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Lighting is just as big a part of the concert, musical or theatre experience as sound. Lighting is an incredibly important tool for creating the right atmosphere on stage. But lighting is also a really important tool for helping the audience focus on the right place at the right time.
In this article, we’ll cover what you should pay attention to when lighting a stage, big or small, as well as the pros and cons of the different types of fixtures and lights!
What equipment do I need?
We often get this question when customers are putting together stage lighting. The answer will always be: what do you need the lighting for? There are an extremely large number of factors that come into play when choosing lighting for your stage, and here we’ll go through the three we consider most important.
What do you need to light?
There’s a big difference between what types of events need lighting. Depending on whether it’s a smaller concert, a musical, or maybe a comedy show, the requirements for the equipment you need will vary. Next, you should also be clear about what type of lighting is wanted on stage. If you want calm, dimmed and even lighting across the whole stage, there’s not much point in turning up with two followspots.
Stage size
Stage size follows on naturally from what you need to light. It goes without saying that larger stages require more light to be properly lit. That’s why it’s important to be clear about how big the stage is, so you can plan the amount of light. Many fixtures today can be controlled via DMX, where you can adjust brightness etc., but it’s important to remember that you can’t turn the brightness up beyond max. When it comes to stage lighting, it’s better to be on the safe side so you don’t end up with too little light for too large a stage!
It almost goes without saying that a large stage also has more space that needs to be lit. That’s why you also need more “layers” of light. So make sure you have lighting for both the foreground and background, as well as spots to draw focus to what matters, so the audience doesn’t lose the overview of all that space.
- Want to read more about DMX and lighting control? You can do that here: Get started with DMX.
Lighting conditions
Stages can be set up in many different places. Outdoors, in sports halls, concert venues, theatre… the list goes on. The most important thing is to consider whether there’s natural light coming in from outside that you need to account for, or whether the lighting conditions change during the event. The ideal scenario would of course be a completely blacked-out venue, where you have 100% control over all light.
Unfortunately, the ideal situation isn’t always—or actually rarely—what you’re working with. That’s why it’s important to take into account whether there are windows that can let light into the venue, or if it’s an outdoor event, how the sun hits the stage. It’s a difficult exercise, but if you plan the lighting carefully, the result will be respectable despite the challenging working conditions.
Different types of fixtures
As with everything else in the events industry, lighting design of course isn’t meant to be simple. There is a wide range of different types of fixtures, and they all have their own
In this article, we’ve chosen to stick to stage lighting itself, and therefore won’t go into effect fixtures used to create light shows.
Theatre spots & Fresnel fixtures
A theatre spot or Fresnel fixture is basically “just” a standard theatre light. They can be used for everything from front lighting to lighting the background, or to illuminate set pieces. Today, a lot of theatre spots are equipped with LED lamps. This provides great flexibility in the light. The LED lamps make it possible to set how warm or cool the light should be, as well as how powerful the beam output should be.
There are also RGB versions where you can change the colour of the light. In the past, this was done manually using coloured pieces of transparent plastic (filters) placed in front of the lens of the fixtures.
Barndoors
On theatre spots you’ll often find four movable flaps. These flaps are called barndoors, and are used to shape the light. Quite simply, the flaps are used to block off light and to control how much the light spreads. Barndoors are often included with most theatre spots when you buy them, but can also be purchased separately and fitted to your existing fixtures if you want more control!
Profile spots
If you need more powerful light than theatre spots can deliver, it makes sense to take a closer look at profile spots. The profile spot is a more powerful light source that produces a more concentrated beam than theatre spots. In addition, many profile spots offer the option to create different light patterns, which can add an extra dimension to the stage show. While followspots are intended to follow people around the stage, profile spots are stationary and designed as a fixed light.
Followspots
Followspots are the big spot. The really powerful one used for large productions. While profile spots are powerful enough for small and medium-sized stages, or for filling the stage with light in different patterns, followspots are the heavy artillery. Followspots are used to highlight the main character or “the most important” element in the performance. As the name indicates, followspots will follow people around the stage, and this therefore requires a lighting operator who continuously adjusts the spot’s position. This also means the followspot is most often designed with a handle and a bracket that can be mounted on a stand, making it easy for the lighting operator to operate.
I hope that this post has given you an idea of what’s required to deliver sensible stage lighting. Of course, there are many techniques and plenty of theory behind how to make the lighting design perfect. That part you’ll have to practise yourself!
