Blacklighting a Stage

You can do it, but like others said, you will be disappointed. Last year during Wizard of Oz, they wanted me to use black lights for the haunted forest. For some reason, we had four fluorescent lights - so eight 4' tubes. They were hung about 18' above the stage. We also coupled them with 70w black light fixtures in our Altman R40 strip lights along the front edge of stage. We got black light, but just not the amount we were looking for.

You probably will want to get some more powerful lights, or at least more of the less powerful lights.

Also used black lights for W. Oz haunted forest and jitterbug scene. Outdoor stage about 40' wide by 20' deep. We rented, and asked for 8 of the Elation UV Washes which looked like they would perform better than standard fluor. strips, as others have said here (not enough punch). Not sure we needed 8, but wanted to be safe.

Rental company switched us to 4 Altman 705's (400W MH). These did a very good job, connected to non-dim's. We turned them on 3-4 minutes ahead of time to warm up (you don't seem to notice them much if enough other lights are on), and when the time came, dropped the other lights, leaving just the black lights on. So we didn't need the dowsers. But if you need to turn them on and off repeatedly, you probably would need the dowsers, to avoid re-strike issues.
 
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