The Complete Guide to Lighting Hire for Your Corporate Event

The role of lighting at your corporate event

The role that lighting plays at corporate events is important. Lighting has the potential to affect the entire guest experience – whether functional or decorative, it should not be placed on the back burner of priorities.

We understand that it can be difficult to know exactly where to start with lighting hire services for your corporate event. We’ve put together this comprehensive guide to aid you in understanding what different lighting options are available to you, and the best choice for your upcoming event.

Contents:

1. What types are available on the lighting hire market?
2. Flown vs. ground-supported lighting
3. Can my chosen venue support the lighting design decisions I want to implement?
4. LED vs. discharge lighting: benefits and drawbacks
5. So, what kind of lighting should I hire for my corporate event?
6. Bespoke lighting hire packages: design & pre-visualisation
7. Do I need a lighting engineer at my event?
8. Using lighting hire as a branding opportunity

What types are available on the lighting hire market?

Static:

Static lights are immovable and fixed in place, so can’t be changed during the event.

Wash:

Wash lighting ‘washes’ a whole area in a colour of your choice – making them great for setting an overall vibe and experience.

Profile:

Profile lighting is lightweight strips of LED lights.

Fresnel:

Fresnel lighting is a soft-edged type of spotlight which allows a great amount of control over its angle and positioning.

Uplighter:

Uplighters are ground-based lighting that shoots light up walls to illuminate particular areas.

Moving heads

As the name suggests, moving heads are able to move the direction of illumination however you require – in time to music, with varying colours and effects.

Spotlighting:

Spotlights are used in a variety of events and can be used to follow guest speakers around the stage via a strong, moveable beam of light.

Hybrid:

Hybrid lighting uses a combination of solar power and electricity – a great environmentally-conscious option for any event!

GOBOs and projection lighting:

An acronym for ‘go-between optics’, GOBOs are small disks that can be placed over the lens of a lighting fixture to project a shape or pattern around your venue or on stage. They are more suited to non-static lighting, so your chosen shape or branding can move around your event.

Atmospherics:

Atmospherics include hazers, fog, smoke, and other special FX – including but not limited to CO2 and confetti. Whilst these aren’t technically lighting themselves, they can be added onto hire packages for an incredible experience.

Flown vs. ground-supported lighting

Suspending (or “flying”) lights from the venue’s ceiling has a number of advantages over ground-supported lighting deployments. By hanging the lights from a dedicated rigging point, it’s easier to position the fixtures for optimal angles for key light and sidelight – terms that your lighting hire company will happily talk you through. It also tends to improve sight lines to the stage and across the audience area, allowing for a great experience.

Additionally, flown lights are also the tidiest option when compared to ground-supported lighting. Cables and wires are hidden above, and the truss bridge (where present) can be covered with a black cloth cover.

Ground-supported lights are not without their benefits. Whilst hanging lights are almost always the right choice for larger events, ground supports can be better suited to many applications, and, with enough thought and care, can sometimes be the optimal solution.

Ground-supported lights generally have fewer safety considerations and use less staff and rigging equipment than flown lighting designs; therefore usually being cheaper to install. They are also more flexible in most venues. Flown lighting designs rely on rigging points in the venue, whereas ground-stacked lights can be more easily placed anywhere around the room.

Even if you decide flown lighting is suited to your corporate event, it is typical to augment these with ground-supported lighting. Uplighting and battens are particularly suited to placement on the floor, and many effects can be achieved through variation in the height of your fixtures – decorative and lights-as-branding are often best ground-supported too.

Can my chosen venue support the lighting design decisions I want to implement?

It is important to consider your design goals early on in the planning process for your corporate event. A venue may be perfectly suited to your plan as far as catering to the rest of your needs is concerned, and still, it could be lacking the necessary facilities to accommodate your lighting vision.

If you have decided you love the light from a certain fixture, but that you want the fixture itself out of the way and hung from the ceiling, then the venue needs to have appropriate points to facilitate this. This is another reason to engage with potential AV suppliers early on in the planning process — Neuron can help you identify those architectural features that you need to consider and can help your design be realised in full.

LED vs. discharge lighting: benefits and drawbacks

These two forms of lighting will be more suited to an event depending on your limitations and requirements. Put simply, discharge lighting is well-suited for lighting large areas, however, is outdated to an extent when compared to LED lighting.

When considering your lighting options, you will need to consider the differences in power required to illuminate each type of lighting. Discharge/tungsten lighting uses more power and energy, but in return, you get a higher output and an effective, warm tone of lighting.

On the other hand, if you are wanting to incorporate colour into your lighting, discharge lights will require colour wheels or GOBOs to achieve this – making for a less flexible option than LEDs which can be almost any colour. Whilst custom gels and GOBOs can achieve branding effects with conventional discharge fixtures, this does add additional costs. LEDs have the potential to match your colour schemes right out of the box.

Many of the reasons for choosing conventional discharge lighting over LED are actually related to the industrial design features of several well-known discharge lamp models. By engaging with your AV hire company’s lighting specialists, they may implore you to select an LED-based fixture that closely matches the design of a profiling discharge based fixture. With dimming curves and shutting frames that are very similar to the older technology, LED is likely to be suited to all but the most specific lighting requirements.

In terms of environmental impact, LED technology is far more environmentally friendly than conventional discharge lamps. The EU has been considering banning these older lighting technologies entirely, so if part of your corporate (and personal) identity rests on being environmentally considerate, you may want to select LED over discharge lamps.

So, what kind of lighting should I hire for my corporate event?

Corporate events are a great way to engage and interact with both employees and customers–knowing how to wow your guests is vital. The kind of lighting you will require will depend on the type of corporate event you’re planning.

Whether you’re celebrating a company milestone, wanting to motivate employees, or putting on a networking event, lighting will be something you’ll need to consider. A conference would require low-key, static lighting, but a company awards show will need dynamic, colourful installations. No matter your idea, Neuron can provide you with a combination of different fixtures to fit your event – our designers working hard to bring your corporate event to life.

Bespoke lighting hire packages: design & pre-visualisation

We will always design a bespoke package for each event to suit both your requirements and your budget.

We can show you a pre-visualisation of what your lighting show will look like, so you know what to expect on the day. As pre-visualisation becomes ever more sophisticated, it is becoming increasingly indispensable as a design tool. For larger events, contacting us early on in the event planning process can allow us to produce sophisticated 3D visualisations, so you can let your eyes guide you towards your vision.

Do I need a lighting engineer at my event?

The answer to this question will lie with what you are comfortable with, as well as the type of corporate event you’re putting on. Lighting control during an event can be unnecessary stress, taking away from your original role of ensuring the event runs as smooth as possible for your guests.

So, lighting operator or no lighting operator? This will depend on the lights you require, as well as the length and complexity of your event.

With the help of your trusted AV hire company and their lighting specialists, your needs will be discussed and the best option for you will be reached!

Using lighting hire as a branding opportunity

If the corporate event has an external purpose to promote and market your company, consider the branding potential of your lighting.

Simple instantiations of your company’s brand can be dotted throughout your lighting design plan – such as mimicking your brand colours via the colour palette of your lighting design. Another great idea to consider is the use of custom GOBOs, which can project your logo onto the walls of the venue.