Let there be light… And lighting was setup. Guests would have been eating in the dark if custom lighting was not created for this event. Well, except for that white light coming from the tennis courts. Never the less, it would not have been as beautiful and elegant as it turned out.
The Vision
HNO Productions has a good working relationship with Playa Largo Resort & Spa in Key Largo, Florida. One of their managers reached out to us for a lighting job that had never been done in that space. Like with many of our clients, due to something new being done, we scheduled a walk through to view the exact location with a lot more detail. During the walk through, the client had a couple of requirements for their vision, which consisted of an Italian-style intimate setting for their wine and dine event. One, they wanted rattan balls on the lights. Two, the lights needed to have different heights. In order to meet the client’s requirements, we needed to make sure we had the right equipment to do the job.
Equipment
First things first, we concentrate on the requirements provided by the client. We noticed the string lights that are normally sold with rattan balls are usually tiny and that was not going to create the affect the client was looking for. We ended up purchasing some wicker rattan balls that are bigger in size. We made sure that these rattan balls would allow for the light on the string lights to go into them. In addition, because the lights on the string are LED, the bulbs don’t get hot.
The second thing that came to mind was the lights on the string needed to have enough spacing in-between each light in order to create the different height and not make them look all bundled on top of each other. We ended up using string lights with 33-inches in between each light. This gave us the extra slack to create the different height with the lights.
A couple of other things were taken into consideration. We ended up using a dark brown rope to wrap around the tree that was not going to cause damage to the tree and at the same time was not going to stand out as an eye-soar. We also used something similar to what they call a string light kit, contains stainless steel wire, turnbuckles, and carabiners. Last but not least, determining the trees in specific that we were going to do uplighting on, we ended up using par lights due to the unevenness on the ground.
Let There Be Light
We arrived the evening prior to the event for setup, about two hours before sundown. The idea was to arrive with enough daylight to get everything setup and then turn on all the lighting for any last minute adjustments. The string lights setup took a little longer than anticipated but we worked through it and had it all up by the time the night sky rolled in. We then turned on the string lights and began working on the uplighting. We did not use battery-powered up-lights since we wanted to control the switching of the lights on and off. All the up-lights were put in place and the electrical wiring was run to the power source. Once completed, we made minor adjustments with the par lights to make sure they were lighting up the trees at their specific angles. We then stepped back and admired the creation we had produced for our client.