On Stage Lighting » Band Lighting

Concert Lighting Techniques – Know The Rig or The Show?

Rob Sayer — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:20:45 +0000

In the run up to the season of outdoor concerts and music festivals here in the UK, On Stage Lighting looks at a reality in concert lighting, the benefits of having different information and asks you “Which is more important to you? Knowing the music or knowing the rig?”.

It’s a secret kept from the Billy Bunters, but a large proportion of concert lighting is the product of the unknown. Wrangling a lack of information is the stock in trade for many techs in the concert and events business. A lot of shows are done on the fly by people who really should be paid more for their talent and creative techniques.

I was recently called in as “house lampie” at a local venue. The band to play that night had all the usual, sound crew, backline techs but no dedicated LD as such. For lighting, I checked and prepared the house rig in anticipation of either having to run the show myself or hand it over to their regular Tour Manager who was arriving later in the day. A bit of busking programming done, palettes checked and tweaked, faults sorted.

An hour or so before the support act went on, I’m stood the desk and feel a presence before seeing the familiar sight of a hand to be shaken, names to be exchanged – the aforementioned Tour Manager. Standing there, between the TM and myself, we had the full picture: I’d used the rig a few times before and had programmed a few pages of subs for busking, he knew the show and the music, down to the last beat.

The usual conversation takes place, more often in a leaky Kwikform FOH tower as sounds of rain and crowd anticipation filter though the earplugs. I run through the kit, the programming I’ve done and we discuss who will run the show. He’s not the band’s LD per se and is a bit rusty on the desk, so having listened to what I’ve created for him work with, he requests a couple additional tools to be programmed and we leave the question of who is running the show open for now.

Show time. I run lighting for the support act, of course. They are OK, pretty dynamic and I busk some decent looks together with movement and accents when it’s obvious. I know where everything is on the desk, so can play along quite well. Having worked there a few times recently, I also know the rig well enough to know all those little things that can add up to a good stage picture, angles that work well and nice balances between fixtures. But I don’t know what they are going to be playing or what is coming next The result is good, however.

Time for the main act. TM decides that he fancies running the show and will see how it goes, I hover to field questions. It goes well, the lighting is obviously a different style, not just because everyone has different eyes but also because there is a limit to what you can do having only just walked up to an alien desk and rig. He excels in knowing every song, every beat and every break – dynamically right on the money.

It started me thinking about the nature of busking concert lighting from different perspectives. So, why not look at those perspectives and break them down to analyse their strong and weak points?

Knowing The Rig

Give me a rig for a second night, and I will create better lighting than last night. Last year I was depping for a friend of mine for two days on an indoor festival. His rig was nicely flexible and the focus good (really can’t over emphasise the importance of a good focus, eh?) – I created a page of subs for my own use even though he and I use a console in a similar way. The first day went well, you can feel your command of the stage growing as you get used to the kit and programming – after all, this is your instrument. On the second day, I added some of my own “hey, I’ve got time” special palettes and tweaked a few things. Result? Really kick ass lighting!!

So, what’s good and bad about knowledge of the rig and the programming?

This is your instrument – it’s helps if you’ve played it before.
Able to concentrate without thinking about the technicalities of doing stuff – heads up, looking at the stage.
Understanding of what really doesn’t work with what you have.
You have found those happy accidents: good positions or angles, fixtures that catch something nicely or colours that work well.
You have more time to see.

But

Never quite sure what song is coming up, in order to choose colour combinations and nail them every time. Erk, this isn’t a blue song?
While you can react to dynamics and a lot of music is pretty predictable, you are always slightly following.

Tactics and Techniques?

Use time you save looking at the desk to constantly evaluate the stage picture, you don’t need to mentally compute what you are doing so use your energy to keep looking and keep up with what’s happening visually and musically. Line up your best base layers (like decent colour washes), use them to underscore more complex stuff and to return to when you need to “stop all that a-wagglin’ and a a-strobin’, like, yesterday!” Always know how to stop stuff like chases and movements instantly. If you don’t get the beats, do something that isn’t a rockin’ out bump fest, movement speeds or even shutter chases that are more textural and less beat dependant.

Knowing The Show

Just like the previous perspective, give me a second show and it’ll be better than the first. In the world of concerts and events, many shows only happen once and often with little rehearsal. After a while you get used to the idea that you all do your best as professionals, what happens happens. But doing a rare show for a second time helps you remember how much better it can be and the luxury of rehearsing.

