Lighting is the add-on people ask about most and understand least, which makes it easy to sell and easy to waste money on. We sell it, so read this knowing that. But we would rather you skip it when it will not do anything than pay for fixtures that fight a bright room all night. Here is when event lighting changes a room, when it does nothing, and how to tell which one your event is before you pay for it.
When lighting is money wasted
Start with the cases where the answer is no, because they are more common than the lighting business would like.
Daytime events. A lunch, an afternoon mixer, a Friday team event that ends at six in June: there is no lighting that competes with daylight. Up-lights on a wall in a room with windows at two in the afternoon are invisible. Dance-floor fixtures in daylight look like a mistake. If your event is over before dark, or happens in a room with big windows before sunset, skip it entirely.
Bright rooms that cannot dim. This is the one people miss. Lighting works by contrast. A fixture that throws color on a wall only reads if the wall is otherwise dark. Some rooms, particularly cafeterias, atriums, conference centers, and some older ballrooms, have overhead lighting that is either on or off, with no dimmer, and the venue will not run the event in the dark. In those rooms, added lighting is a faint tint on a bright wall. Before you buy any lighting, ask the venue one question: can the house lights be dimmed, to what level, and who controls it on the night. If the answer is "no" or "we do not know," lighting is a poor buy.
Rooms that already have it. Many rooftops, lounges, newer event spaces and a growing number of hotel ballrooms have their own installed color lighting: LED strips in the coves, color-changing wall washes, a pre-set "party" look. It is theirs, not ours, and it is usually free to use. Ask the venue whether they have an installed lighting system and whether they can set it to your colors. If they can, you may need nothing from us, or only something small for the dance area. We will tell you which when we know the room.
Events with no dance segment and no photos. A dinner with speeches where the room is meant to feel like a nice restaurant does not need dance lighting, and up-lighting is optional. Candles and the venue's own dimmed lights do more for a dinner than anything we can bring.
When it changes the room
A dark room with a dance floor. This is the clear yes. After the program, when the house lights go down and the floor opens, people need permission to dance, and lighting on the floor is that permission. A dark floor with a lit booth and nothing else says "the DJ is over there"; a floor with moving color says "this is where the party is." It changes how quickly the floor fills and how long it stays full, and it does so more reliably than any song choice. If the event has a real dance segment in a room that can go dark, put lighting on the floor.
A plain room that needs to look intentional. A beige hotel ballroom, a white loft, a raw warehouse: up-lighting along the walls and columns is the cheapest way to make a large plain room look designed. It replaces the color that décor would otherwise provide, it can be set to the company's brand colors, and in a warehouse it turns a brick wall into a backdrop. This is a case where lighting does the work of a decorator we do not provide.
Photos. If there is a photographer and the company will use the pictures, color on the walls is the difference between a photo of people in a room and a photo of an event. Up-lighting in particular reads on camera in a way that is hard to get any other way, and it reads in the background of every candid shot. A cool tone on the walls with warm light on the tables photographs well; a single saturated color everywhere tends to make faces look odd, and we will steer you away from it.
A reveal or a launch moment. For a product launch or a gala with a specific moment, a lighting change is the cue the room feels before it understands. The lights shift, the music shifts, and the reveal has a frame. This is the case for moving fixtures, and it is rare, which is why we quote them per event rather than pricing them on a menu.
Our three lighting tiers, and what each is for
Lighting is a paid add-on to every package and is quoted separately, because it depends on the room. There are three tiers.
| Tier | Price | What it is | Right for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Venue Lighting | From $450 | LED fixtures covering the booth and the dance area | Any event with a dance segment in a room that can dim |
| Room Up-Lighting | Quoted per room | Fixtures along the perimeter washing walls and columns in color | Plain rooms, brand colors, photographed events |
| Intelligent Moving Heads | Quoted per event | Programmed moving fixtures over the floor or stage | Large rooms, launches, galas with a reveal |
Most corporate holiday parties that want lighting want the first tier, and it is enough. Up-lighting is the second most common and the one to think about if there is a photographer. Moving heads are for a specific kind of event and we will say so if yours is not it. Package prices and the add-on list are on the pricing page, and this post explains what the packages include without lighting, which is everything else.
A practical note on up-lighting: the fixtures go around the edge of the room, and each one needs either an outlet nearby or a battery. Battery fixtures are the norm now and remove the cable problem, but they run for a fixed number of hours, so a five-hour event with an early setup needs them switched on late. Count the columns and the wall segments you want lit and tell us; the number of fixtures is what the room quote is based on.
How to decide, in four questions
- Is the event after dark, or in a room without windows? If no, stop here. No lighting.
- Can the house lights dim, and who controls them? If the venue cannot dim, lighting will not read. If they can, ask them to bring the room to about a third for the dance segment and confirm who is on the switch.
- Does the venue have its own color lighting? If yes, ask them to set it to your colors and see what is left to cover. Often the answer is only the dance floor, or nothing.
- Is there a dance segment, a photographer, or a reveal? A dance segment points to Small Venue Lighting. A photographer or a plain room points to up-lighting. A reveal points to a conversation about moving fixtures. None of the three means none.
One last thing a working DJ will tell you: the most common lighting mistake at corporate events is not too little, it is fixtures aimed at the dining tables during dinner. Lighting on the dance floor should be off, or on a slow warm wash, until the floor opens. Nobody wants to eat under a strobe, and a room that has been flashing since six has nothing left to change when the party starts. If we bring lighting, it is programmed to the timeline, not switched on at load-in.
If you are not sure which case your event is, send the date, the venue, the headcount, and whether the room has windows, and we will tell you within 24 hours whether lighting is worth it and which tier. Use the contact page. If the answer is none, we will say none.