This past week I had the opportunity to attend The Lighting Symposium: “A comprehensive presentation on event lighting, including: selling, programming, design and marketing.” This is the second year for the now annual symposium. I missed out on it last year and was lucky enough to be able to grab a seat this time around. The event was held in Bursnville at the Electro Voice headquarters which is about 25 minutes away from me but some attendees and presenters came from Texas, Florida, Connecticut, Canada, and many other far away lands. The event was designed for DJs, lighting designers, events stylists, and others who work with lighting to enhance special events.
I have been using lighting for my events for years. I started with a couple halogen “spin and puke” lights as some refer to them. You just plug them in and they flash colorful lights all over the place. They worked great at the time but there was no way to control the intensity, direction, or speed of the lights. It was either on or it was off. As time went on I invested in more lights. Ones that use LEDs and ones that I had more control over. Even with these lights I was pretty much just turning them on and off. There are many ways to control lights but the way that I have been slowly learning is DMX. It gives one the ability to control every aspect of a lighting fixture. I will be able to control the direction, color, brightness, speed, and more. Think about the last concert, sporting event, theatrical production, etc that you have been to. The lights at those events are usually controlled by some sort of DMX programming.
Other topics covered at the symposium were how to use colors and textures to change the mood of the room, 3D video mapping (that’s a seperate long post all by itself), placement and hanging of lights, and more.
I was also able to network with and meet many other professionals in the event business. Some of the professionals at the symposium were people that I have been following and learning from on YouTube, Facebook, and other social media avenues. Bill Hermann and Jason Jones, DJ Jer, DJ Rockin Rob, and the others in attendance were all eager to learn, teach, share their experience with those in attendance. Thank you to Ben Stowe of NLFX Professional, Mike Fernino of Music in Motion Entertainment for putting the event together along with all of the presenters and sponsors.
Photos from The Lighting Symposium:
