Everything You Need To Know About Entertainment Lighting For Your Next Event

If you are thinking of setting up a stage for a performance or an event, you should always have entertainment lighting. Whether it’s for a play, a concert, or a corporate event, entertainment lighting will make the experience of the audience significantly better. Read on to find out how entertainment lighting does this.

How to Set Up Entertainment Lighting

You can arrange entertainment lighting on the stage in four ways – single-point, two-point, three-point, and four-point.

Single-point lighting has the fixtures placed in front of the stage and simply shines the light on the subject. It makes the subject look two-dimensional and, because of this, two-point lighting is often a better choice even for a simple stage set-up.

In two-point lighting, the fixtures are still placed in front of the stage. But, both the foreground and background have lights shining on them. This results in the subject having a more natural look on the stage.

However, if your event is a live production, a keynote presentation, or a public speaking event, your minimum lighting set-up should be a three-point lighting. It reduces the formation of shadows on stage while maintaining the three-dimensional look of the subjects. It does this with two lights from both sides of the stage and one light from the back.

What are the Fixtures for Entertainment Lighting?

01

Ellipsoidal reflector spotlight (ERS)

The light of the ERS has a narrow beam angle used to highlight people or objects on stage. It has an adjustable focus and has a slot for gobos for projecting logos and patterns.

02

Parabolic reflectors (PAR)

The PAR is a sealed-beam lamp in a cylinder-shaped metal casing. It provides general illumination for the stage. You can orient its light vertically or horizontally, and use gels for colored lights.

03

Fresnel light fixtures

Fresnel lights have concentric lenses that make their light strongest at the center and softest at its edges. You can adjust it to fill a part of the stage with a strong light, or to fill a small part of it with soft lighting.

04

Moving head light fixtures

These are the most versatile fixtures for entertainment lighting. It has various beam angle ranges that make it useful when you need a beam, a wash, a spot, or a hybrid light on stage.

Benefits of Entertainment Lighting

Make the stage visible

This is the basic purpose of entertainment lighting. Good visibility lets the audience fully experience what they are watching on stage. It also lets those onstage see other people, the props, and equipment so they can do their jobs well and move around the stage safely.

Direct the audience’s eyes on the stage

Stage lights direct the eyes of the audience to a specific spot, object, or person on the stage. It can make the audience feel the emotions of the actor by literally putting him in the spotlight and making his expressions more noticeable.

Set the mood

Stage lighting can set the mood of the audience for the scene onstage. Some good examples are done in plays where a lighting director uses natural lighting to give a scene a sense of normalcy, dim lighting for a gloomy or sad atmosphere, and red or harsh lighting for intense or passionate scenes.

Contact Us!

With our experts here at Outdoor Lighting of Nashville, you will not have to bother with the intricacies of setting up the entertainment lighting for your event. We will take care of everything for you including planning, ingress, and egress. Just contact us and tell us what you need and we will provide you with a free estimate for your production.

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