Drapery and Design Lighting
Pipe and drape, backdrops, uplighting, wash and texture. The layer that turns a conference room, a barn or a tent into a room that looks like it was designed for your event.
Most rooms need hiding before they need decorating
Every venue has something you would rather guests did not look at. A fire exit, a stack of banquet chairs, a service corridor, a beige wall with a thermostat in the middle of it. Drape solves that faster and cheaper than anything else, and once the room is clean, lighting is what makes it look expensive.
We treat these two as one job because they only work together. Drape with no light on it is a grey wall. Light with nothing to land on is a colored haze. Done as a pair, they change the room more than any other line item in a production budget.
Drapery
Pipe and drape
Adjustable uprights and crossbars carrying drape panels, used to mask walls, build a backdrop, create an entrance, or split a large room into a usable space. Sets fast, comes down fast, and works in almost any venue that will let you set a base plate on the floor.
Backdrops and stage surrounds
A finished wall behind your stage instead of whatever the venue has back there. Straight runs, curved runs, or drape framing a screen or an LED video wall so the hardware reads as part of the set.
Ceiling and structure treatment
Drape run off truss to bring a high ceiling down and make a big room feel intimate, or to hide the ceiling of a tent or a barn. This is rigging work, so it gets planned with the truss and rigging side of the job rather than added on the day.
What we do not carry
We do not stock velour blackout drape. If your event needs true blackout, tell us early and we will either sub it in from a partner or tell you honestly that another company is a better fit for that piece. We would rather say that up front than show up with the wrong material.
Design lighting
Uplighting
Fixtures on the floor washing the walls, the drape or the architecture in color. The single highest-impact, lowest-cost thing you can do to a room. We set the color to your brand or your palette, and we can change it through the night, so dinner is warm and the dance floor is not.
Wash and stage light
Light on the people, not just the walls. Front light so faces read from the back of the room and on camera, and a stage wash that makes a presenter or a band look lit rather than lost. This is the part most people skip and then wonder why their photos look flat.
Texture, gobos and monograms
Patterns projected onto walls, floors or ceilings to break up flat surfaces, plus custom gobos carrying a logo or a monogram. Cheap way to make a plain room look considered.
Intelligent fixtures and effects
Moving heads for a reveal, a dance set or an awards moment, hazers so beams read in the air, and effects when the moment calls for one. See enhancements for the full list of what we can add.
How we design it
We do not hand you a fixture count and let you imagine the result. The process is short and it is the same whether you are planning a gala or a school dance.
- We get the room: dimensions, ceiling height, wall color, where the power is and what the venue allows
- We get the look: your palette, your brand, a few photos of what you like, and what has to happen in the room
- We build a plot showing where drape and fixtures go, so the venue and your planner can see it before load-in
- We set it the day before when the venue allows, and focus it with the room dressed rather than empty
- We run it live if the event needs cues, or set static looks and a dinner-to-dance change if it does not
Because we manufacture and distribute lighting on the product side of our business, we own our inventory rather than sub-renting it. That is why we can put a lot of fixtures in a room without the price going somewhere silly.
Where this shows up
Corporate galas and awards nights, conference general sessions, product launches, weddings and receptions, school proms and homecomings, tents and barns that need a ceiling. We are the in-house AV company at Legacy Stables & Events in Winston-Salem and The Merrimon-Wynne House in Raleigh, and we work throughout Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, Burlington, Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill and Charlotte, plus the wider East Coast including Virginia and South Carolina.
Questions we get about drapery and design lighting
How much does uplighting cost?
It is priced per fixture plus setup, and the fixture count comes from the room’s perimeter rather than a package tier. A typical ballroom takes somewhere between twelve and thirty. Send us the venue and we will give you a real number instead of a range.
Can you match a specific brand color?
Yes. Our fixtures mix color rather than picking from presets, so we can hit a brand color closely and hold it consistently across every fixture in the room. Send us the hex or Pantone and we will match it at focus.
Do you carry blackout drape?
We do not stock velour blackout. For events that genuinely need blackout we will either bring it in through a partner or tell you another company is the better fit for that element. Everything else, pipe and drape, backdrops, stage surrounds and ceiling treatment, we do in house.
How much drape do we need to hide a wall?
Roughly the width of what you are covering plus fullness, and the height of the room up to what the venue allows. We work that out from the room dimensions rather than guessing, and the plot we send you will show exactly what goes where.
Will the venue let you rig from the ceiling?
Depends entirely on the venue, and it is the first thing we check. Some allow rigging to structure, some require ground support, some prohibit anything overhead. Tell us the venue and we will find out and design around whatever the actual rule is.
Can the lighting change during the event?
Yes, and it should. Ceremony, dinner and dancing want different rooms. We program the changes ahead of time so they happen on cue during your event rather than someone walking around adjusting fixtures while guests watch.
Do you do this for weddings and school dances too?
Constantly. Uplighting and design lighting are some of the most requested items on both. The design process is the same; the budget and the look are different.
How early do you install?
The day before whenever the venue allows it, because drape and focus both take time and neither gets better when rushed. When we only have same-day access, we build early and protect time to focus the room with everything dressed.
Are you insured, and can you send a certificate?
Yes. We carry general liability, commercial auto and workers’ compensation insurance, and we issue certificates of insurance naming your venue or client as additional insured, usually the same day you ask. Most hotels, convention centres, hospitals and campus buildings require one before load-in. Send us the venue’s requirements and we will deal with their risk department directly.
Send us photos of the room
Photos, dimensions and your palette are enough for us to come back with a drape and lighting plot and a real price.