Lighting for festival setups?

I have a question on how you light your tent spaces for festival setups? I will be starting a First Friday this week. I don't need lights for it this month but as the months go on it will be getting dark before I am finished painting. We are allowed to bring small generators which I currently don't own. I have seen some set ups with Christmas type twinkle lights up on the tent grids. Is this enough light to paint when it is dark? What do you use?

Thanks and I love reading and lurking here! You are all so talented!

http://www.facepaintforum.com/t6677-night-time-lighting-solution?highlight=lighting

http://www.facepaintforum.com/t13398-low-light-event-gig-anyone-have-lighting-suggestions?highlight=lighting

We utilize 4 500w halogens aimed upwards at the canopy and tied into the tent frame.

Our setup is designed as such that all shadows inside the tent are cancelled and the tent itself becomes a massive backlit billboard for face painting at night.

Do you always have a generator just in case there is no access to electricty? That is a BEAUTIFUL tent and love the flags.

We have not had a single event yet that did not have access to electricity, we carry several hundred feet of extension cord.... if all else fails though we have a genset that will run everything at a cost of about $1 per hour.

Thank you very much! Quite a bit of thought went into the design but the graphics only took the better part of an afternoon in photoshop.

I see you are in tennessee, We are doing 3 fairs in tennessee this august/september starting with the wilson county fair in Lebanon.

We also perform in Nashville at the Tennessee State Fair.

Are you interested in working with us, possibly?

I’d be interested in hearing the details. You can PM me information.

Where can you order tents like that? Also, could you give more specific information on your genset?

I am a distributor for the manufacturer, A fully digitally printed tent with 2 sidewalls and a full rear wall including sandbags, straps, stakes, a wheeled carrying bag for the tent frame and the rails and hardware for the sidewalls will set you back about $2000

The tent frame has no plastic connector pieces like an ez-up does and comes with a lifetime parts warranty. We zip tie lighting and fans into the canopy of the tent frames and i've seen 50+ mph gusts come through and cave in ez-ups right next to our setups.

The top is made of PVC Vinyl and is as tough as they come, being completely waterproof we have spent several rainstorms with other vendors and guests huddled under our weatherproof canopy.

We face painted at the florida state fairgrounds for the world's largest food truck event and there was a really bad storm that came through knocking down 7 tents, destroying frames and ripping canvases, one vendors setup ended up in the pond adjacent to the exhibition hall where I moved my painters ahead of the storm. I went outside to check on our setup and it was jam packed full of families all huddled together with nowhere else to escape the blowing rain caught with no umbrellas.

I stake and strap it just as you would a pole frame tent. We leave our tents up through 12 day events without having to worry about anything happening to them short of sustained hurricane force winds or a tornado.

I distribute the flags as well, we use the largest 15.4 feet tall commercially available flags tacked on to our ~8ft canopy height resulting in almost 25ft of vertical signage so that we can definitely be seen above the crowd and compete with the many carnival setups that tower above the midways we predominantly work.

We have several of these identical tents and have not had to repair or replace a single part, other than the tie down straps used to secure them, because they became dryrotted in the sun!


As for a genset I use the Champion Model 75531i you can pick one up for less than 800 if you shop around.

"The Champion Power Equipment 75531i gasoline powered, portable inverter generator is powered by an 171cc Champion single cylinder, 4-stroke OHV engine that produces 3100 max watts. With a 1.59 gal. fuel tank this unit can run up to 8 hours at 25% load."

It's very quiet and with the bassy music we often blare at our events it cannot even be heard.

Thank You for the information. Those sound like worthy investments for anyone who is serious about doing festivals!

Wow. I LOVE it.

I already invested in tent, I also live in Canada so shipping would be murder, but I'm VERY interested in the printed canopy. How much does a custom print one like that go for?

With 15 years of festivals I can tell you that many events will not provide you power. Some that do may monitor you amp usage. Many will not allow a noisy generator and some will not allow colored tent tops. So hone in on the types of events you want.

As for lighting you need LED. You must these days have power saving lights - be they sting lights, rope lights or a light fixture zip tied to your tent - go LED.

Rope Lights tend to give more light than twinkle but yes with enough you can paint with them maybe add a secondary light right at your workspace. You can get a bedroom light fixture or track lighting a few holes drilled into the metal for zip/cable ties to your canopy and you have lighting. Some people use batter powered secondary lights like lanterns.

FacePaintingCompanyCEO wrote:We utilize 4 500w halogens aimed upwards at the canopy and tied into the tent frame.

Our setup is designed as such that all shadows inside the tent are cancelled and the tent itself becomes a massive backlit billboard for face painting at night.

Awesomesauce!
Looks like the quality of lighting I have with my industrial construction light string. I love it. My booth is always well lit, like yours.
I'm in west TN, near Memphis, btw.

can anyone post photos of how they have their lights set up inside the tent? I'm working on a new way to rig mine and need some ideas.

I've never taken pictures if how I do my lights.
But I have a string if industrial construction lights. From Northern Tool
Ironton 50-Ft. String Lights — 5 Lampholders, 125 Volts, 15 Amps
Item# 28742

There's a light every 10', so I put one on each corner of my 10x10 tent, and take the end one to the center. I use ball bungees to attach them.
My tent is brilliantly lit, with no shadows.

This is all extremely helpful and specific information. Thanks to all for posting!

Although I dislike the industrial yellow color I do like the Irontron lights however as they pull 15 amps I could not use them.  Of course I would swap out the bulbs for energy savers to reduce the amps. That is a lot of ampage at 15 amps.  We are the face painters for a few music/art/themed festivals and top allowance for some events is 5 amps. And these are well known national events not the in your local park events. Even these at Northern Tool pull 3 amps - Klutch LED String Lights - but a much better solution.

yeah same for us, we are only allowed to use a certain amount of power.

We used to use (with decorative lighting or alone) and do have a bedroom light fixture from home depot. Ten bucks, three lights, positionable, on one metal base. Zip tied into the center of the canopy. Easy cheap nice looking.

4 halogens in the canopy.

I have never had a fair that didn't ask your electrical requirements on the application.

Mind you we only do large fairs and the entry fees are in the thousands of dollars to setup. If your working extremely small venues your mileage (and profit) will vary.

We travel in an $80,000+ Fifth Wheel paid for with cash from face painting.

My lead artist and wife is capable of making thousands per day so the event fee is just the cost of doing business.

At events where I staff multiple booths I pay my artists 60% of their total sales, sure as heck beats disneyworlds 9$ per hour.

All of the fairs we work we have an exclusive on our venue. If any open spots become available I book them to eliminate competition.

When it comes to the large events you need a boat load of cash to compete for contracts and need to be able to have around $20-$50k out in event fees out at any given point. Up to a year in advance.