Event Design Collaboration with your AV Team

Expressing the design vision for your event to an AV team is not always the easiest task. I’m here today to give you some language to use and point you to the information you probably already have that you can share with your production design team to give us an idea of who your organization is and what kind of event you envision.

Here are some hard assets we can use at jumping-off points. First, your content. PowerPoint decks can show us the color and text styles and inform our lighting color choices or motion graphics design. Transition slides can even give ideas for moving light effects. Pre-made video content can give us a lot of information to work from. Tempo and emotional tenor of your event, color themes, and possibly musical preferences.

For corporate clients, I find it’s very helpful to look at the brand manuals. I love matching Pantone numbers to lighting colors. The logo text and spacing information are incredibly helpful to our graphics team.

You probably have some assets from other vendors you didn’t even know could help us personalize your event. Floral design information is incredibly useful to us to determine proper table lighting. Some taller arrangements necessitate different lighting, angles, and highlights. We can also match the color combinations within the arrangements to multi-colored floor lighting or push those color themes into the up-lighting. Linen, plaiting, and furniture images can also help guests scan a great idea of the color and textural themes of your event.

Perhaps you have a design concept and you need some help fleshing it out. Well, every design concept starts with a basic idea. While we can’t show you all the elements of the theme here today in the studio, here are some rough lighting looks that are representational of a few event concepts.

Are you ready? Crank up the excitement, it is time for a carnival. Here we have alternating high contrast colors, high energy effects, and lots of playfulness in the movement and colors of lighting. A Barker character costume would fit perfectly here. What else would fit in this theme? Gaudy overhead fabrics and linens, some overhead stringer lighting, and playful scenic signs with embedded lighting over zones. There is a lot of content to work with here.

Welcome to the jungle. Some leaf breakup gobos, warm, blush, and amber colors, soft lighting movement, green background, but no green person lighting that makes people look awful. Some strong key light pickup that presents as if beams of light were coming through a canopy, some soft fill from the other side in a warmer color, ambient jungle noises throughout the space, hanging vines, tree scenic, and natural color motives and linens would work very well in this theme.

Cyberpunk is hot, hot, hot right now, with strong pink and purple accents, dramatic cool, single, source key light. Only during walk-on, walk-off, and performances, heavy filmed wall backlighting and shadows with powerful background colors, silhouetting a dim figure make for dramatic futuristic looks. LED neon trim, glitch effects, transitions, and videos. LED giveaways and costume lighting trim, if possible can all add to the color everywhere, aspect of cyberpunk.

Don’t be afraid to talk with your AV team about design. It’s one of our favorite subjects. As visual people, we strive for unified design with our AV in concert with your design theme and your other vendors. Event design is a team effort and we’re looking to help you achieve your design aesthetic however possible.