Bistro Lighting Styles for Weddings, Corporate Events & More

Bistro lighting is one of the most popular wedding lighting options, and The Lighting & Sound Co provides every style of bistro lighting you may need!

Also known as string lighting, festoon lighting, or cafe lighting, what we refer to as bistro lighting, is an individual strand with bare lightbulbs dangling down at even intervals. Bistro lights provide a classic, timeless look with a warm glow. The lights are often hung over a reception area, but can also go over a dance floor, patio, or entrance area. Typically, our technicians will install multiple strings of bistro at an event site, arranged in a particular pattern.

One of the best features of bistro lighting is that it can be used nearly anywhere. We commonly install bistro light strings in tents, but have hung them in barns, over open fields and courtyards, in hotel ballrooms, on top of swimming pools, and around food courts and skating rinks. It also neatly complements other types of lighting including uplighting and chandeliers.

Styles of Bistro Lighting

Following are several styles of lighting installations. This is by no means an exhaustive list but includes our most commonly-provided services:

Tracing Bistro

Typically installed in a frame tent or other space with exposed rafters, this style follows the roof supports. This style uses simple bistro which, while not as bright as classic bistro, offers a great look when used for tracing, and is great for shorter tents.

Tracing bistro lighting on a tent for a wedding at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens.

Fanning (or festooning) Bistro

Often used outside, all of the strands of lights fan out from one point, on a building or other support structure.

Festooning Bistro Lighting for an Event at Tredegar Ironworks in Richmond, VA.

Traditional (or Zig-zag) Bistro

Our most common service which provides a classic glow in any space, be it a ballroom, tent, or open field. If there is no place to hang the bistro from, we will bring appropriate support structures that don’t distract from your event.

Gathered Bistro

Commonly used to gather all the strands together over a key spot like a dance floor.

Gatherered Bistro Lighting for an outdoor event.

Parallel Bistro

Effective where there are balconies, buildings, or roof structures that create a long rectangular area.

Bistro lighting paper lanterns dance floor

Parallel bistro lighting with paper lanterns over a dance floor.

Crossing Bistro

An excellent style for tents, because some tents are shorter than others. A stylish way of hanging bistro lighting, great for frame tents and long but thin indoor or outdoor areas.

Crossing Bistro Lighting with chandeliers at a networking event for Richmond Weddings.

Bistro Arch

Also good for shorter tents, but works in any tent; bistro strings follow the angles of the roof to leave plenty of headroom for guest.

Bistro Arch inside a tent for an event at Tredegar Ironworks.

Confetti Cannons Now Available For Your Event!

If your event needs to go off with a bang, we’ve got you covered (literally!) with our new Confetti Cannons! Streamers or confetti can be blasted from these compressed air cannons. Whether you need a concert confetti effect or bridal confetti for a wedding, we’ll ensure each money shot is right on target. The double-barrel Big Shots Cannon by Artistry In Motion is used at New Years events, Las Vegas nightclubs, and marathons across the country, and we are the first in the Richmond area to own this top-of-the-line confetti cannon.

Here are a couple clips of two cannons in use at a time:

View post on imgur.com

We recommend streamers for the farthest distance shot or confetti for covering a smaller area such as a dance floor. If the ceiling is low, positioning the confetti cannons as high as possible will give the best hangtime.

Having a confetti effect for your event, combined with lighting and sound support is sure to provide maximum audience enjoyment and excellent pictures.

Selected Applications:

Club Effect,Wedding Sendoff, Concert Special Effect, Film and Video Production, Theatrical Shows, Sporting Events, New Year’s Eve Celebration

Tech Specs:

Model	Big Shots Cannon
Weight	50 Lbs.
Size	8” L X 16 ” W X 24” H
Lighting Board Connectivity	Yes
Cannon Barrel Size	2-inch Diameter
Actuation	Remote
Flame Resistant	Yes
Attendant Required	No
Duration of Effect	Single Shot
Confetti Height	40-50 Feet
Streamer Height	65-80 Feet
Effects	Single Shot- Multiple Looks
Truss Mountable	Yes

Under Armor Brothers In Arms Classic

The Lighting & Sound Co headed out to the Hampton Roads area to set up some TV lighting for the Under Armor Brothers In Arms Classic football game between two top-tier football teams. Bleacher Report was televising the game live via webcast between no. 2 in the country IMG Academy of Sarasota, Florida and Bishop Sullivan Catholic High School of Virginia Beach. Both schools are high school football powerhouses; the IMG Ascenders have 30 players committed to college teams while the Bishop Sullivan Crusaders have 7 commits.

