How do you put together a lighting rig that can go together and be setup QUICK for your band or church? What do you do when you can’t/don’t have any haze or fog in the air?

The impact of being able to get haze in the air for your lighting is huge so if you are able to in any way go for it! But what if you are in a small venue location which does not allow such things such as haze or other aspects of creating atmosphere?

Shifting Focus

One way to work with the atmosphere of a small venue is to shift focus from putting lights behind the band to putting lights in front of the band. Putting moving lights and patterns on the lead singer occasionally looks okay and will definitely be something that you do during parts of the show or service but when you don’t have atmosphere you will find that crossing the beams and doing different shapes through the air won’t really have the great impact you are likely hoping for.

What will give a great impact though, is lighting the surfaces around you. Whether the lights are behind or on the sides you can easily use them to light the ceiling as well as make them softer or sharper to give off different effects. You can also spread them out a bit to come over the audience.

Even if you don’t have a lot of space to work with you will find that there is, in actuality, a lot you can still do creatively with your lighting.

Dance Floor

Another aspect that you have to work with is the dance floor. If you are lighting a smaller stage and you’ve got a dance floor to work with, take the opportunity and roll with it. Oftentimes the dance floor is often in the dark so you can get by with a couple small moving lights and still create a great effect.

Working with lighting the dance floor opens up a lot of opportunities as far as what you can do with your lights. You can move them around periodically to light the band or drummer or singer or dance floor intermittently to shift focus and create a unique feel in the atmosphere without fog or haze.

Conclusion

When you can’t make use of your atmosphere, use the surfaces around you instead. This can include floor, ceiling, walls, props, and entertainers. The shifting of the lights from one to another creates motion and depth even when you only have a small area to work with.

You will find that you don’t have to worry about setting up a large back truss with a ton of lights or anything else over the top. The beauty of working with a small venue is that you in fact don’t need these large set ups. Instead work with the space you have using moving lights, strip lights, or both and get as creative as you want to with your workspace.