Commercial Lighting Services and Trends in the Hospitality Industry

14 Dec 2017

BY Elicia McManus
POSTED IN Blog
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Good restaurants and bar lighting is an important part of any venue, not just for your customers’ lighting needs (think low ambient lighting over tables, signs or LED lighting around a bar), but to ensure that your venue stands out in a crowded market and makes people want to return. Lighting for restaurants and bars serves two purposes; it has to be practical for safety reasons, but also stylish in order to create a great atmosphere. Specialist commercial lighting services provider IDES UK take a look at some of the best lighting trends in the hospitality trade.

Styles of Restaurant Lighting

Lighting in a restaurant or bar should be very carefully considered, bad lighting can completely spoil the aesthetic or ‘feel’ you want to achieve for your establishment. It’s important that lighting is considered as part of the entire concept and not an afterthought. With so many different looks that are trendy at the moment, you need to decide if you want to go for a hip look, or something more classic.

Let’s take a look at some of the popular lighting styles for restaurants and bars…

Industrial Lighting

We are pretty sure that every reclamation yard in the UK has now been cleared of any industrial style lights. The hospitality industry has been snapping up mid-century factory lights for the past few years and the look is even popular in many peoples homes.

Going Old School

One of the most popular looks over the last couple of years is the very warm, yellow glow of Edison bulbs. They help create a great inviting warm atmosphere so it’s easy to see why bars and restaurants jumped all over this trend. Most of these bulbs are reproductions of the wound filament bulbs made popular by Edison Electric Light Company at the turn of the 20th century.

Quirky and Bespoke

With so many venues looking similar in style and following their peers, more forward-thinking designers are craving bespoke and quirky lighting for their spaces. If you want to create a unique look and make your bar or restaurant stand out from the competition, then your lighting will play a key part in that. Prepare to pay more though, bespoke light fixtures can be very expensive.

LED Lighting Retrofits

Maybe not as ‘cool’ as some of the other options, but a lot of venues are replacing existing lighting with energy-efficient LED lighting – especially the bigger chain brands. This is because modern LED’s offer excellent light quality, can cut energy bills substantially and don’t require as much maintenance. Advances in technology and design mean that LED fixtures are becoming more stylish and can replicate warmer looking, more traditional lighting sources.

The Future Trends

LED’s will continue to rise in popularity in the hospitality sector, not just because of environmental reasons. You can do some incredibly smart things with LED lights due to their size and flexibility. Visible light communication is set to be huge in the future of hospitality.

Another future trend will be lights for health! Brands are becoming increasingly keen to look after the wellbeing of their customers and it’s now widely accepted that humans need the right lighting, at the right times – LED lighting systems that are designed to influence our circadian rhythms aren’t the norm just yet but watch this space!