Under armor football tunnel bleacher report

Gear for the tunnel unloaded and ready to be set up.

Working at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, we provided a truss goalpost structure with an extensive moving head and LED strip lighting package so that the teams would have a tunnel-like archway filled with smoke and haze effects as well as effect lighting to run out of onto the field at the start of the game. Numerous TV cameras captured captured the entire scene, as local news stations and Bleacher Report’s photojournalists filmed from all angles.

Completed structure stood in the corner of the field for both teams to run through as they entered the field

Completed truss structure stood in the corner for both teams to run through as they entered the field

Lighting effects consisted of moving head beam units (Elation Beam 5R), moving head wash units (Chauvet Rogue R2 Wash), and LED striplights (Elation ELED QA Strip). Our lighting designer operated the rig live as the run out occurred for maximum visual effect and excellent looks for TV viewers. The colors were coordinated to match with the team uniform color.

Meanwhile, a powerful QSC KW153 active loudspeaker played upbeat music to pump up the players as they ran out through the tunnel.

The necessary electrical power for all of this professional stage lighting was not available nearby where it would be needed on the football field. Fortunately, our friends at Temp-Power had just the right size of quiet-run portable generators to provide the needed electricity while being quiet enough to not interrupt the event.

Gear List:

8x Elation Lighting Platinum Beam 5R
8x Elation Lighting ELED QA Strip
8x Chauvet Rogue R2 Wash
2x Martin JEM ZR44 High Mass Fog Machine
Martin M-PC lighting console with M-Touch control surface
8x Applied Electronics 12″ x 12″x 10′ HD Box Truss
4x Applied Electronics 12″ x 12″ 5-way corner block
4x Applied Electronics Truss Baseplate
2x Applied Electronics Truss Grapple
QSC KW153 3-way Active Speaker
6x Yellow Jacket Cable Ramp
2x Honda EU6500IS 6.5kw Quiet-Run Inverter Generator

UNLV Presidential Debates TV Lighting Politics

The Third Presidential Debate

The final debate of the 2016 United States presidential election debates sent the team at The Lighting & Sound Co to Las Vegas, Nevada, to set up stage lighting for TV interviews. The final presidential debate took place at the University of Nevada Las Vegas’s Thomas and Mack Center. This arena holds nearly 17,000 people, and we saw close to that many lighting technicians, stagehands, and riggers working on setup for the debate in the days beforehand.

Sunrise from ~30,000 feet

Lighting the interview stage went very similar to the TV stage lighting we did for the Vice Presidential Debates in Farmville, VA. However, we needed to source as much of the equipment as possible locally in Las Vegas rather than shipping it from our home base in Richmond, VA. Our friends at 4Wall Entertainment Lighting were great at helping us with this. Still, the Kino Flo Celeb TV stage lights required were unavailable in Las Vegas, so some came from 4Wall’s Los Angeles office, where they have plenty of film lighting gear, while we did send a pallet of equipment and stage lighting from Richmond VA as well.

Again we used Kino Flo Celeb 400Q film lighting fixtures for key lighting, with ETC Source Four Lekos as fill lighting. Control was the Martin Professional Maxxyz software running on M-PC with M-Touch for physical control

PAR64 Lighting VCU basketball richmond hype video

VCU Men’s Basketball Promo Video

The VCU Men’s Basketball team recently filmed a promotional video that introduces the players before each game. V2 Content, a talented video production company based in Lincoln, Nebraska, brought us in to help with the lighting. The Lighting & Sound Co was on location at the Stuart C. Siegel Center, providing film lighting and making sure the players looked great.

From render to reality, the VCU Basketball rig featured 36 1000W Par cans- that’s a lot of firepower!

We provided a giant wall of light using classic PAR64s in pre-rigged truss. With 36 individually controllable units adjacent to each other, it was easy to achieve many different patterns and effects. A handful of moving head profiles provided additional air light effects. Of course, the video wouldn’t have looked nearly as awesome without a fine haze to show the beams of light. Our favorite hazer, the Look Solutions Unique 2.1, filled the entire gym within a few minutes.

Lighting Designer Martin MPC VCU Basketball

LSC Lighting Designer Chris Hill pushes the rig to full for a dramatic shot.

