Floodlight rental

What floodlights do

Floodlights are powerful fixtures that cast a broad pool of light to make large surfaces bright. Where much stage lighting is about atmosphere and colour, function comes first with a floodlight: it ensures a space, a facade or a work area gets enough light to see what is happening. That makes the floodlight one of the most practical tools in a lighting setup, less spectacular than a moving head, but often indispensable.

The power of a floodlight lies in the combination of output and spread. It delivers a lot of light and distributes it across a broad surface, so you can illuminate a large area with a limited number of fixtures. A ground, a car park at an outdoor event, a facade or a large work space is bright in one go. Because the light fans out broadly, there are no hard, small patches but even coverage.

The difference from ambient lighting is the intention. Ambient lighting colours a space and sets the mood, while a floodlight ensures you can see at all. In many productions you use both side by side: floodlights for the functional light you need to stay safe and workable, and alongside them ambient and accent lighting for the experience. The floodlight is the layer you often do not consciously notice, but which the whole event rests on.

Where you use floodlights

Floodlights come into their own most with large surfaces and outdoor situations. At an outdoor event they light a ground, an entrance or a parking area, so guests can walk safely and the whole location stays usable after sunset. For a party or company celebration in a large hall or marquee they provide the base lighting on which you then build the atmosphere.

At a corporate event you use floodlights to light a facade, an entrance or a large stage area. A lit facade instantly gives a location allure and makes the entrance recognisable. The same works at openings, anniversaries and product launches, where the exterior of the building becomes part of the presentation.

Floodlights are also often needed functionally. During the setup and breakdown they provide the work light with which crews can build safely, and at locations without their own lighting they form the base with which you make the space workable. Where you use them less is for fine atmospheric accents or intimate moments, because the light is too broad and too functional for that. In those cases we combine the floodlights with more refined fixtures that handle the dressing.

The technology behind floodlights

Output and spread

A floodlight is characterised by its light output and the width of its beam. The higher the output, the larger the surface you can light evenly, and the further you can stand from the surface. The beam angle determines whether the light is narrow and directed or fans out broadly. For a large facade you choose a wider angle, for a specific surface at a distance a narrower one. We make these judgements based on the dimensions and the distance on site.

White light and colour

For purely functional lighting we work with bright, neutral white, because that gives the best visibility and comes across most naturally. Many of our floodlights can also mix the full colour spectrum, so you can set a facade or a surface in colour with them too. This makes the same fixture usable for both work light and architectural dressing, depending on what your event calls for.

Control and dimming

We control floodlights via DMX, which lets us regulate the brightness and, for coloured fixtures, the tones and transitions. That dimming is useful: during setup you turn the work light fully up, and once the event begins you dim the functional lighting back so the atmosphere takes over. If you want to approach the lighting as a larger whole, with scenes for the different phases of your evening, we combine the floodlights with the rest of the lighting from a single plan.

Outdoors and safety

For outdoor use and damp conditions we use fixtures suited to it. Weatherproof floodlights withstand rain and moisture, and we arrange a safe power supply with cables that are neatly tucked away and protected from water. We match the choice of the right fixtures and the setup to your location and the weather forecast beforehand, so the lighting stays reliable even in less favourable conditions.

The placement also deserves attention. Powerful floodlights give a lot of light, and we aim it so guests do not look straight into it and no troublesome glare occurs on walking routes or sightlines. We watch the angle at which the light falls and the transition between lit and dark areas, so the coverage stays even and pleasant. That attention to comfort and safety makes the difference between functional light that feels pleasant and light that gets in the way.

Setup, testing and operation on site

On the day itself we place the floodlights according to the design, aim them at the right surfaces and set the brightness and, where applicable, the colours. Then we test the coverage in practice, check that the whole surface is lit evenly and correct angles that cause glare or dark patches. That test on site is important, because the actual distances and surfaces ultimately determine how the light falls.

During the event we can handle the operation ourselves, so we dim the functional lighting back at the right moment and let the atmosphere take over, or we set everything fixed and briefly explain how to regulate the brightness yourself. For larger productions the lighting runs along with the rest of the show.

If you only want to collect and place a few floodlights yourself, individual rental without support is available through SpeakerVerhuur.nl, the webshop of Speaker Verhuur Amsterdam. If you are after a managed result where the coverage and the safety are arranged, HuurAV takes the design, the setup, the testing and the operation entirely off your hands. Request a no-obligation quote.