Lighting Kit to light an entire room
 

Hi, I'm doing a wedding in a really big space in San Francisco. This is the 4th client that has asked me to add additional lighting to the reception. Right now I only own 3 Reception light kits, but need 4 lights 500 watts or more that are dim-able and light and easy to pack. These would be placed in the four corners of the room with gels on them.

I'm looking at Lowel, but wonder if any of you people have kits that you prefer and experiences you've had with them.

Budget is under $2K

Big space (whatever that means), easy to pack, cheap. Uhhh.. these are like opposites. If it's really a "big space" I'd drop in 4 2k's and call it a day. But they sure won't be easy to pack.

Lowel's DP lights can be bulbed at 1Kw and are fairly light and small. I've used those for numerous jobs and been very pleased. They're pretty cheap too. Or you can toss a few Tota's in a small case and they will do a GREAT job lighting up an area. Hard to gel them effectively though since they are broads. Mole Richardson makes some broad lights too that might be more suitable.

Sorry, I'm looking to light the entire room, but I'm looking for a kit of 4 to fill up as much as I can. I hear once you go over 500 watts per light you have to watch out for certain things (cost of dimmers, wall sockets), but i'm not sure what that means.

I'm not looking to light a "set" per say. I just want to add additional lighting to the reception the best I can w/o hauling huge annoying lights. The lighter the better.

I don't know how big the room is but it must be pretty big if your 3 lights can't wash the area. Tota lights are the way to go (1k bulbs). I would suggest telling the venue way in advance that you are planning to plug 4- 1000K lights, your lights plus the DJs might break the circuit. Depending on the venue, they might charge you $ 250 for a power drop to accomodate your power requirements.

my 2 cents

You may not think you're lighting a set but that's effectively what you are doing.

My advice would be to pay a professional lighting company to do the job.

In fact, hotels locally are beginning to include "Lighting Packages" amongst their options. Lighting is inexpensive and the solution is often banks of uplighters, pin spots etc which provide more than enough extra light for us and do so without ruining the ambiance, in fact they enhance the room's natural ambiance.

Kelly,
The main thing that will determine what lights you can and should use will be the size of the room. Length, width and ceiling height. Then I look at the proposed room layout to see where I would need lighting and how it could be hidden. Then I look at the outlet situation and how they are run. If you've got 4 500W lights of anykind all plugged into seperate outlets but those outlets are all in series and running to the same 20 amp breaker theres a better than even chance that the breaker will pop off and continue to do so thru out the event. Add the DJs gear to the mix and it can really be problematic.
So before you rent or buy any lights I would check the location out, look at the room layout (the drawing) and figure out the electrical. You might find that what you ave is enough or you mmight need a light crew.

Thanks
 

The space is huge. Place is called Yank Sing in San Francisco. The ceilings are about 50 ft high. I have a good idea of what I'm going to do. I will post something if the B&G go with the lighting package.

Thanks for the input.

I bought a red head with dimmer from ebay. Works well!

Dont really use it much except for really big spaces

Susanto I'm surprised. Unless our watts are very inferior here compared to those in Australia or SFO, I wouldn't have thought a single redhead in a room with a 50ft ceiling (which itself means it's exhibition hall scale) would make a lot of difference even in total darkness.

Having looked at the venue's site I'm surprised additional lighting is needed - if it is, four blondes wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. Of course the pictures might be misleading.

hi philip. we only use the red head on very big dance floors. normally set to dimmed down. not full brightness. I bought it because it had dimmer in it and also daylight filter attachment:)

Santo