Well, it happened. You finally got engaged to the love of your life and you’re ready to plan your dream wedding. Or you’re planning the most incredible 40th birthday blowout or your company’s next big do. Congratulations! Lighting is an important design element for any event. Whether you choose subtle uplighting for a candlelit glow or you go big and dramatic with a color rich theme complete with an LED HD Video Dance Floor, lighting will elevate the look and ambiance of your event. It can also be used to distract your guests from your least favorite feature(s) of your venue (we’re talking to you dated chintz carpet!) Before you get started, we thought a two part lesson in lighting would save you some headaches: what works and more importantly, what doesn’t. Let’s get started!
Dance Floors: Black glossy and black and white dance floors will not take gobo projections. Translation: your monogram or brand logo will not be seen!
Drape: Black and navy are classic colors, but black and navy drape do not light well. If you decide to go ahead and uplight one of these drape colors, we advise that you double the number of lights to get it to light properly. The same goes for projecting patterns or gobos on these color drapes. White light will not show properly on dark drapes, nor will it work well on white drapes. It becomes too stark. A neutral color, like gray, is a much better choice.
Floor Plans: When designing your floor plan, including décor pieces in the room and lighting elements that need power, you need a place to run the cords. Cords can either be taped down to the floor or if the room has rigging, the power can be run up the wall and across the ceiling. Some wireless options are available, but they don’t always work.
Rig Points: If you’d like to incorporate chandeliers or similar hanging elements, your venue must have rig points in the ceiling in order to hang them. Double check with your venue since some don’t have rig points! A custom structure can be built, but it is very costly. Figure out where your venue’s rig points are before you design your floor plan. The rig points might not always match up with your floor plan and you’ll discover (too late!) you can’t suspend that amazing chandelier because there’s no hang point.
That was easy enough, wasn’t it? The takeaway here is to know the particulars of your venue before you spend precious hours designing the event of year just to find out it may not work. Next time, we’ll go through the Do’s and Don’ts. Don’t stress, BEYOND is here for you.