Event Lighting Rental in Nashville
Uplighting from $500 — delivered, hung, and focused. Since 1995.
Lighting Is the Difference Between a Room and an Event
Every photograph taken at your event is a photograph of your lighting. It is the cheapest line on the quote that changes how expensive the night looks — and the first thing people notice without ever knowing why.
Nashville Audio Visual owns the inventory and hangs it ourselves: LED uplighting, string lights, chandeliers, gobo projection, intelligent moving heads, and full stage rigs with DMX. Thirty years of Nashville ballrooms, barns, warehouses, and rooftops means we already know what your venue will and will not let us attach to.
Planning a wedding, or want a designer to own the whole look rather than just the gear? That work runs through our lighting division, Nashville Lighting Rental — same crew and inventory, with package pricing and a dedicated wedding lighting page.
Lighting Packages & What They Cost
Published ranges from our AV rental cost guide. Every quote is itemized to your room — fixture count, hang height, and labor, on one page.
Lighting is usually one line inside a bigger production. A gala with uplighting, stage wash, and a programmed show typically sits inside a $5,000–$15,000 total — see the event production cost guide.
What Each Kind of Light Actually Does
Most planners are handed a list of fixtures and asked to pick. Here is what each one is for, so you can ask for the effect instead.
| Fixture | What it does | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| LED uplights | Washes walls and columns in color from the floor up | The room is beige and the photos need to not be |
| String lights | Warm overhead canopy on catenary runs or truss | A tall, empty, or outdoor space needs a ceiling |
| Chandeliers | A hung focal point, often dressed with florals or greenery | The room needs one thing everyone photographs |
| Gobos | Projects a logo, monogram, or texture onto a surface | Branding a wall or a dance floor without printing anything |
| Moving heads | Programmable spots and washes that change on cue | There is a stage, a program, and a moment to hit |
| Stage wash & follow spots | Even, flattering light on the people who are talking | Anyone is on camera, on stage, or being photographed |
| Pin spots & accents | Tight beams on centerpieces, cakes, or signage | You paid for the flowers and want them to be seen |
Chandeliers
Chandeliers often become the focal point of the whole room. We keep an extensive catalog of purchased and one-of-a-kind fixtures, with rigging that lets you add florals or greenery to the hang. Crystal cascades, ring chandeliers with fringe, industrial and vintage pieces — hung from rated points our crew surveys first.
View Chandelier Inventory
Intelligent Lighting & Consoles
Moving heads, lekos, follow spots, and the consoles to drive them — sourced from the manufacturers that hold up under a real show schedule. This is the gear that makes a general session look like television instead of a meeting, and it comes with someone who knows how to program it.
View Intelligent Lighting
Uplighting & Lighting Fixtures
Battery-powered, wireless, IP-rated uplights in any color you can name, plus the smaller fixtures that do the quiet work — pin spots on centerpieces, accents up a column, wash on a ceiling. No cable across the floor, no outlet hunt, no gaff tape where the guests walk.
View Fixtures & Uplights
String & Strand Lighting
One of the most requested items we own, and the fastest way to give a tall or empty room a ceiling. Symmetric parallel runs for a ballroom, looser catenary swags for a barn or a patio, vertical drops for something unusual. Edison and bistro strands, twinkle, and LED rope — hung off existing structure or our own uprights.
View String Lighting
Delivered and Focused, or Pick It Up Yourself
Lighting Rental Across Middle Tennessee
We light events all over Nashville — Music City Center, the convention hotels, historic venues, warehouses, barns, and back yards — and deliver across Brentwood, Franklin, Hendersonville, Mount Juliet, and Murfreesboro. For larger productions we travel — see event production. Browse the full AV rental catalog, or pair lighting with a PA system or an LED wall.
Event Lighting Rental FAQ
How much does event lighting rental cost in Nashville?
From our published cost guide: a basic uplighting package runs about $500–$1,500 for 10 to 20 fixtures, which covers most ballrooms and reception rooms. Full stage lighting with DMX programming and moving heads for concerts and large corporate events ranges from $2,000–$10,000+. String lights, chandeliers, and gobo projection are quoted from the room, because the hang — how high, how far, and what it attaches to — drives the labor more than the fixture count does.
What is uplighting and how many fixtures do I need?
Uplighting is a fixture on the floor aimed up a wall or a column, washing the room in a color you choose. As a rule of thumb, one fixture every 8 to 10 feet of wall you actually want lit — a typical hotel ballroom is 12 to 20, a restaurant buyout or private room is 8 to 12. Ours are battery-powered and wireless, so they work in rooms with no convenient power and leave no cable for a guest to catch a heel on.
Can you hang string lights or chandeliers in a venue that wasn't built for it?
Usually, and that is most of what we do. String lights can be run off existing beams, truss, or our own uprights; chandeliers hang from rated rigging points we survey before the event. What decides it is the venue's rules and structure, not the fixture — so we advance the room first: attachment points, weight limits, power, and what has to be gone by the next morning.
What is a gobo, and can you project our logo?
A gobo is a cut pattern or custom image projected by a light — a company logo on a wall, a monogram on a dance floor, a texture across a ceiling. Custom gobos are made to order from your artwork, so give us a week where possible. Glass gobos hold full color and fine detail; steel is faster and cheaper for a single-color logo.
Do you provide a lighting designer and an operator?
For anything with cues — a general session, an award show, a concert — yes. A designer plots where light goes and why; an operator runs it live from the console so the room changes on the program, not on a guess. For a straightforward uplighting or string-light install, we set it, focus it, and leave it, and there is nothing to run.
Can I pick up lighting myself?
Uplights, small fixtures, and string lights are available for will-call pickup at our Nashville warehouse, often same day — we set the colors and show you the wireless remote before you leave. Chandeliers, moving heads, truss, and anything that hangs are delivered and installed by our crew, because rigging is not a pick-up-and-figure-it-out item.
How far in advance should we book event lighting?
Two to four weeks is comfortable for a designed room, and it gives us time to walk the venue and order a custom gobo if you want one. Uplighting and string lights can often be turned in a few days depending on inventory. Peak season — spring and fall weekends, and all of December — books earliest.
Do you light events outside Nashville?
Yes. We deliver across Middle Tennessee — Brentwood, Franklin, Hendersonville, Mount Juliet, Murfreesboro — and travel for larger productions to Huntsville, Chattanooga, Knoxville, Memphis, Birmingham, and Bowling Green. Travel is a line item on the same quote as the gear, never a surprise.
Tell Us the Look, We’ll Build the Package
Send the venue, the date, and a photo of a room you liked — that is genuinely the fastest brief. We will come back with a fixture plan and one itemized quote. Call 615-988-4554.
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