You know the set, you can be ready for the next thing. Colours parked up, specials ready to go.
Hardly miss a beat and aren’t surprised by a sudden stop (there is nothing worse than moving lights still moving when they obviously shouldn’t be)

but

May be not aware of all the tools available or the capabilities of the rig
Haven’t tried out different combinations or looks
You may spend more time looking at the console than the stage

Tactics and Techniques?

Your show is made by hitting that beat, so make sure you have the ways and means to bump like a demon. Three intensity subs work for me, or split the blinders into two sets. Keep them on your free hand (left hand on many consoles) so you can select and adjust other fixtures while keeping the beat.

Concert Lighting – Ideal vs Reality

Obviously, in an ideal world we’d all have the rig of our dreams, plenty of rehearsals and everything would be just dandy. But like we said at the start, a lot of concert lighting is created using the only information available. That may be a knowledge of the kit or of the show but often, it ain’t both.

Geek Out: Lighting Techniques – What submasters were used?

As an aside and for your interest, here is the recipe for the secret lighting sauce that night. All submasters are programmed as attribute only faders (not whole fixtures) to retain flexibility. A rundown of the subs used in addition to the usual fixture selection tools and palettes that would do the bulk of the work.

Generics

Not may generics in the rig: Front fill light, Specials Intensity (Source Fours with Apollo Right Arms, position set by palettes), House Lights.

Intelligent Intensities

Get those fixtures on: Washes, Spots, Scans, PixelLine intensity on individual subs
Make those fixtures chase: Same deal, shutter chase, fader position controls speed.
Strobe: Make some of the rig strobe. Different strobes according to fader position, strobe released on fader out.

Bump Splits

Intensities, splitting the rig into three sets: For beat bumps and kickin‘ that beam structure around the roof.
PixelLine: PL intensities, split across 2 bump subs. All together now, Flip, Flop etc.

Movement/Position

Moves with speed controlled by fader position: Circle, Tilt Saw for both Scans and Washes. Could have used simple Pan Only Saw and Tilt Only Saw and mixed them but it uses up too many subs on several fixtures types, so Pan Saw was left out for the rig layout in question.

OUT: This is my all time favourite sub and one I use on most concert shows. It’s a position only Crowd position controlled by fader. Fade in, the heads all move out from their starting point on stage, fade back, they return. Move position by fader means that you can also do quick moves DJ style especially with scanners. In this case, there were no dedicated blinders.

So, there you have it. A hand full of subs for a truck full of shows.

What do you think?

During the show, I asked the question on Facebook and Twitter : “Which is more important to you? Knowing the music or knowing the rig?” which received a range of responses. Some came down on the side of knowing the instrument well enough to be able to play along while others suggested that knowing the show was the better option, being able to hit every beat was desirable.

This is an interactive so let us know what you think. In that situation, would you rather know the setup or the show? And what are your own approaches and techniques in these different situations? Come over and put your comments in the box below as usual

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Using Submasters for Busking Band Lighting

Rob Sayer — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:25:09 +0000

Following Concert Lighting Programming in 30 mins, Dimitris asked for more information on organising submasters/playbacks when lighting a concert. So here it is – ideas on how to layout your lighting console playbacks for simplicity and flexibility.

In Concert Lighting… we looked at using bits of programmed data, palettes and memories, as building blocks to create lighting looks “on the fly”. Each lighting op has their own pet way of laying out their desk (the guest LD who changed all my groups last week – me fumbling around trying to select fixtures for the support act!). This article is relevant to anyone who uses a console with some moving light control and submaster playbacks.

Busking Your Show

Playing back your show, you might only have access to 10 submaster faders at one time plus the ability to change pages. Memories can be only replayed with adjacent faders, so think about the vertical layout – how the memories on submasters stack on top of each other by sub page. The word “stack” here is going to refer to submaster memories that are on the same fader, different page.

Live and Trigger Memories

The programming on the cheat sheet relies heavily on Palettes, so few actual memories are programmed. If you prefer submasters or your desk doesn’t support many palettes, the layout of your subs is even more important.

A Dimmer or Intensity Submaster is usually only “live” on stage when physically faded up. If you use similar programming to the Concert Programming Cheat Sheet, these are the PAR colour washes and moving spot dimmer memories. Movement chases or shapes also must stay up to be live on stage, as are any LED colour submasters that are HTP. We’ll call these “Live” Memories.

