Lighting a dinner dance

[Jivemaster]

Have to light a dinnerdance in a big industrial building - its all part of the raison d'event! Do I light the tables the dancefloor or the band. The SOX in high bay fittings are not the right ambience!! there will be about 30 tables and dancefloor for 200 and a big band.

[AndrewR]

Is it possible to light the tables from above? I've ended up lighting quite a few dinner events and the tables always look so much better when spotted from above.

 

And if you can you can light all three areas.

 

I would actually spend more time lighting the tables than the band and Dance floor, assuming the audience is the type to appreciate that.

[Jivemaster]

I'm thinking of pinspots on the tables a few par56s on the floor and some 64s for front and back light on the band. I dont want it too bright. -- its for a swing dance event they will want to dance. Mostly warm tints.

[gareth]

As well as the pinspots on the tables you'll need some general cover in nice colours across the table area.

[Jivemaster]

Pea light canopy? nice or tacky?

[Ynot]

Pea light canopy? nice or tacky?

Pealight not necessarily.

LED starcloth, yes - good effect, and one that's popular at the moment.

I occasionally sub for a friend who runs a local hire firm, Showtech, and one of the jobs I do for him is star cloths for just this sort of event. Basically it's a free-standing setup on ally scaff, and he can likely source enough cloth to suit most decent sized venues - certainly 3 or 4 walls and possibly ceiling as well. Stunning effect, and they'll run of a single 13A supply either solo or from a DMX desk. If you decide to go for this option, give Gary a call & say I sent you. Last one I did was as a backdrop for the disco & live band at a 40th birthday for an Asian guy in the Alton Towers hotel a few weeks back - was pretty good. The first I did was at the Brandon Hall in Coventry - 3-sided - made them all go 'WOW!' when they walked in!!

 

As for other lighting, the pin spot on the tables is fine, but you will need some other general washes on that area - a single pin on a table is probably not going to give enough for the dining time, unless that's going ahead under normal house lights.... If you have the chance (and the power/budget) run in some 500w floods with maybe some straw gel to soften it up - maybe even some pastel gels - we use pastels in our houselights for that reason.

 

For the dance floor, unless you want to make it like a disco, which with a big band I doubt you do, then how about using a ring of medium beam pars with complimentary colours around the perimeter, crossing the floor, so they light the opposite side, which means spill in the centre... Just thinking out loud.

 

The band - my exp with bands of this type, esp if they have music on stands, is they DON'T like front light as it stops them reading the black dots! Again, if you have budget, use more lanterns than you might ordinarily use for that space, but keep the levels low - back and top light with a little high-level key from the sides. Colour these fairly neutral (hesitate to say straw again...! :))

 

TD

[AndrewR]

I have to disagree with the folk advocating pinspoting tables with additionall cover. I have found that 600w profiles make for exellent table lights (selecon pacifics in my case) and I have never needed to provide any extra cover. Frankly pinspots are going to be hopeless, propper profiles will give a lovely atmospheric light to the tables, leaving a degree of seperation from the dancefloor. And if the band have trouble seeing, give them lights on their stands! Atmosphre is more important of this kind of event.

[Andrew C]

NO green on the tables, obvious to all of us here, but...

[dave singleton]

I dont agree pinspots are usless for table lighting! I've just been through an entire summer season where we lit tables etc with just straight forward pinspots. Some we added a colour wash across the venue, although I have to say the best effect was achieved by pinspoting each table then a wash of Martin DC1 water effects. Looked amasing for such a rushed bodged job.

[Don Allen]

Pinspots will pick out the flowers in the middle of the table and make them look pretty but to help the people see their meal use profiles on a separate circuit so you can bring them up for eating and down for atmosphere. If you want to provide a bit of spill, use fresnels on the tables.

 

Cost and power consumption will be high for 30 tables, depends on their budget. Rigging could be a pain. You could look at LED moodlighting as a centrepiece for the tables, there are a lot of battery units on the market, that would save the rigging time.

 

Par cans as backlighting on the band will also provide reading light.

 

The star clothes are well worth the wow factor.

[Storm_machine]

We did a rig a couple of years ago - large concert venue into an intemate dining experience for 500. The lighting plot was exactly as discusssed above - pin spot per table and low level washes across the whole area . movers on the dance floor and more variation on the washes - and a pea light canopy over the dance floor. Starting to think some of you were there - ** laughs out loud **

 

C

[mac.calder]

It all depends on the style you are going for.

