Budget LED Lighting Rig

Event Rig Series – Part 3: A Small Portable Basic Lighting Rig

In the third part of my accidental series on rigging for events, I will look at a basic lighting setup to go with our audio setup from last time. (Unless you're really into broadcasting your gigs from the get-go, I don't think you need to worry about the camera setup at this point).

The Goal of the Rig

The main focus of this rig is to be seen in a dark, dingy local pub that hasn't had its windows cleaned for years and—due to the landlord's "budget-friendly" attitude—runs 10W bulbs in each of the three lights in the bar… That might just be some of the bars I've been to over the years, though, to be fair.

I'm going to design two basic rigs for this post, and they can be swapped out depending on the space available at the venue. This might sound a bit odd considering it's meant to be a budget rig, but it's less the lights that will be different and more what we rig them onto.

With the primary goal of shining some light on the performers and a secondary goal of adding a bit of colour to the stage, I've tried to keep things basic with no moving lights, but still using fixtures designed for a specific purpose. A lot of new bands and groups tend to just buy a few cheap LED parcans and think that's good enough. If you are only after a very basic wash with no definition, that's fine. But if you want the band to stand out from the rest of the stage, you're going to need something with a bit of punch to cut through the background wash.

The Theory of (Lighting) Everything

I may be slightly biased, having done lights for shows since I was 14, but it bugs me when you go to an event and the lighting designer decides the colours on the stage are more important than the people on it.

That’s why when I design a rig, it features a healthy balance of different fixture types: Washes, Specials, Effects, and Decor.

Washes

A wash provides basic coverage of the stage. Before LED lights became popular, you would have a selection of fixtures focused on covering the stage in one colour, then repeat that setup for every colour needed in your show. Or, if you were rather clever, you’d create four distinct washes of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and White (warm or cool depending on the production) and color-mix your looks.

Now that LEDs dominate, you really only need one physical wash on the stage because you can shift the colour instantly in software. I do still sometimes spec more than one wash because I love the look of classic chases where one light fades down as another fades up, but not all shows need it or have the room in their power, space, or money budgets.

Specials

Specials are lights used to isolate a specific area, set piece, or person. In days gone by, you would have multiple fixed spotlights focused with a soft or hard edge depending on the look you were going for. For smaller rigs, I still go down this route to cut down on complexity, saving the moving heads for larger budgets.

Effects & Decor

• Effects: Tools used to get a specific look or feel, such as spotlights with gobos or water effect generators. They add a lot to a scene but should be used sparingly to keep the look special.
• Decor: Light-up set pieces, architectural battens, or panels that exist solely to add colour and look cool. For music events, you can use these to great effect by flashing them in time with the music.

For our slightly advanced basic rig, we’ll be skipping Effects and Decor entirely to focus strictly on Washes and Specials.

Rigging Options

Before we pick our fixtures, we need something to hang them on. We have a few practical options: T-bars, Trussing, and Floor stands.

• Basic Setup: A couple of high-quality stands with T-bars set up a few feet out from the front corners of your stage area, angled inward at 45 degrees.
• Advanced Setup: Keep the side T-bars for your washes, but bridge a length of dual-stand trussing across the back of the audience to give you a dedicated front-of-house position for your specials to light up the band.
• Floor stands: Excellent for low-level lighting and uplighting. It adds incredible depth to a stage without taking up massive vertical space, yet it's an angle a lot of people completely forget about.

The Fixtures

We want to keep things relatively cheap—but emphasis on relatively. You can buy anonymous lights from eBay or AliExpress, but you have zero guarantee that the brightness or colour balance will match across fixtures. I made this mistake when I was starting out on a shoestring budget; I bought eight cheap parcan floods, and while they were fine for splashing general colour, everyone downstage had a bizarre purple glow, and you couldn't see the performers upstage at all. You truly get what you pay for.

Keep an eye out for two metrics: Brightness and Colour Rendering Index (CRI). We want fixtures that are punchy enough to illuminate a small-to-medium stage while maintaining accurate skin tones.

1. The Washes

• Eurolite LED BAR-3 HCL Bar (£77 ea): Packs three powerful 12W RGBWAUV (Red, Green, Blue, Amber, White, UV) LEDs. While the LEDs can't be pixel-mapped individually, running them in 10-channel DMX modegives you full control over color mixing, master dimming, the strobe engine, and built-in macro effects.
• Eurolite Stage Panel 16 HCL LED (£279 ea): Over 3.5 times the cost, but you get 16 individual 12W RGBWAUV LEDs split into four independently controllable segments. It includes integrated barn doors to sculpt the beam and stop light spill. I recommend running this in 32-channel DMX mode for total control over every segment.

2. The Spots / Specials

• Eurolite LED Theatre COB 100 RGB+WW (£129 ea): A budget-friendly entry point featuring a fixed 60-degree beam angle, smooth RGBW color mixing, and included barn doors. 6-channel DMX mode handles all your color, dimming, and strobe needs perfectly.
• Varytec LED Theater Spot 120 FC (£333 ea): Designed to replace traditional 500W–600W tungsten theatre fixtures at a fraction of the power draw. It features a manually adjustable Fresnel lens (15° to 45°) and an exceptional RGBW color engine.
• Eurolite LED PFE-100 RGBW Profile Spot (£555 ea): A full-featured profile spot with internal framing shutters, manual zoom/focus (14° to 41°), and a slot for a gobo holder or iris. Its visual aesthetic takes me straight back to the early 90s, which I absolutely love.

Power Infrastructure

Managing power draws is critical if you want to keep venue managers happy. In the UK, a standard 13A socket running at 230V gives you roughly 2,990W of headroom. However, remember that multiple sockets usually share a single 32A ring main (7,360W max), so you must account for whatever else the pub has plugged into that circuit.

