SAVI Canvas. Because SAVI Canvas runs natively on LG webOS displays, no external media players or control processors are required to deliver the desired content to each screen. This direct integration eliminates latency, simplifies configuration, and enables real-time synchronization between video, lighting, and audio cues across the venue.
The LG webOS display mix includes a range of sizes and functions, from 32-inch touch displays to 75-inch models. This creates a visually unified digital signage ecosystem powered entirely by SAVI Canvas, capable of everything from menu boards and brand takeovers to synchronized ambient visuals that reinforce the overall guest experience.
For Puttshack staff, that translates to faster responsiveness, fewer points of failure, and a seamless, app-like control experience that mirrors the polish of the guest environment itself. With Minneapolis serving as a proof point, Puttshack is incorporating the same architecture into all new builds and evaluating selective retrofits for existing locations. For operations and design teams alike, the combination of both low and high-voltage QoraLux Lighting Solutions and SAVI’s unified control system has set a new baseline for what smart venue infrastructure means, merging creative freedom with measurable efficiency.
“Puttshack embraced an entirely new way of thinking about venue lighting,” said Byron Baird, general manager of SAVI Commercial. “They saw the opportunity not just to save money or streamline installation, but to build a smarter, more adaptive environment that connects lighting, audio, and video into one cohesive ecosystem. It’s a forward-looking approach that gives them flexibility today and a clear path for growth tomorrow, a model that’s already informing the design of future venues.”
