Stage Lighting With Leds

Many theatre companies and playhouses are under severe budget pressures in this economic climate

. Unfortunately when things get tough, one thing people cut down on is entertainment, meaning it's harder to get people through the door to see performances.

Keeping costs down is an important part of keeping many theatres open - reducing the costs means the hard earned money can be spent on other more important things.

One factor that does cost a lot of money for many theatres is the stage lighting. These are typically high powered, high energy consuming lights that are used to light the stage. Whilst you can't do away with stage lighting at all, you can make it more energy, and hence more cost, efficient.

Using LED's or Light Emitting Diodes for lighting your stage reduces the energy consumption of the lights without reducing the effectiveness of the lighting.

There are three main types of LED lighting commonly used in performances - PAR cans (used in place of PAR lamps), Strip lights and moving head types. The latter can be lines of LED's on a yoke or often conventional moving head lighting where the bulbs have been replaced with LED's.

LED lighting has taken off and is proving very popular, with shows such as the recent Radiohead tour using nothing but LED lighting. However, because LED lighting can be more expensive to buy it hasn't gained mainstream acceptance yet - it is still often only used for audience blinders or as side, top or back lighting.

One disadvantage of LED lighting is that it struggles to create a hard edge beam because it has multiple bulbs (lots of LED's). It also struggles with colour mixing because it uses multiple LED's of different colours. You find that with mixed colours you often have shadows with multiple edges with different colours showing. However, technology is advancing and these negatives are being minimised whilst the positives are being maximised.

A big advantage of using LED lighting on your stage is the low heat output. This allows LED instruments to be placed where traditional lighting could not have been used. The heat output is so low that LED lights are used to light ice sculptures!

You will find that LED instruments are easier to control directly from a DMX and do not require any additional dimmers - their brightness is controlled by onboard electronics. Because they use such a low amount of power you can also daisy chain multiple instruments from a single power supply.

When it comes to choosing your LED lighting you can pick lights with different coloured LED's in - usually it is Red, Green, Blue or White. By adjusting the output colours you can change the colour and intensity of the light. LEDs also having a very long service life compared to traditional lighting. Whilst LED lighting is more expensive at the moment, this is offset by the reduced cost of use and the much longer life span of the bulbs.

LED lighting is ideal for the stage - it is easy to use, cheap to run and very flexible. The technology is advancing daily and you can expect to see more LED lighting in stage performances over the coming years.

by: Mit

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