The “Right” and “Wrong” way to do Uplighting

There is always a right and a wrong way to do things. In this article we will focus on the right and the wrong way to do uplighting.

The picture to the right is the ballroom at the River House in Haddam, Connecticut. It was taken from another DJ company who offers uplighting. Keep in mind that in the humble opinion of this author, most DJs are NOT doing uplighting correctly.

This photo shows a huge ballroom wall illuminated with only 2 lights. This creates a “cone effect” with the light stream only making impact on a small area of the wall. Color saturation is NOT achieved and the look is weak. Most DJs that are getting into the uplighting business are not professional lighting designers, and it shows. The biggest problem is lack of experience and lack of lighting resources. Translated to English… The DJ just did not have enough lights to get the proper effect.

Now, the same room at the River House done by our lighting staff. Many more lights have been used with a very even separation placement between the units. We also carefully measured the placement so the uplight effect is maximized between the windows. This way the effect makes it all the way up to ceiling. (My apology for the poor photo quality. The image was taken with my BlackBerry.)

Bottom line… Be careful when choosing a company for up-lighting. Just because they offer it, does not mean they do it correctly. More times than not, a professional lighting company will blow away any DJ who is not properly trained. However, if a DJ invests time and resources to learn the proper methods of illumination, then you might have the best value. DJs will often be more reasonably priced for up-lighting as compared to “lighting only” companies.

Music In Motion Entertainment of Seymour Connecticut is a professional event production service offering DJs and Event Lighting & Design. We have separate divisions within the company to specialize in both fields without compromise to the customer.