Trigger memories, such as Strobe On, Colour Red or Prism Rotate, only need to be triggered by raising a fader or hitting a submaster flash button. These submasters, once activated, don’t have to remain faded up – in fact, you should get into the habit of clearing them once the moving lights have responded. This ensures you don’t end up with extra faders up, confusing when you are changing pages. Activating Trigger memories has a similar effect to choosing palettes for selected fixtures – it makes them do something else.

Choosing Submaster Layout

Understanding the two memory types, helps us decide on which memories not to stack on top of each other. You don’t want to have to “lose” your blue PAR wash, just to fire a new gobo into your waggly spots. So, stacking up Live memories with Trigger memories is avoided. Don’t forget that PAR colour washes can be instantly pushed up while fiddling with the next moving spot look, so keep them handy.

The image shows a selection of methods for ordering submaster memories over 3 pages. It is not a “real” layout but demonstrates the points below.

The memory types can also help you to choose subs that you can stack on top of each other. Maybe you won’t use a Spot Dimmer 100% sub at the same time as Spot Dimmer Chase, so they can stack up. Perhaps you could stack up a Circle Shape/Chase with a Pan Saw for the same reason – you are unlikely to run them both at once.

Each submaster page might have a few live memories, colour washes etc and a few trigger subs. The next page might have duplicates of some of the live memories, plus different triggers.

Duplicate subs are often used, to provide easy access to common Live memories on several submaster pages. There are two common ways to layout dupes.

Stacked – These memories, particularly colour washes, are stacked on top of each other. They have the benefit of the memory being on the same fader, even on different pages. The disadvantage is this approach can eat up submasters.

Diagonal – Stacking related attribute submasters diagonally has the advantage of being able to cut down the number of slots taken up by Live memories on each page. For example, put Blue Wash on Sub 1/ Page 1, Magenta on Sub 2 / Page 2 , Amber Sub 3 / Page 3 etc. This has the effect of putting similar memories (in this case Colours) “diagonally” across several pages (the yellow block in the image), giving flexiblity in using different memory types together. It’s a concept used by some Avolites Pearl operators but it’s not so easy without the famous Roller.

Confused?

There’s no place like home.

Whatever layout you choose for your subs, you always need to know where you are. You can cut down “page confusion” by doing a number of things.

Create a Home Submaster Page – A lovely little page with all your favourite and most used stuff that you can feel at home in. When you have been off wandering across 6 pages of subs to get to the Freaky Techno Strobe sub, come right back before you end up staying amongst all those whacky effects you don’t remember programming. The home page could contain a “safety” look, Strobe Off or a “Just stop doing that , FFS!” memory as well as the basis of your show, good ol’ PAR washes.

Use only a few pages – A palette heavy programming style means you can fit a few colour washes, chases and shape or two on only 10 playbacks. If you need a bit more room, try using 1 page above and 1 page below your Home subs. 3 pages of good subs does plenty.

Get much further away from safety and you are asking for confusion. Straying across several pages, you end up with a handful of submaster faders running that you can’t quite recall what they do. Or even which page they are on.

Using Preset Faders

Assuming that your lighting desk allows, using Preset faders to push up dimmer levels can free up submasters for better uses. You don’t really need those Vocal spots on a sub or even your audience blinders. The layout of your preset faders is helpful here – different groups of lights in clusters next to each other. Use the whole desk, even the cue stack playback.

Find your own system

Everyone develops their own style when organising playbacks. Despite being a serial Avolites Pearl user, I have tried to keep the information to general ideas that can be used with any desks with submasters and pages. If you have any particular favourites playback tips or don’t understand anything, let us know in the comments section.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Concert Lighting Programming in 30 Minutes

Rob Sayer — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 19:53:22 +0000

In the middle of summer(?) music festival madness, On Stage Lighting gives you a 30 minute schedule and a cheat sheet to help program up your lighting desk for three days of bands. The mud has been removed from this article for reasons of hygiene.

Ok, so you missed out on running a desk at Glastonbury this year but on your own stage you’ve got some moving spots and a load of PAR64s – the usual festival rig. There are three days of school kid bands, tribute acts and questionable hot dogs stretching ahead of you.

What are we trying to achieve?

Indoors or out, programming lights for multiple music acts is about flexibility. Creating different looks that are suitable for every act – even the German Oompah band.

Your programming must be easy to use, particularly if you will also be host to incoming guest Lighting Designers. They may get time to do their own programming, but it helps if your work is well organised.

