Lighting has
two jobs.
The first one is unglamorous: people need to see. Faces on stage, steps in the audience, the way to the bar. The second is the one everyone thinks of: turning one room into another. The two jobs contradict each other regularly — bright, even light turns any room into a gymnasium, and mood lighting alone leaves your speaker standing in the gloom. Everything else is the question of how to do both at once.
Why the walls do more than the ceiling
If the lighting budget is tight and you still want the biggest visible difference, put the light on the walls. Uplights take the grey overhead-lighting look out of a hall and give it a colour — across the whole surface your guests look at all evening. Moving lights on the ceiling are more impressive, but they light the place where something is happening anyway. On a tight budget the order is therefore almost always: walls first, then the stage, then the moving lights.
When moving lights are worth it
Moving heads pay off when an event has several faces: reception, speeches, show, party. One fixture then does in sequence what would otherwise take four fixed ones. For an evening that looks the same throughout, they are expensive decoration. So our first question is how many different situations there are — not how big the room is.
Rigged, stood up, or neither
Light has to go somewhere, and that often matters more than which fixtures you choose. Not every ceiling may be loaded, not every organiser is allowed to drill, and in historic rooms both are out of the question. Then we work with stands and floor fixtures — it looks different, but it can be just as good. What matters is that we know beforehand and not on the rigging day.
The point where lighting becomes a power question
Lighting is the discipline most likely to overrun the power supply — especially where older fixtures are involved. LED has eased that, but not abolished it: many fixtures on one circuit remain many fixtures on one circuit. We work it out in advance and tell you whether the existing sockets will do. There is more on this on our power supply page.
- ▸Uplights and LED washes for walls, columns and surfaces
- ▸Moving lights (spot, wash, beam) for changing situations
- ▸Conventional fixtures for stage, lectern and audience
- ▸Effects: strobe, blinder, fog and haze — used sparingly
- ▸DMX control, from a small desk to a programmed show
- ▸Trusses, stands and base plates where nothing may be rigged
Every setup is cut to the venue, the guest count and the running order — this list is a starting point, not a packing list.
What we get asked most often.
For simple setups, yes — we rig everything and show you the handful of controls you actually need. As soon as there are changeovers during the event or several programme items, someone from our team is a better answer than a briefing on the afternoon.
Then we work from the floor. In restaurants, historic venues and marquees that is the rule rather than the exception. Tell us early — floor-based solutions need more space along the edges, and that has to fit the seating plan.
That is not something to guess at, but something to calculate. All we need is the number of separate circuits and what else is already on them — the kitchen and the heating are the usual surprises.
Yes, for manageable setups. You get the equipment tested, pre-wired and with an explanation shorter than this page. For anything that gets rigged overhead, we come along.
Tell us about
your event.
Send us the basics — you get an honest assessment and a quote shortly afterwards. No obligation, and nobody chases you about it afterwards.
We usually reply within 24 hours.