4 Cheap and Easy Scenic Hacks for Your Next Meeting
Just about every meeting professional knows that when it comes to creating an experience at your meeting, scenic is absolutely vital. Creating a space that looks and feels exciting and on-brand can be a hassle, though, since the world of scenic and meeting production can get costly very, very quickly!
But no meeting should be doomed to being dull just because the budget isn’t in the six figures. It’s surprising just how far a little elbow grease and ingenuity can go when it comes to creating a meeting experience you’ll be proud of. And in our time producing meetings of all sizes and budgets, we’ve found a few of our favorite ways to make a space look great without breaking the bank. Here are four of the easiest and cheapest up our sleeves!
Pipe and Drape Lighting Hack
Just about any meeting that includes presentations in any format, no matter its size, will have pipe and drape as part of its scenic design. Pipe and drape is as simple as it is affordable, but its simplicity can sometimes made it look a bit… dull.
But that doesn’t mean all is lost! Add a cheap and lightweight surge protector and hanging colored or vintage filament light bulbs, and voila! A beautiful scenic element for cents on the dollar. These make great additions for the perimeter of a ballroom or even behind or flanking a screen.
Piece-of-Cake Uplight Mesh
Here’s another scenic element that can save you plenty on your bottom line in exchange for some elbow grease. Start with a simple wooden or pipe frame, and attach from the very top a sheet of window mesh. The trick here is not to make sure it’s taute, but rather to leave it a bit looser both horizontally and vertically.
Next is the fun part… with your bare hands, give each portion of the mesh a good squeeze. This will create a wrinkled, uneven surface on the mesh – which might not look particularly pleasing to the eye until you add the next and final element: uplights.
These uplights will catch all of those uneven surfaces on the mesh, creating a vibrant and dynamic lit surface that you simply can’t accomplish with simple drape. These can make great additions to entranceways, on a ballroom perimeter and even as an additional backdrop to enhance a screen with at trim kit.
TV “Snow” and Vinyl Clings
Sometimes there are uses for things that are no longer in complete working order, and a clever scenic hack for your next meeting is one of them. Imagine an old TV and the static “snow” it emits when turned out while not being connected. Pretty dull, right? Wrong! Add a little bit of vinyl cling magic, and you’ve got yourself a dynamic piece of scenic for next to no money.
Make sure your vinyl clings are a dark or contrasting color to make it easy to read. Our suggestion is to stick with a simple black, which will create a very clear outline of your logo or letters that feels as if it’s flush with the TV itself. Using black will mean that the vinyl itself is almost undetectable, and will in turn make the element look clean and professional despite its next-to-nothing cost.
Simple Motion Graphic Upgrades with Logos
Want to add a little color and energy to your event scenic, but don’t have the budget for full videos and complex visual elements? It’s surprising what something as simple as a video loop can do for the overall look and feel of your event!
Using a logo, a meeting theme name or even just a company name, you can make a static element a lot more lively with some simple looping elements. Something as simple as a shimmer or slow zoom can turn a logo into a work of art – and it can grace the screens of projector screens, televisions and computers throughout your event.
Need help spicing up your next event with some budget-friendly scenic (and an awesome production company to pull it off)? We’re your guys.