Programming a lighting desk for flexibility is not about recording as many memories as you can. Creating lighting “ingredients” is key, so here is our tick list for flexible lighting programming.

The Important Bit

Programming moving lights for best “buskability” is about recording “building blocks”, palettes and memories, that you can instantly recall to create killer looks during the show. Elements such as colours, positions or movement are recorded separately and overlaid on demand – this is called recording “by attribute” (or by channel, partial memories etc.). Check your console manual for the details of this facility.

Programming your moving lights this way leaves you without “whole” looks in your desk. It’s flexible but does mean that operating a show will take some concentration. If you need a fall back, you could always program some full “safety”looks to push up when you run out of ideas (or fingers).

We’ve only got 30 minutes so we’d better get on with the programming.

Lighting Programming Cheat Sheet

The quick festival programming cheat sheet is in PDF format. Let’s look at the details.

Generics / Conventional Lighting

Get your PARs done. Subs for colour washes – Blue, Reds Amber, Whatever. Just 2 chases – Cold Chase (blues, lavenders, steels); Warm Chase (reds, ambers, pinks). You should be able to alter the chase speed and 2 or 3 steps per chase is fine.

Moving Light Programming

(don’t forget – record only relevant attributes!)

Groups – Quick selection of moving lights that are used for the rest of your programming AND during the show.
All Spots
Front/Rear Spots – Whatever makes sense for your rig layout.
Odds and Evens – Or a way of selecting half of your Spots for “two colour” looks.

Once fixture selection is out of the way, next up is…

Dimmer/Intensity

All Spots @ 100% submaster. This will be used in your show and be the basis of the rest of your programming. The fixtures need to be lit up to continue, so leave this sub @ full from now on. Make sure that your desk doesn’t record Dimmer @ 100% in all your other programming, though.

Dimmer/Intensity Chase – While we’re doing Intensity, a variable speed chase of your spots is useful.

Palettes

While playing back your show, palettes allow you to apply colours, gobos and other settings to selected moving lights. If your desk doesn’t support palettes, you can try programming them as “by attribute” submaster memories – bit of a pain.

Get your moving spots pointing at the wall/floor, so you can see what the beam is doing.

Colour Palettes – Instead of using auto generated palettes, pick some colours that compliment your PARs. Don’t waste time filling up your palettes with hundreds of colours you are never going to use. Programming 6 – 8 colour palettes is plenty.

Colour wheel spin – Why not add in a colour changing palette for cheesy disco type looks? Colour spin speed is chosen based on how “bangin’” your gig is likely to be.

Gobo Palettes
Again, choose gobos you are likely to use including a “beam splitter” gobo to use through haze.. Rotating gobos are most useful for moving effects. Set a Gobo focus at the same time.

Gobo Rotate – Fast / Slow / Stop. Speeds down to personal preference. Attributes like this need a “Stop” palette to halt them when required.

Shutter and Iris – Strobe On / Strobe Off / Random Strobe. Iris Wide / Iris Tight (for “pencil thin” beams)

Prism Palettes – Off / On No Spin / Spin. You can record a two spin speeds if you like.

Position Palettes – Spend a little time setting up your positions but don’t forget that you can tidy them up later (when it’s not so sunny).

Positions such as Up, Down, In, Out, Audience, Cross, Down Stage Centre, Drums etc. Set yourself a limit – 10 positions go a long way. If you record positions as partial memories, set a fade time of 3 seconds so they don’t crash into place, it looks better.

Finally, some Movement.

Shapes or Chases – Pan Saw / Tilt Saw / Another that you like ( diamond, square etc). Some consoles allow to adjust the size/speed “on the fly” – very useful. If not, then a bit more work recording Fast, Slow versions.

The moves are most useful if you can change their “centre point” with your position palettes, so only record the movement – not the actual position of your fixtures.

So that’s it. You could spend hours adding split colours or fancy positions but the elements on the cheat sheet list will give a wide range of lighting looks. Ok, if you are new to programming this might take you a bit longer that 30 minutes but with a bit of practice you could do it in 20.

Lighting programming is about a clear set of goals and an efficient use of your programming time – something that is harder if you don’t have a theatre style plotting sheet. A simple tick list can help you get it done.

If you have any questions or comments about programming or busking the lighting for a concert or festival, put them in box below.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Band Lighting Gels – Best Filter Colours To Light Your Gig

Rob Sayer — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 10:09:14 +0000

Thinking about lighting for your band, you think colour. A few really cheap PAR cans with coloured gels in them can transform the mood of your stage. Stage lighting filters are available in hundreds of different gel colours so On Stage Lighting did an unscientific straw poll of some stage lighting designers to find out their best filter colours for lighting a small band gig – to help you choose your own.

