Gobo Projector Rental, Gobo Design, Rent DIY Lighting

Green uplighting on a fireplace for St. Patrick’s Day. Use a gold uplight in the fireplace with a pot to create a “Pot-o-Gold” effect.

St. Patrick’s Day is one of the most celebrated days of the year all around the world. Whether you’re actually Irish or just Irish for a day, March 17 is usually a day to eat, drink and be merry! Rental lighting is the perfect way to share the luck of the Irish with all of your St. Patrick’s Day party guests.

Rent Green Uplighting

Green uplighting will automatically transform your party space into the Irish Emerald Isle. Boring white community center? Bathe it in green uplighting. Dingy, dark and lifeless bar or pub? Completely green-ify it with green uplighting! Rent wireless uplights and use the built-in green color to completely transform your St. Patrick’s Day event with green walls and ceilings.

To kick it up a notch, request two controllers and you’ll be able to do a mix of green and gold lighting. Put the gold lights behind the bar to attract attention to the food and drinks, or decorate with a “pot of gold” and gold lighting in one section of the room. Use a wireless uplight in a large cauldron (the black ones from halloween work really well) to cast light from inside the pot. You can use a jar of dry-ice with the gold uplighting to create a really unique and fun effect. Add a rainbow Gobo Light rental on the wall nearby and your “pot of gold” is complete!

St. Patrick’s Day green uplighting transforms a school gym. Bliss lights on the ceiling create a green shimmering star effect.

Shamrocks, Leprechauns and Texture Lights

Project shamrocks all over your party when you rent texture lighting. Texture lighting will decorate the walls of your event with shamrocks. Adding that to your green uplighting will complete the ambiance of the perfect St. Patrick’s Day party! It’s a lot faster than using stick-on shamrocks, or cutouts that hang from string, and you avoid the restrictions many venues have on hanging things from the ceiling of the venue. We have a number of patterns available including:

• Shamrock
• Rainbow
• Leprechaun
• Pot of Gold
• Beer Glass
• Irish phrases or simply “Happy St. Patrick’s Day!”

We can also customize any of our designs with your event logo for a completely unique look.

Shimmering Green Lighting

Make the walls, ceiling, or any surface in your space shimmer with slowly moving green stars/dots. This is a really unique effect that your guests will love. We use our bliss light rentals for this effect. They have a huge coverage pattern so you can bathe a really large area (50ftx50ft) and more with green starts/dots. Just turn off the blue nebula effect to keep the space green!

St. Patrick’s Day gobos that can be used as texture lighting to add Irish flair to your event.

St. Patrick’s Day Lighting – Rent Today!

St. Patrick’s Day party lighting is a must. Transform a boring space into the best party ever with our St. Patrick’s Day rental lighting. These types of rental lights are perfect for:

• Bars or Pubs
• Concerts
• Tents
• Hotel Ballrooms
• Community Centers
• Schools
• House Parties

Contact us today to reserve your St. Patrick’s Day event lighting. Questions, ideas, comments? Share them in the comments below.

Side by side differences in gobo sizes.

The gobo size that you need is based on the light fixture that will project that gobo. Many traditional theater style lights like a Source 4 ellipsoidal light or LEKO light will use a size B gobo (about the diameter of a coke can). Cheap DJ effect lights like the Chauvet Zoom or American DJ LED gobo projector use a custom gobo size that is about the size of a dime.

Why different gobo sizes?

It’s based on the the power of the light source.

More powerful light sources use bigger gobo sizes because there is more light to shoot through a larger template and the template needs more surface area to dissipate heat. Stronger light sources result in a brighter, bigger image but often comes at the expense of a larger sized light fixture.

Small cheap effect lights like the Chauvet Zoom, American DJ Gobo Projector LED are not recommended. These lights use teeny-tiny gobo templates to project with limiting detail and brightness. These lights may look good in a small dark bedroom or living room but don’t hold up to real life events of more than 30 people.

Example of a D-sized transparency gobo used at an event results in an extremely clear image.

