The ABC’s of Event Lighting

News & SocietyEvents

  • Author Jud Yaski
  • Published July 5, 2009
  • Word count 500

The visual senses are perhaps the strongest in the human experience. As such, it is no surprise that powerful lighting elicits powerful emotional responses. Because you cannot touch or feel it, people often do not understand or comprehend why they should make sure lighting is a key component to their event. Lighting is the single most powerful element in transforming a space from drab to absolutely amazing. A good lighting provider examines the complete experience and design lighting for every theme. They usually do this based on the client’s goals for the event. Party lighting is different than wedding lighting, which is also different than themed prop lighting. It all depends on what kind of effect you want to create with the lighting.

The largest component of creating great wedding lighting, or any other Event Lighting is to turn down the ambient lighting of the event space to 20 to 30% of its normal luminosity. A dark room, then allows a pallet for the lighting designer. Particularly, if there are lighter walls for uplights. Each individual element can then be lit up and your event becomes romantic, exciting, and dynamic. Every item you brought to it also gets noticed. The Bar will be aglow in a blue huge for instance. The buffet may be washed in a warm glow. If it is a wedding, the cake will be a shimmering star of the event, and everyone will see the well lit wedding gift table. If it is a corporate event, any item of focus will also be showcased.

By dimming down the main lighting, you will have a greater overall impact on the areas you are highlighting. The colors will be more saturated, and the items you want to highlight will show up while some of the less attractive elements will be hidden.

Dynamic and well placed event lighting will make or break your event. However, remember to set aside a decent budget for the event lighting. Labor is the number one cost in Event Lighting In terms of other costs to be aware of, you should look carefully at the venue’s power availability before designing your lighting. If your lighting requests are too grand, the venue may not have power to support it, in which case you can either reduce your lighting load on the circuits or bring in a generator. You can rent a whisper quiet generator for around $800 per day for a 25kw, which is a good number to have if lighting a larger ballroom and using a fair amount of power. Other concerns are load in and out times. It is easy to not consider the intense labor involved in lighting. Usually, a request for 6 hours to load in, and a minimum of 2 hours to load out is made. If you are willing to pay a premium, additional staff may always be hired for a faster load in. Additionally, if you limit your lighting fixtures, you can get lighting done in a faster set up time.

Jud Yaski is the owner and founder of Inspire Productions, an Event Lighting company in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has been involved in social event productions for the past 10 years. Please visit http://www.inspiremyevent.com for more information

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