LED lighting in the spare time: How to light up a theater with LED

You probably don’t think about it but a lot of the places that you visit in your spare time is depending on good and efficient lighting to support the activities taking place. This blog is a part of our theme “LED lighting in the spare time” and it is about how LED lighting with advantage can be applied places which many of us visit for our hobbies or other spare time activities. In the theme’s fourth blog we take a closer look at how LED can be used to light up a theater. So, if you administer a theater, or simply enjoy going to theaters in your spare time you can find out more in this blog about how LED lighting with advantage can be applied to enhance the theater experience

Did you know that the art of theater is 2500 years old? Since the theater genre in its western edition had its tentative beginnings in Ancient Greece, through time it has undergone meager changes and so has the view upon how a theater can be lighted in the best way. In other words, the art of theater has gone through a continuous development in the last 2500 years and today theater is seen as entertainment which both can be performed by professionals and amateurs.

Going to the theater can be a joyful experience and it can bring a cultural contribution to the busy everyday life. Today there exist many different kinds of theater: amateur theaters, musicals and children’s theaters to mention a few. But one thing all these genres have in common is the huge importance of the right lighting solution. Lighting of the stage is a crucial tool in setting the right atmosphere and in supporting the dramatic action. Thus, lighting has an enormous influence on the way the audience is experiencing the show. In other words, a scene without optimal lighting cannot provide the best conditions for performance for the actors as well as it cannot provide the optimal experience for the audience. The lighting designer working on the show is working with four functions for the stage lighting:

• Visibility: The light creates visibility on stage
• Motivation: The light must look natural
• Composition: The light is a part of the rest of the scenic design
• Mood: The light must create the wanted ambiance at stage
• Intensity: How high light intensity shall the lamps have?
• Distribution: From which angle and direction shall the lighting light up the stage?
• Color: Which color shall the light have?
• Movement: Shall the lamps be able to move and project light in a movement?
• A good lighting type on the market today is LED, and LED is seen by many professionals and experts as the most optimal lighting existing today. Therefore, you can with advantage consider installing a LED solution in the theater. But why is LED so popular? The short answer is, that there are a lot of reasons for that because LED has so many advantages when it comes to quality, economy and the environment. The massive use of LED today both in homes, business and urban lighting is highly due to the fact that LED is full of advantages both in relation to quality, economy, environment, and maintenance.

  In this blog, we have developed a small guide to inspire you to how a theater with advantage can be lighted up with LED luminaires for the benefit of both performers and audience.

  • Lighting of the foyer and the audience: In these areas, it is important to have a nicely designed lighting solution as well as lighting which can help people orientate themselves. For this purpose, our product NS66 is the optimal choice. The unique luminaire has a beautiful wall washing effect on the walls which both creates an exclusive atmosphere as well as the right light for orientating oneself.
  • Spotlighting of objects: If you want detailed lighting of special objects on or off stage a powerful LED spot can be used with advantage. These luminaires work perfectly for lighting up specific objects which you want the audience to notice. For this job, our spot luminaire NS73 can be used.
  • Stage lighting: As mentioned above there are a lot of things to take into consideration when installing effective stage lighting. Thus, are are no ‘one size fits all’ solution and there exists no LED luminaire to fulfill all the lighting needs at the stage. However, a fundamental type of lighting used on stage in most shows is projector lighting. A good guess at a luminaire for this type of lighting is our model NS80 which can work perfectly as projector lighting with its highlighting quality and intensity properties.

AREND