Smaller gobo sizes mean there is less physical space to print detailed images. Smaller gobos are better suited for blockier, less detailed designs like the cross shape used in the smallest gobo in our example photo. More detailed designs like those used for weddings are better suited to larger gobo sizes (E-size or bigger).

When considering a gobo light this is what we recommend:

• E-Size or bigger gobo
• A light fixture that supports multiple lenses
• At least a 30w (LED) light source

Common gobo sizes

Here is a table of some popular standardized gobo sizes and common light fixtures that use those gobo sizes:

The OD (Outer Diameter) number is the diameter of the actual template itself. The IA (Image Area) number is the useable are that can be used to print the image used for the gobo. It’s important to know these numbers when ordering a gobo, especially the IA. The IA can change from light fixture to light fixture even for commonly used gobo sizes. Make sure you know the OD and the IA of the gobo size for your particular lighting fixture you’ll be using for your event. Also know what types of gobos your light supports.

Gobo sizes compared showing a Chauvet Gobo Zoom 2.0 vs. the LED 40 lights Superlative Events uses.

Bottom Line

When ordering a gobo know the OD and the IA of the light fixture you’re using. Realize that larger gobo sizes can support higher levels of detail in the resulting image. Most corporate gobos are B-size.

Questions, corrections, comments? Let us know in the comments below.

Gobo projection on black pipe and drape from 8ft away.

Many of our clients want to project their logos on to black or white pipe and drape and wonder if it will look good. Yes! The results can look great!

The gobo projector is bright, crisp, and clear enabling it to look great on any surface. Corporate clients like our gobo lights because they are easy to transport and come with accessories offering a simple flexible setup for any space. You typically don’t see your booth space until you get to the tradeshow and the last thing you need to worry about is if your logo will show up correctly.

In this example we wanted to show the gobo light setup projecting in a real world situation. We used one of our client’s logos for the projection right before the light shipped out to their event.

Notice the terrible overhead fluorescent lighting, cramped space and thin black tradeshow banjo fabric. We projected from a distance of around 8ft away from the fabric (what you might typically have in a small booth space) using a narrow 15 degree lens. The resulting image was about 2.5ft across and looked really bright on the black fabric. You can control the size of the image using the included lenses in the light kit so if you need a bigger or smaller image you can change it quickly and easily.

In small tradeshow booths you can also project on the ceiling or the floor in front of your booth space to increase the size and visibility of your booth. Each light features a slow rotation option if you wanted to add a dynamic moving component to your logo.

Whether your fabric or surface you are projecting on is black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, magenta or plaid, your image will look bright, crisp and clear.

Custom Denim and Diamonds Gobo with blue and white uplighting at Howard University’s Blackburn Center

This features event lighting from Moorean’s birthday party at Howard University at the Blackburn Center. We’ve done events at the Blackburn Center before and knew that the room had tall ceilings, terrible room lighting with no control, and a massive air wall that most of our clients hate…with a passion!

Moorean had a Denim and Diamonds theme to the party and incorporated a western type of feel throughout their decor elements including a live gold cowboy statue, denim and western attire, and western themed drinks and food.

We transformed the air wall with gobo lighting of a starry night sky and a custom saloon sign above the 16ft bar.

To fix the issues with the space we set them up with our wireless uplighting and used two colors, white and blue to bring light into the space so we could turn off the overhead lights. This bathed the room in a blue and white light that was much better than the florescent-terrible-undimmable overhead lighting. They were going to have a cake so our cake spotlight package was an easy option to really showcase the cake.

Before photos of Howard University’s Blackburn Center, terrible overhead lights are not good for parties.

The massive air wall is always a problem in this room. They have such a cool effect with the large exposed brick walls inside and then ruin it with a massive 70’sesque air wall. We transformed the air wall into a sign above the bar with a western starry sky feel and a custom designed MoMo’s Saloon sign. This created a focal point around the 16ft bar in the room and let people know exactly where the drinks were. Every western town has a bar and needs a bar/saloon. These lights transformed the air wall into the starry sky with a personalized saloon sign. We also created a denim jean pocket encrusted with diamond rivets to personalize the space for Moorean’s Denim & Diamonds party. Our gobo lights are perfect for customizing and personalizing any large event space.

