Power and lighting get lumped into a general AV line item more often than they should, but they run on separate tracks. Bon Secours Wellness Arena, a state-of-the-art 15,000-seat venue sitting between Main Street and Interstate 385, and Greenville Marriott, with 10 event rooms and 16,310 square feet of total event space, both have their own house electrical service rules that have nothing to do with what a lighting designer wants to hang from the truss.
Getting the order of operations right matters: the electrical service order goes in against the venue's own timeline first, and the creative lighting plan gets designed to work within whatever power is actually available on show day, not the other way around.
Execution priorities
- Order venue electrical service on the venue's own timeline, not the production's preferred one.
- Design lighting around the power that is actually available, confirmed in advance.
- Separate house lighting from show-specific lighting so responsibility for each is clear.
- Plan cable runs and rigging points around the room's real layout, not a generic diagram.
Electrical service as its own timeline
A venue's electrical service order is not the same request as a lighting rental, and it usually needs to go in earlier. Bon Secours Wellness Arena and Greenville Marriott both route power drops through their own facilities process, and that process runs on the venue's schedule, not the show's. Waiting until the lighting design is final to place the power order is one of the more common ways a production loses days it did not have to lose.
Designing lighting around real power, not assumed power
A lighting plan built before confirming actual available amperage risks a redesign on install day when the numbers do not match. Confirming power capacity early lets the creative lighting design work within a known constraint instead of guessing at one.
Where lighting scope shows up around Greenville
Hotel Hartness offers 16,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor meeting venues across spaces including the Great Room, the Paladin Board Room, the White Oak Ballroom, a ballroom pre-function area, and the Spartan Meeting Room, each with its own house lighting and its own tolerance for added rigging. A lighting plan for an outdoor space at a property like that also has to account for weather and power access that an indoor ballroom does not.
House lighting versus show lighting
Most venues supply some form of house lighting as a baseline, but a general session or branded activation usually needs its own lighting layer for stage wash, gobos, or color. Keeping the two clearly separated in the scope avoids a dispute mid-show over which system a malfunctioning fixture belongs to.
Lighting and power distribution questions
When should electrical service be ordered relative to the lighting design?
The power order should go in against the venue's own timeline as early as possible, ideally before the lighting design is finalized, so the design works within confirmed available power rather than an assumption.
Do Bon Secours Wellness Arena and Greenville Marriott handle power requests the same way?
No. Each venue routes electrical service through its own facilities process on its own schedule, so the request needs to be placed with that specific venue's timeline in mind.
What is the difference between house lighting and show lighting?
House lighting is the venue's baseline system already in the room. Show lighting is added specifically for the event, such as stage wash or color, and keeping the two clearly separated avoids confusion over who is responsible for a given fixture.
Does an outdoor space at Hotel Hartness need a different lighting plan than an indoor ballroom?
Yes. Outdoor spaces add weather exposure and different power access than an indoor room, so the lighting and power plan needs to be built for that specific space rather than reused from an indoor setup.
What happens if actual available power does not match the lighting design?
That usually forces a redesign on install day, which is why confirming amperage before finalizing the lighting plan matters more than most productions assume.
Who manages cable runs and rigging points during install?
That should be planned against the room's actual layout ahead of time and owned by the technical lead during install, rather than routed on the fly around furniture and traffic patterns discovered that morning.