How Lighting Transforms Sporting Events

As you enter the stadium you begin to feel that familiar adrenaline rush, fueled by the energy of the surrounding crowd. You check your ticket and look for your seat, then sit down as scents of popcorn and hotdogs drift toward you. It’s almost time for the main event to begin. 

All sports fans are familiar with that pregame excitement, whether they’re watching from home or the stadium. Today, innovations in arena lighting and event lighting are bringing even more thrills to sporting events, and that’s especially crucial right now.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, teams shuttered stadiums. While the pandemic is no longer ruling our day-to-day lives, sporting event attendance has not fully recovered. When the 2022 Major League baseball season ended last summer, total attendance was still lower than it had been during any other year (other than 2020) since 1997. That is why anything that can pump up the fans and both draw them into the stadium and keep them excited once inside its walls, is more important than ever. One way to build more excitement is through creative lighting techniques that turn sporting events into full-on parties. Here are some innovative ways venues and teams are using sports lighting:

RGB lights 

Color-changing lights or RGB (red, green, and blue) lights combine those three colors to produce any hue imaginable. This allows sports venues to create more than one color without ever changing a single bulb.

Sports fans love it when a stadium is illuminated with their team’s colors either following a home run or just before the opening pitch. RGB color-changing lights can be used for halftime shows or pre-game performances, add attention-grabbing pops or flashes of color, or highlight poles and other structures.

RGB lights can also be used to draw attention to a cause, such as pink for breast cancer awareness month, get your audience into a holiday mood with crimson and green, or provide a “color-chasing” effect by moving them around a stadium after the home team scores a goal, home run, or touchdown.

Lasers and strobe lights 

Laser lights provide numerous impactful effects, such as enhancing a specific area on the field or projecting team logos, either static or animated. 3D laser animations can even make it appear as though the laser is interacting with the crowd. Random flickering strobe settings build additional excitement to celebrate goals or touchdowns. Beams can be used to beckon fans toward a stadium, while architectural lighting can enhance a stadium’s exterior.

Smartphone syncs

Once upon a time, it was lighters. Then fans pulled out their cell phones and turned on their flashlights. More recently, some sports teams have taken this to a new level by offering fans a downloadable app that allows them to sync their cell phones to a programmed lighting show. 

PORT: Creative sports lighting for innovative events 

PORT has more than 37 years of experience designing customized lighting solutions, including for sporting events. We provide individualized plans for every client so we can realize your vision. We provide the following services:

Ready to learn more? Contact us for a consultation!