Before photo of the Blackburn Center

The overall effect really transformed the room and you can tell by the before and afters that it really made a huge difference in the space.

With our rental lights it’s easy to get the effect you want for a fraction of the price of hiring an outside company to do it. Check out our event lighting rental pricing to see how much you can save today!

Venue: Howard University Blackburn Center
Lighting: Superlative Events

We are so grateful to work with awesome people like Moorean, here’s what she had to say about the event.

Full color transparency gobo for Appomatic product launch.

Omatic software launched a new product called AppOmatic at the BlackBaud conference at the Gaylord Hotel in Washington DC at National Harbor.

They held a product launch party at the nearby Sunset Room at National Harbor with catering provided by Wolfgang Puck.

They rented our full color gobo rental lighting for their AppOmatic launch party to quickly brand a large, white, textured wall in the event space. Each of the squares on the wall are either slightly raised or slightly depressed into the wall and as you can see the gobo floats right over the texture of the wall and comes out clear and vibrant even with daylight in the room.

These are some gobo designs courtesy of our friends with graphic design studio Polygraph Creative.

They hosted an Octoberfest event and developed these custom designs.

The large gobo of a stag deer advertises “Bier und Essen” or Beer and Food and they posted it above where they had custom made beers and sausages from DC’s Eastern Market.

The other sign was projected at the end of a hallway in a German style that you might find in Bavaria. This sign was of a traditional German drinking toast and also showed people where the photobooth and the bathroom were located.

Using projections instead of signs helped add ambient light to the space, made the signs stand out and jump out more, and was a great way to showcase some of their design skills at the event.

We can help you with creating custom gobos and projections for your Octoberfest. Check our availability and let us know what kind of designs you might need.

Common Octoberfest gobos we can create quickly are of beer glasses, steins, signage indicating directions for people to go or things to see while they are in the space. We can also create custom German beer signs and product images for events.

A gobo is a template that light shines through to project an image onto a surface. The term “gobo” is an acronym that stands for “GOes Before Optics.”

Gobos are used in specialty lights that are designed to shine through the gobo template and project the design from the template onto a surface. Gobos cannot be used with traditional household lighting or standard par can lighting because they don’t have the lenses to shape the light or focus the light after the light hits the template. (see: gobos for uplights)

Standard Gobo Sizes

Gobos come in a variety of sizes (diameters) based on the lights used to project them. All gobo projectors state the exact size gobo or range of gobo sizes they can accommodate.

Gobo lights were originally used for theater and TV to create visually interesting backdrops that could be changed quickly depending on the production. The most common gobo size used by these industries is a “B-Size” gobo.

Many of our corporate clients have gobos that were created for their organization or trade shows but don’t know what the size is. 9 times out of 10 they are “B-Size” (or less commonly “M-Size”) gobos that fit larger, heavier, hotter, sensitive, not DIY friendly theatrical lights used by professional lighting companies.

Our DIY friendly lights use “D-Size” and “E-Size” gobos that are the perfect fit for our compact, lightweight, bright, sharp, easy to setup LED gobo projectors.

Gobo sizes smaller than E-size (<37.5mm diameter) are only recommended for blocky, non-detailed designs like simple shapes and block letters. The small gobo size doesn’t have enough surface area to support intricate script fonts or detailed designs or images.

• 86mm – B-Size (Source 4 Ellipsoidal, Altman Shakespeare) (A little larger than the diameter of a Coke can)
• 66mm – M-Size (Source 4 Jr.)
• 53mm – D-Size (LED Gobo Lighting)
• 37.5mm – E-Size (LED Gobo Lighting)
• 28.6mm – (Chauvet Zoom, American DJ Gobo Projector) (Slightly larger than a US Quarter)

Gobo Materials

Gobos are made with a variety of gobo materials. The most popular materials used are transparency (plastic), steel, or glass.

