Lighting is one of the most essential elements of event activation—It’s a designer’s secret weapon to transform a space. It sets a mood and gives new dimension to immersive experiences. It allows us to control visibility and focus attention on those areas where we want our audience to pay attention or interact. It also helps tell the brand story by creating motion and energy and gives the audience context. Here, we take a look at some creative lighting applications and technologies that help to further enhance the event atmosphere.
In the recent Art Basel Miami Beach, color and light prevailed in notable brand activations. Pantone’s 2023 Color of the Year (Viva Magenta) made a big splash with its interactive light installation, Magentaverse. An animated LED tunnel led visitors through a celestial scene where they were enveloped in vibrant magenta hues and twinkling lights. The Superblue and BMWi activation featured Pulse Topology, an installation built by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer featuring 6,000 individual lightbulbs, suspended at different heights and glimmering to the pulse of each guest’s heartbeat, which is captured by custom-made pulse meters. The participant’s pulse is added to the canopy of recordings, resulting in a new “glimmer” that twinkles to the beat of that new heartbeat.
Fast-forward to CES 2023, where brands kicked off the new year with new technologies and creative activations that remind us that live events are back and innovation abounds. Togg, the Turkish automaker, made quite a splash with its “Togg Tunnel.” The activation featured creative applications of light, images and sound to set a vibe and amplify the visitor experience.
Whether you’re the event planner or the lighting designer, here are a few new technologies to help make your job easier and heighten creativity.
Planning and pitching your creative lighting concept is now easier with lighting pre-visualization software. The technology networks the lighting console into a CAD program to pre-program a show’s lighting and effects virtually before arriving on-site. It allows you to visualize the lighting in advance and share looks and “wow moments” with the client before the show.
