Brilliant LED decor

As applications for LED lights soar, so do opportunities to save money.

For special events, non-LED lighting is pretty much extinct,” says Phil Bergmann, director of special events for Q Entertainment Group in Toronto, Canada. “Any lighting you want to incorporate into an event, regardless of application, can be LED.”

Bergmann notes that in the past four or five years, applications for LED lighting have virtually exploded for the special event market, reducing labor costs and expanding options. “Because LED lighting has much greater intensity, you can cover more space with fewer fixtures,” he says. “And that translates into money saved.”

Sound Mind Events, McKinney, Texas, uses LED lighting strips in a variety of lighting applications. The full service event production company places the strips underneath opaque flooring, strings them along tent walls and ceilings or along the perimiter of staging to provide ambient lighting and complementary color schemes. “That kind of lighting is extremely effective for setting a mood,” says Tamara Mader, Sound Mind Event’s social media and marketing specialist. “The color combinations are almost limitless and you can easily program the lights to be static or flash in patterns.” The company is currently working on a project in which the dance floor has an embedded “skin” in the shape of bubbles. LED lights shining through the “skins” create the illusion that the floor is bubbling.

Tabletop decor is also experiencing LED transformations. Glass vases or centerpieces set atop LED “coasters” shimmer with programmed lighting. “By implementing LED coasters into your centerpieces instead of pinspot lighting, you’re removing additional labor costs from an AV company setting up the lighting, and the equipment rental that goes along with that,” Bergmann says. “You also avoid bulbs blowing.

“It’s an ongoing battle just keeping up with all the latest LED products. It seems every six months someone’s releasing another LED product.”