Transparency Gobo *Most Popular*

Transparency gobos or plastic gobo discs are used in our latest cutting edge technology LED gobo projector lights. Transparency gobo media allow for the same quality as our glass gobos, extremely quick turnaround times (same day), at the lowest price possible.

Using a special proprietary high temperature plastic film, images are printed directly onto a plastic disc using a special high resolution printer. This results in extremely clear images, clear lines, and long gobo life tested to over 200hrs+.

Most of our clients choose transparency  for their gobos and it’s a fantastic option that gives them the quality of glass at a 1/10th of the price.

• Negatives are can’t be used in traditional halogen light fixtures
• Pros are low cost, high image fidelity, fast turnaround

Color Transparency Gobo *Most Popular for Corporate Clients*

We can create vivid 1 and 2 color transparency gobos. This allows for the traditional white with specialized colors for aspects of a logo design.

Color transparency is perfect for many of our corporate clients with logos with one or two colors in them. For a fraction of the price of color glass gobos we can offer rich, vibrant color in your logo projections. Maintain brand consistency and brand integrity with our color transparency gobos.

• Negatives are limited life of the gobo. Can’t be used in traditional halogen fixtures.
• Pros are low cost, high image quality

Steel Gobo

Steel gobo’s literally have a design cut into a piece of metal. Cut out portions of the steel gobo template allow light to project through. Steel gobos quickly limit the quality and integrity of many designs. Letters like (A,O,R,P,Q,B,4,6,8,9) need to include a connecting piece of metal or numerous pieces of connecting metal to form the letters correctly.

Most other companies provide these type of gobos because they are generally the cheapest available option for traditional halogen or HID lamp based fixtures. These companies generally do not have a designer on staff and use generic patterns or standard factory designs for their clients. This results in images that don’t hold the integrity of the original design.
Steel gobos are the most durable of all gobo templates and are most appropriate for theatrical applications and where the template will be used over and over again in extreme conditions.The graphic to the right shows the exact same design, one for glass and one in metal. Note how in the metal design the month and date is hard to read because of the metal required to hold the design in place.

• Negatives are lack of detail and limitations of the design.
• Pros are they are the most durable and generally are lower priced than glass gobos.

Glass – Black and White

Glass gobos offer the ability to project complex and intricate designs extremely clearly. Glass gobos feature the design physically printed on a piece of high temperature glass using a high temperature silver mirror finish. This allows for clean, elegant designs and for a much more polished finished projection.

Glass gobo’s are the most expensive. There are only a few companies in the world who produce these types of gobos. Our glass gobo’s are created by an Italian company who are known for their exceptionally clear and durable high temperature glass gobo templates.

Glass gobos are appropriate for many corporate applications where the template will be used and re-used over and over again for multiple events. Glass gobos are more durable than transparency gobos.

Care must be taking in maintaining the mirror finish of these gobos and to avoid chipping the gobo template themselves. In order to achieve their high heat resistance and clarity the borrosilicate glass used tends to chip more than regular household glass.

• Negatives are cost and durability.
• Pros are high image fidelity and quality.

Glass – Grayscale

Grayscale glass gobos offer the ability to print varying shades of light transmission on the glass. This allows for extremely fine detail, moreso than black and white glass gobos and allows for complex images with shading. When used in conjunction with a color gel grayscale glass gobos allow a lot of flexibility with the final design.

Designs that feature multiple layers to the design on top of one another achieve a 3-D type of effect and are most always glass grayscale gobos. These types of gobos require an even more specialized printing technique and are slightly more expensive than glass black and white gobos.

• Negatives are are cost and durability of glass.
• Pros are high image quality and fidelity

Glass – Color

Depending on the detail of a design, there are a few options with color glass gobos. Generally there are 1-color, 2-color, 3-color, and full color options. These gobos feature the color printed directly onto the glass. Each color has to be printed separately using a special template for each color. This process makes color glass gobos the most expensive option.

Full color glass gobos are printed onto the glass all at once and allow for the projection of full color photos and very detailed images where color and color accuracy is most important.

• Negatives are high cost ($300-$600 per template) and longer lead and production times.
• Pros are good color accuracy, high fidelity