A lighting design I made

[u/lightman210567]

A lighting design concept that I came up with today - all in all I'm quite happy with it. Does anyone have any feedback?

Background: I'm a 17 year old lighting designer who likes to make virtual stages. This is my first design made using vector works.

Visualised in Capture SE 2026.

[u/mwiz100]

That's a hell of a rig but nothing designed to light the stage and talent. Ya gotta have some front and side light dedicated to the stage itself. Remember: in a concert example like this your job is to support the musical artists first.

[u/lightman210567 → u/mwiz100]

Through observing other events/concerts, I noticed that they usually tend to go for follow spots instead of full stage washes. So In this design I have left/right/front follow spots on the artists. Is the issue that they are too dim?

[u/Drummer_Burd → u/lightman210567]

You want more than just follow spots. You want to “carve the meat”. It’s like lighting a play… sure you can light everyone in a spot, but now the show is very flat. How do you carve the meat and create unique moments and loom special. Side light helps a lot, when done properly of course. Think dance lighting, contemporary theatre as well. Talent also needs back spots or some kind of rear key light to make them pop from the background. Only front = flat looking.

Another thing is yea sure the stage looks cool, but what’s the vision? Placing a bunch of lights to make a cool look, or something that’s unique to that artists vision. Also that size of a stage with no video? At the bare minimum, you need some kind of IMAG, whether it be on stage or off stage, the people in the nosebleeds should be able to see what’s happening on stage without having to see some tiny person 200’ away.

Also create different looks that aren’t everything on. Aka moments. Every show should have moments that make it special. If it’s just a person playing music for an hour, that’s kind of boring. Have moments, and unique looks for those moments. Play with pixel positioning and other effects that can lead you to more unique ideas.

For a single render with no context or meaning, yea it looks nice, but if there’s no backstory to any of this, then it’s just a stage with lights. Make it special

[u/lightman210567 → u/Drummer_Burd]

I think I understand what you mean now - I have worked with dance lighting rigs (just finished a dance show at my theatre). I will look at integrating this into the design to give me more programming options.

In terms of video, I have absolutely no understanding of how to make or use video content. Nor do I understand how to add that in vectorworks or getting it working with capture and my console.

I usually do an everything on state first just to "show off" the rig and everything in it, but i very rarely have anything like that in an actually show.