There are several different manufacturers of lighting gels but Lee Filters in Europe and Rosco in the USA, are the most popular. Because we spoke to a number of LD’s in the UK, their favourite band lighting gel numbers were mostly in Lee Filters numbers, which are traditional in the UK. We have added Rosco Supergel/Roscolux similar equivalent numbers (R##) and many of the stage lighting filter manufacturers have been starting to align their colour index to match up with their competitors. A good expample of this is the Rosco E-colour range, which matches the traditional Lee lighting gels while the Lee 0## gels are similar colours to the traditional Rosco Supergel filters.

Image by Herkie

The filters are chosen to give you maximum impact while maintaining a fairly good light output, so the gels are all strong colours that are the backbone of stage lighting for a band gig.

Red Lighting Gels

No band gig is complete without some red lighting and these gel colours are the best reds in the live music business:

Lee 106 Primary Red (R026): The original red lighting gel, this gives a warm fiery red light.
Lee 027 Medium Red (R027): A good all purpose red gel that does what it says on the tin.
Lee 046 Dark Magenta (R046): A really deep red gel that is much less hot or orange than previous filters.

Amber/Orange/Yellow Lighting Gels

A warm amber gel is great for those upbeat cheerful songs and give a bit of sunlight amongst all those moody blues and lavenders:

Lee 105 Orange (R15): This gel is actually a really nice rich yellow colour that is warm and not too green.
Lee 134 Golden Amber (R321): The traditional amber for band lighting. Slightly more orange than L105.
Lee 777 Rust (R2002): A deep brownish orange gel that is great if you don’t want your colour too yellow.

Blue Lighting Gels

From moody Jazz gigs to huge boy-band spectaculars, blue is the biggest thing there is in band stage lighting design. Blue gels always look great. It can be worth putting “doubling up” (using twice as many blue stage lights as other colours) your blue lights as the light output for a really good rock ‘n’ roll blue is less than other filters:

Lee 079 Just Blue (R079): A vibrant blue that is not too green and not too purple. It also has a high-ish light output.
Lee 721 Berry Blue (R074): A deepish moody blue gel that can produce both warm and cold blue light.
Lee 120 Deep Blue (R384): A really deep dark blue that still has a decent light output. Lee 119 is slightly lighter.
Lee 181 Congo Blue (R382): No band stage lighting is complete without Congo Blue. Dark and moody purple/blue that is sometimes incorrectly called UV or Ultra Violet. A fantastic lighting gel though you don’t get much light through it.

Lavender/Purple/Pink Lighting Gels

The ability to look warm or cold gives lavender a useful place in band stage lighting. You can’t be without some of these lighting gels. Pink lighting doesn’t have to be too camp or Burleque. A good deep pink can go with blues or ambers (or green, if you like the halloween look):

Lee 180 Dark Lavendar (R337): Dark enough to be worth using while still give a decent amount of purple light.
Lee 142 Pale Violet (R355): A light violet/lavender gel that has a good light output and a bit of useful colour.
Lee 126 Mauve (R049): Proper band lighting deep pink for rock ‘n’roll.
Lee 328 Follies Pink (R344): Camp and Broadway-ish for all you disco queens. Also Lee 128 Bright Pink.

Green Lighting Gels

The least used colour gel in band stage lighting is green. It makes the band look ill and make the audience feel pretty sick. Most of our lighting designers would not actually choose any green gels [Update: Unless you are lighting a Death Metal band - as pointed out by Kjitel]. We have picked a couple of green filter colours anyway:

Lee 116 Medium Blue/Green (R095): This sea green/blue was pretty much as green as we could stand. Good light shining on metalwork such as drumkits.
Lee 124 Dark Green (R??): A space age metallicky green that would be OK on sets or backdrops.
Lee 089 Moss Green (R089): A warm dark yellowy green has a organic, nature feel about it. Not sure how useful that is for band lighting, though.

White Band Lighting Colours

The light you get from a normal PAR Can without a gel is pretty yellow. The big live music gigs get their really bright cold light out of a different kind of stage lighting bulb that is fitted to their expensive moving lights. This sort cold while light is pretty tricky to achieve with normal lighting gel but you can try Lee 201 Full CTB or Lee ~~201~~ 202 Half CTB to make your lights seem colder. Any kind of very light blue filter will make the yellow light of a tungsten PAR bulb less warm.