This lighting required about 37,000 watts of electrical power, which is more the amount of power that your entire house needs. While that much power is available in the main Siegel Center arena, the shoot was taking place on the opposite end of the facility about 600 feet away. Running long feeder cable to get the power where it was needed wasn’t feasible, but fortunately our friends at Temp-Power provided a generator perfectly suited for the job that could be placed much closer.

Temp Power generator temporary vcu basketball rva richmond virginia

Temp Power delivers a 45 KVa generator to power the 36kw rig.

Gear list:

36x PAR64 1000W NSP, on lamp bars
3x Applied Electronics PRT Pre-Rig Truss
48-ch ETC Sensor+ Touring Dimmer Rack
6x Robe Robin Pointe beam/spot/wash moving head
Look Solutions Unique 2.1 Hazer
Martin M-PC Lighting Console with M-Touch
45 KVa three-phase portable generator from Temp-Power

The Vice Presidential Debates

We joined the political madness for a week as we prepared to do some television lighting for a TV stage at the Vice Presidential debates in Farmville on Tuesday. We set up in Longwood University’s Health and Fitness Center, which is rated as one of the top 20 recreational centers at small colleges; at 74,683 gross square feet, it’s a pretty impressive space, topped off by a large rock climbing wall and LEED Gold certification. Longwood’s gym boasts of over 60 pieces of weight training and cardio equipment, but none of them were anywhere to be seen when we arrived. Instead, they had been replaced with a full media cafe, red carpets throughout, press boxes, stages, temporary power, communication rooms and Secret Service agents.

We headed out to Farmville, Virginia on Sunday to set up: Our TV stage was built on a 16′ x 16′ riser, and was an interview spot for before and after the debate. For events like these, every person on the crew needs to have Secret Service clearance, and has to have a number of credentials on them at all times.

We used Kino Flo Celeb 400s for front light, with Source Four Lekos as fill, and Celeb 400Qs as back light.

Richmond Weddings Expo Fashion Show Lighting

Richmond Wedding Expo Fashion Show

Richmond Weddings just released this amazing video from the Richmond Weddings Expo Fashion Show we provided production for back in July. If you’re getting married in Richmond, you need to be familiar with these folks.

You can check out some photos of the show below!

All photos by Third Eye Studios:

Our beautiful high definition wedding chandelier gobo!

Uplighting gives the stage a great look.

Slide The City Richmond

Summer time is upon us, and Slide The City brought 1000 feet of slick vinyl to brighten the streets of Richmond. Richmonders showed up in droves to take the plunge down the 1000 foot water slide. A water slide longer than three football fields was set up on lovely Byrd Street in downtown RVA. Slide the City is a family & friends slip-and-slide water party event, including live music, food, drinks, water, and of course the biggest slip and slide ever to hit the city. We brought out distributed sound reinforcement to the event to provide tunes to riders on their way down the slide. Live music was provided by Full Spectrum, of the United States Air Force Heritage of America Band, as well as 101.1 The Fam. Check out Slide the City’s video below!

Stephanie & Justin’s Wedding

Got a call from Stephanie on Tuesday for a last minute wedding the coming Sunday. Stephanie needed uplighting for her wedding reception at The Hotel John Marshall here in Richmond. Summer is a busy season for weddings, and while we already had other jobs going on that day, we were easily able to accommodate another event. The next day, Stephanie told us she was also interested in a custom wedding gobo with her and Justin’s names on it. Fortunately, we are no stranger to rush jobs and manufacturing a last minute gobo before the date of her wedding was no trouble. We went through the design process with Stephanie, and had the custom gobo just in time!

Stephanie wanted a warm color for the uplighting on the beautiful walls of the ballroom, we suggested our champagne look, always an amazing look in there!

Aditi & Aditya’s Engagement Party

We had a very eventful (pun intended) Memorial day weekend, with events all over Richmond. Among those was Aditi’s & Aditya’s engagement party, and we were lucky enough to work with the very talented Candace Morgan, who sent over some lovely photos. If you absolutely love what you see, you can check Candace out here.

Aditi wanted the rotunda to be a classy blue and gold, and the Science Museum of Virginia was a wonderful venue to accomplish such a look. We went with thin beamed wedding uplights to accent the museum’s neoclassical columns. The powerful LED uplights reached all the way up the fifty foot ceilings of the Science Museum and made the room look absolutely stunning.

Congratulations to Aditi & Aditya on a beautiful engagement party!