Most Commonly Used Lighting for Social Events

Lighting creates a mood and helps bring the theme of an event to life. These are some basics terms for lighting most often used for a social event that you need to know to help you determine what lighting is the best for your event and what fits your budget.

Pin spot -A focused beam of light that shines directly onto an object, like a centerpiece or wedding cake. I often use pin spots to light bars and buffet tables, illuminating them to enhance the look of the lovely food your caterer worked so hard to create for you.

Perimeter Up Lighting- This is just what it says. Up Lighting the perimeter of the room.
For lesser budgets simple par cans on floor bases can be used. The cans are gelled in a color that best fits your theme and venue. You can only use ONE color for the entire evening.
Energy saving LED lighting is the favored among many designers and lighting technicians. For my company I try very hard to steer my clients towards using LED as they are very “green” and pack up small so there is less truck space needed, less labor less power, less cables. LED lights are place around the perimeter of the room, using less cables (making it less labor intensive, saving you a few bucks). One HUGE benefit of using LED’s is that these colors can change, unlike a par cans. The opening look for your event can be a warm amber or a cool blue. As the evening progresses and the festivities go from formal to casual the entire perimeter of the room can change colors from slow to fast to strobe like and enhance the environment.

Gobos Steel or glass stencils that are put in a lighting fixture to project a design or pattern. Popular gobo designs are monograms, dates, or any other wedding motifs. The complexity of the design will affect the gobo's cost -- a simple stencil can be stamped out of steel, while a more intricate design must be laser etched out of stainless steel or a glass that can withstand high heat (costing much more than a stamped stencil)
One thing I really love to do for my clients is to design a gobo with their names that uses the same font as their invitations. This really ties things together. This image is cast either on the dance floor (only if there is the correct ceiling height and a place to stage the light, other wise if it is not at the proper angle keystoning will occur distorting the image) or elsewhere on a flat surface in the room.

Band/DJ Lighting – Lighting a band and dance floor is a very important element of your event and there are many ways to do it. We like to use small moving lights and the LED lighting around the room to create a total atmospheric experience!
Here are some of the ways we at PWC like to do it:

For the most part DJ and “local band” lighting is simple and is set to a mode to move with the music, it’s on auto-pilot that is referred to in the business as “flash and trash”, is just a lot of movement and color. This is fine except when it interferes with the atmosphere that your lighting designer has spent all this time creating for you.

That’s why I usually tell my bride to “tell the band or DJ to leave their lighting at home and let me take care of it”! Unless of course you have an “A” level act that has a Lighting Director so this can be a coordinated effort with your event Lighting Designer.