If you would like to add your favourite band lighting gels to this article, please leave us a comment below and let our readers know your best filters a simple music gig.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Band Stage Lighting – Make Your Gig A Concert

Rob Sayer — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 13:05:30 +0000

The question that most of us who do lighting get asked is “My band is doing a gig next week. What should we do about stage lighting?”. You would much rather by playing your bass but, as your keyboard player is in charge of sorting a PA system, you have been given the task of getting some stage lights. On Stage Lighting gives you the lowdown on band stage lighting for beginners.

Who cares about lighting! Let’s just get down.
Thanks to foreversouls for this image

Deciding what you need to light your band depends on the size of your gig but let’s assume that, as you are doing your own band lighting, it is not Wembley Stadium. Choosing your stage lights still involves exactly the same choices as those that face the Lighting Designer for the Stones (or Take That, if you prefer).

Power For Your Stage Lighting

The venue for your gig will have some(?) electricity so you can plug your gear in. You will need this to power your PA and backline gear so plugging lights into it is going to use more juice. Find out how much power is available and how it comes out of the wall (what kind of socket connections they have). In the pub venue in the UK, a single 13 Amp socket could provide up to 3000w of power and a 32 Amp ring main (a group of sockets wired together in the venue), up to around 7000w. With some band stage lighting equipment using up to 1000w watts each, you can see how important planning ahead is. And don’t forget that it might not only be your band that is using the power – what is supplying the bar and fridges? If you are in a venue with little power but you need lots of lighting, then LED lighting equipment could be the answer.

Rigging Equipment

This is what your stage lights are sitting on, hanging from or attached to. If the venue does not have any rigging positions you will probably want to use portable stands with cross pieces at the top (called T-bars). These stands mean that any stage lighting from the front shines down on you talented people, from a good angle, and over the heads of the crowd. It is standard practice to have at least two stands, one each side of the venue, with lighting shining at the band from the front (with theaudience). If possible, it is also great if you can have a lighting stand either side of your performance area, with lights shining across your band, or even from behind them. Other useful positions for band stage lighting is on the floor at the front or side of stage, including lighting for the drum kit.

Band Lighting Equipment

When you need your first band stage lighting equipment, you want it to be simple and cheap. The standard light for blasting light and colour at your band is the PAR Can. They come in different sizes and outputs but the stage light for a small band gig is the PAR56 , 300 watts of grunt with a frame on the front to place a coloured filter (gel) in. PAR cans also come in 500 watt and 1000 watt version and are brilliant, if you have the power. Eight to twelve of these Par56 little beauties would light your small band gig and leave some power for the PA on a 32 Amp ring main.

Lighting Control

If you and your bass are going to be locking the kick drum, you don’t want to worry much about lighting control. For band stage lighting on a small scale you have a few options:

Plug all your stage lights in a leave them on throughout your gig. Simple.
Let an automated chaser control your lights. This has 3 or more “channels” that you plug your stage lights into and it flashes them away to a timed beat or a sound feed from your PA.
Using a stage lighting control to “mix” your band lighting during the gig. This is a great option if have a mate/partner who can fiddle with the faders while you are getting down onstage.

If you choose an automated chaser unit, bear in mind that the your stage lights are powered through it, so if it only have a 13 amp plug on it, you can only plug in 3000 watts of lighting. If you think that your band deserves a stage lighting control and willing operator, you will need to get some dimmers to power/fade the lights. Some dimmers are available with integral fader controls so see what available in your area.

Disco Effects

There are plenty of cheap DJ and disco lights available that send out colours and patterns. These often move around to the beat of your band, using an internal microphone to control them. Just plug into an electricity supply and you’re away. These are particularly good for dancefloors and look amazing, despite being relatively cheap, when combined with smoke or haze to highlight the light beams. Oh, and if you are thinking that your 70’s covers band really needs a mirror ball, don’t forget to get some stage lights to shine at it. They don’t produce light on their own.

Band Stage Lighting – Hire or Buy?

If your band is going to be doing these kinds of gigs regularly, you might be considering clubbing together to buy your own lighting equipment. Before you part with your money, why not hire some lighting gear in to see what you like and how easy it is to set up. For more irregular shows or ones in different sizes and types of venues you might find that you would rather hire your band lighting in when you need it. It does mean that you don’t have to maintain it or store it in your garage.

Best of Luck.