Monday, July 08, 2013

Why hire specialty professionals

When selecting vendors for your event, there is the option of a one-stop shop or a specialty shop.  This blog post explains the benefit of selecting the best all around fit of services.  From Scratch Weddings blog written by Lighting Designer James Bedell.  You can find the entire blog post here.  ~Beth Reyes, Lead Production Technician Solus Lighting LTD


Wedding DJs are necessarily limited in the lighting statements they can make. 
The typical DJ has a stock of lighting they’ve purchased as part of an inventory. Financially speaking, they treat these lighting elements just like audio gear. By investing in this equipment and building a rental fee into their contract price they pay back the cost of the gear and eventually begin making a profit. By investing in what they see as universal gear, they will rent it over and over again until they recoup their investment.
The problem with that approach is that sound and light are fundamentally different. While the same audio rig can work well for a wide variety of wedding scenarios, lighting gear will rarely work that way. To be even more specific about it, what makes the music for your wedding special is what we hear, not what speakers make the sound. But in lighting it’s what we see, and what we see is directly related to what gear is chosen.
Fight the Trends
Because DJs are buying gear to appeal to widest swath of the market, they are forced to follow the current decor trends. Currently, it’s all about uplighting. Wireless color changing LED uplights are all the rage because they are easy to set up and give a simple bold lighting statement. I’m not here to tell you that uplighting is bad. I’m here to tell you that it’s a trend. Part of the reason you’re seeing it everywhere is because it’s so easy for DJs to buy and use. But trends come and go. Remember when it was all about smoke and lasers? Remember those spinning globes that shot light in all directions? Hey, remember the disco ball? These were all lighting trends of different eras.
Design the Look You Want
When you hire a great DJ you get to talk about what you expect to hear during your wedding. The really good DJs like Scratch Weddings will ask you about your musical tastes, what to avoid, what makes you dance, about what your families like, etc. Lighting should be no different. Great wedding lighting should be designed to make your big day look and feel amazing to you. More than anything it should be personal, not cookie cutter. A DJ can’t do that anymore than a lighting guy can give you great music.
Bottom Line
Lighting is a separate skill from providing music and it should be treated as such. If you want great wedding lighting hire a lighting designer (like me!!)