Applying Concert Lighting To Outdoor Areas For Electrifying Results

Have you ever been to a concert and been wowed by the impressive displays of lighting that seem to enhance the mood of the music being played? Indoor and outdoor concert lighting both make use of subtleties in order to highlight the band playing without being too overwhelming.

If you are looking for something new to do with your landscaping, then try to apply concert lighting outdoors in order to illuminate parts of your yard.

Light from the Back

While lighting in traditional theater usually comes from the front, with big floodlights and spotlights providing illumination to see the action, your outdoor concert lighting should come more from behind what you're trying to illuminate. Concert lighting is more to establish mood and identity than eliminate, and by putting your lighting in the rear and illuminating from behind, you will create more interesting plays of light and shadow.

Decide Who Your Star Is

Just as most bands have a leader in their group; your outdoor concert lighting ensemble should have someone who takes center stage, so to speak. Decide what that centerpiece is going to be, whether it's a decorative fountain, your prize rosebush, or a clump of well-tended flowers. Among all the parts of the landscape you're trying to illuminate, this centerpiece alone should be the only one to have any lighting come from the front, your one exception to the rule of lighting from the back.

Use Color

If you think about businesses and gardens with stunning landscaping or outdoor lighting, you'll realize that the sort of display made was probably not just of light, but of color as well. Your outdoor lighting, like in concert lighting, should involve a little color. This is a lot easier to accomplish these days since outdoor lighting is available with LED displays, which can easily and cheaply provide color to what you're trying to illuminate.

Use Variety and Simplicity

For a varied and stunning display, use different and complementary colors for your back lights than for what you use to illuminate the centerpiece of your display. As mentioned already, your outdoor concert lighting should set the mood as well as illuminate. As such, don't fall into the trap of providing too much.

Again, part of the reason to use color and backlighting is to set mood. If you illuminate too much, you create glare, which will make your display too bright to look at when it's dark out, which is what you're trying to avoid. By following these basic steps, you will have a great outdoor concert lighting display to highlight some of your best landscaping.