Here is the breakdown of our fixture power draw approximations:

Fixture	Number of LEDs	Power Per LED	Extra Buffer	Total Power Use
Eurolite LED BAR-3 HCL Bar	3	12W	14W	50W
Eurolite Stage Panel 16 HCL LED	16	12W	18W	210W
Eurolite LED Theatre COB 100	N/A	N/A	N/A	100W
Varytec LED Theater Spot 120 FC	N/A	N/A	N/A	120W
Eurolite LED PFE-100 Profile	N/A	N/A	N/A	100W

Power Scenario: A basic setup using 8x LED BAR-3 bars and 4x COB 100 spots draws just 800W total, which easily runs off a single domestic plug. Conversely, scaling up to a full truss layout with 8x Stage Panels and 8x PFE-100 Profiles jumps to 3,280W, requiring you to split the load across completely separate ring circuits for safety.

To keep wiring clean, I recommend the sssnake PC 1,5 Power Twist/DMX combi-cables (£24.90), which run power and data together in a single sleeve. You can loop these between your fixtures easily since they all feature power and data pass-throughs.

DMX Control & Console

To determine our controller needs, let's tally up the required DMX channels for our different potential configurations:

Fixture Configuration	DMX Channels (per unit)	Qty	Total Channels
Eurolite LED BAR-3 HCL Bar (T-Bar Setup)	10	8	80
Eurolite Stage Panel 16 HCL (Truss Setup)	32	8	256
Eurolite LED Theatre COB 100	6	4	24
Varytec LED Theater Spot 120 FC	6	8	48
Eurolite LED PFE-100 Profile Spot	9	8	72

Total Universe Requirements: * Core T-Bar Rig: 104 to 128 Channels

• Advanced Truss Rig: 328 Channels

Because both setups sit comfortably within a single 512-channel DMX universe, your hardware options are wide open. My personal preference lies firmly with ChamSys. You can run their MagicQ software completely free on a laptop with a simple USB-to-DMX dongle.

For reliable live environment playback, I recommend adding a physical surface:

• ChamSys MagicQ Mini Connect (£1,015): Compact, bus-powered, and fantastic for basic setups.
• ChamSys MagicQ Compact Connect (£2,269): More than double the price, but it adds physical parameter encoders and dedicated faders which are indispensable for busking live music on the fly.

Cost Analysis & Packages

Package 1: The Entry-Level T-Bar Rig (6x Washes, 4x COB Spots)

Great for local pub bands, simple corporate setups, or fringe theater work.

Product	Cost (ea.)	Qty	Total
Varytec Wind Up 85kg TÜV Stand	£189.00	2	£378.00
Eurolite LED BAR-3 HCL Bar	£77.00	4	£308.00
Eurolite LED Theatre COB 100	£129.00	4	£516.00
the sssnake PC 1,5m Combi Cable	£24.90	6	£149.00
Sommer Cable Monolith1 Combi 25m	£196.25	2	£393.00
Eurolite DMX Split 4 Mini Splitter	£89.00	1	£89.00
ChamSys MagicQ Mini Connect	£1,015.00	1	£1,015.00
ADJ DMX 3-Pin Terminator Set	£3.88	1	£4.00
Total			£2,852.00

Package 2: The Advanced T-Bar Rig (6x Panel Washes, 2x Fresnel Spots)

A heavy-duty jump in light output, segment control, and busking capabilities.

Product	Cost (ea.)	Qty	Total
Varytec Wind Up 85kg TÜV Stand	£189.00	2	£378.00
Eurolite Stage Panel 16 HCL LED	£279.00	6	£1,674.00
Varytec LED Theater Spot 120 FC	£333.00	2	£666.00
the sssnake PC 1,5m Combi Cable	£24.90	6	£149.00
Sommer Cable Monolith1 Combi 25m	£196.25	2	£393.00
Eurolite DMX Split 4 Mini Splitter	£89.00	1	£89.00
ChamSys MagicQ Compact Connect	£2,269.00	1	£2,269.00
ADJ DMX 3-Pin Terminator Set	£3.88	1	£4.00
Total			£5,622.00

Package 3: The Full T-Bar & Truss Rig (8x Panel Washes, 8x Fresnel Spots)

The ultimate "money is no object" kit for touring mid-tier circuits with independent control.

Product	Cost (ea.)	Qty	Total
Varytec Wind Up 85kg TÜV Stand	£189.00	2	£378.00
Stageworx LB-3 Lighting Stand Set 3m	£155.00	1	£155.00
Eurolite Stage Panel 16 HCL LED	£279.00	8	£2,232.00
Varytec LED Theater Spot 120 FC	£333.00	8	£2,664.00
the sssnake PC 1,5m Combi Cable	£24.90	12	£299.00
Sommer Cable Monolith1 Combi 25m	£196.00	4	£785.00
Eurolite DMX Split 4 Mini Splitter	£89.00	1	£89.00
ChamSys MagicQ Compact Connect	£2,269.00	1	£2,269.00
ADJ DMX 3-Pin Terminator Set	£3.88	2	£8.00
Total			£8,879.00

Final Thoughts

I deliberately skipped atmospheric effects like smoke or haze for these specific options. A fair few of the venues I've run tech for over the years flat-out refuse to let crews use them due to overly sensitive fire alarm systems, which is a massive shame because haze completely transforms a light beam. I'll be diving deep into atmospheric choices in the next installment of the series!

I've updated the master gear spreadsheet link in the top menu of the site with all of these shopping lists so you can download it, tweak the quantities, and have the grand totals calculate automatically.

What do you think of these three tiers? Would you swap the brands around or approach the front-of-house angles differently? Drop your thoughts in the comments or across the socials!