TED

2014 to 2023

For nearly a decade, upLIGHT lit TED. The relationship began in 2014 with TED Institute, the custom conferences TED creates for companies such as Unilever and UPS, and grew to include the Fellows stage in Vancouver, three TEDMED conferences, the 2021 flagship conference in Monterey, and a permanent theatre in TED’s New York offices. Each setting requires equal attention to the single person onstage, their idea, and the audience that is both in the room and watching on a screen somewhere else.

With TED, the balance is always a challenge. The room has to be beautiful from the moment guests walk in, and it has to look just as good on camera. TED’s guests in the audience are a top priority and the cameras turn around to get their reactions. They need to look great in a reverse shot without light in their eyes. In a live audience setting, a session runs in real time. Nobody stops down to move a band on or off the stage or to reposition the cameras. Every transition is tightly choreographed and happens in front of the room.

upLIGHT’s contribution

upLIGHT designed the lighting for stage, audience, and camera, working very closely with TED’s director of photography, David Waldman, to get the look exactly right. In Vancouver, when the Fellows’ talks ended, we flipped the convention center hall from a theater into a huge party room using the same space and the same rig. We also lit three editions of TEDMED, the independent health and medicine conference licensed by TED, in 2016, 2017, and 2020. In 2016 TED asked for help with something permanent, and we designed the lighting for the in-house theatre in its New York offices, a place to record talks in a more intimate setting. TED’s confidence in the partnership grew with each year, from lighting its stages to operating its own theatre for shoots through 2023.