 

Something "romantic" - I would go for a subtle (textured) wash on the ceiling (if whitem or I would see about masking the ceiling with cloth). So a base colour with a slightly darker one projected over through a breakup gobo (clouds or something) - I would probably go with a pink/purple combination.

 

Then those spherical tea candle lanterns suspended from above, and focus any other lighting on the band and 'dance floor'

 

More info on the theme would help.

[casper]

Hey, I agree with most of the above but pin spots or profiles depends on budget. the last dinner dance I did we used dimmable house lights with individual battery powered lamps on the tables, was a charity event so budget was important!

 

as for the band and dance floor certainly make it a wow factor area, star curtain is good but again if over budget then slash curtains are a good alternative which reflect lots of light. talking of reflecting light at any big band dance function a mirror ball is a must have!

 

playing in a big band myself, back lighting is certainly important but dont overpower it, we like to improvise neway so dont spoil the ambience because of some moody pianist! get some nice bright colours on the band red, yellow and green look great especially with smoke.

 

for the dance floor I used some nice pastel colours, pink, blue ... looked great on the polished wood floor!

 

hope it goes well and within budget!

 

casper

[Guest lightnix]

I have to disagree with the folk advocating pinspoting tables with additionall cover. I have found that 600w profiles make for exellent table lights...

Sorry mate - it's another vote for pinspots here, too. The reason being that they provide a bright focal point for each table and very gently light the people around it with the reflected bounce. LED table decorations (as Don Allen suggests) can add atmos (and save on rigging / focussing time), but the won't put out much light beyond the centrepiece.

 

As well as the pinspots on the tables you'll need some general cover in nice colours across the table area.

Agreed, although strong shades should be avoided over tables, as they can colour food in unappetising ways. Think mainly warm and pale pinks, lavs and straws / gold for dinner, with the intensity held in check.

 

I've never been a great fan of pealight canopies myself, but punters often seem to like them. In the venue you describe, star cloths would probably be one of the first things on my list. Silk flames make great background effects as well.

 

There are a couple of quite good LED dance floors out there for hire at the moment, which can make a large, flexible lighting feature and cut down on the amount of kit required overhead.

 

Dinner dances are one kind of production where the multi-functionality of moving lights can make a big contribution to the evening and save on the number of lighting units required to create a broad variety of looks. If you have the budget for movers, go heavy on the washlights and add spice / sparkle with a few spots (which can also be used to hit people giving speeches from tables).

 

Back in my "award show period", I generally used to start the evening with a slowly moving Walk-In state in gently shifting shades of blue from the moving spotlights and scanning aerial "searchlight" beams from the spots. When they sat down, the lighting would go to a static / warm Dinner Look. This would be dimmed down and the stage brought up for any cabaret acts and gradually lost altogether (leaving just the pinspots and table decorations) once the disco started.

 

I'm sure you know the rule about gently building the disco lighting - bright, flashy states from the word go will just scare a lot of people away.

 

And don't forget the mirror ball :)

[Tom Baldwin]

a dinnerdance in a big industrial building - its all part of the raison d'event!

 

I'm interested in the industrial building itself having key relevance.

The suggestions so far are classic dinner dance lighting, but don't seem to play on the building.

Is it a "pretty" industrial building? (e.g. cast iron beams cf. rolled steel beams, brickwork cf. corrugated metal walls) If so, I'd put a lot of effort into highlighting key architectural features, and make the building your scenic backdrop.

It sounds like this event might be a fundraiser - if so, the people in attendance will have been to dozens of dinner dance type things, all in marquees, and therefore all constrained to a similar ambience. The building itself could be your key to making this event stand out.

I'd agree with people's suggestion of pinspots lighting the table centres, but would extend it slightly: try to rig the lights as high as possible, and directly above each table (girder clamps?) so that every beam of light is perfectly vertical. Add a little bit of haze, and you've made more of the height of the building. If you can use brighter lamps (e.g. 12V 100W pinspot) and shine them onto a dark table centrepiece, you'll get brighter beams in the air without ruining the ambience on the tables.

I can also imagine regularly spaced "wall washers", but using the narrowest beams you can find, so it's just stripes of light up the wall.

 

Are we talking tea dance music for the dance floor? If so, I'd try and contrast the "spiky" nature of the lighting I've already described with some very smooth light on the dancefloor - I have some 5kW fresnels, which are not at all bright (considering the input power!) but which do give a lovely smooth light, like nothing else I've seen. I suspect it's down to the large lenses.