There are plenty of books on theatrical lighting design. Far fewer tackle the business and process side of live event work from the perspective of someone who has actually spent five decades doing it. Allen Branton and Sharon Huizinga have written that book.

Lighting Design Beyond Theatre: A Process for the Evolving Entertainment Industry (Focal Press, 2025) is a practical, process-driven guide to live event lighting that has nothing to do with rep plots and repertory seasons. It covers the full arc of a working LD’s career in non-theatrical live events — building the task list, managing client relationships, choosing equipment, navigating the money side, leadership on the road, and how to get invited back. The 172-page book includes 84 color illustrations and downloadable supplementary materials including real venue docs, scenic renderings, schedules, a final light plot, and production photos from an actual realized show.

The chapter titles alone tell you this isn’t a textbook in the dusty academic sense: “A Brief and Incomplete History: Tales from the Wild West,” “Nobody Knows Anything, You Decide,” “Readiness at the Speed of Light.” That’s the voice of someone who’s actually done it.

Who Wrote It

Allen Branton is about as decorated as live event LDs get. His 50-year career spans more than 500 projects on every continent except Antarctica, starting with Alice Cooper, Diana Ross, and Burton Cummings in the mid-1970s. His touring roster since 1980 reads like a greatest-hits compilation: The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, David Bowie, Whitney Houston, Fleethead Mac, Bette Midler, The Who, Mariah Carey, and U2, among many others. On the television side, he designed 19 years of the MTV Video Music Awards, 20 years of the MTV Movie Awards, MTV Unplugged, two Super Bowl Halftime Shows (2003 and 2004), and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (2002 to present). He holds two Primetime Emmy Awards — for Bette Midler: Diva Las Vegas (1997) and the 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony — plus a CableACE Award and a string of additional Emmy nominations. Performance Magazine readers voted him Lighting Designer of the Year four times. He has worked at Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Red Rocks, Wembley Stadium, the Royal Albert Hall, the Rose Bowl, and the Colosseum in Rome.

Sharon Huizinga brings the academic and pedagogical counterpoint. She is Associate Professor of Lighting at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) and Program Director for the Academy of Live Technology at Rock Lititz — the purpose-built production education and R&D campus in Lititz, Pennsylvania. Huizinga holds an MFA in Lighting Design from UBC and has been a working LD and programmer since the early 2000s across theatre, live music, corporate events, and dance internationally. She is the bridge between the war stories and the classroom.

Together, they cover what Branton has lived through and what Huizinga has spent years figuring out how to teach. Jeff Ravitz, Emmy-winning LD and longtime Live Design contributor, summed it up well in his endorsement: “It took Allen and Sharon a career’s worth of experience to develop these ideas and compile them into an information-packed manuscript. Please take full advantage of their willingness to pull back the curtain on techniques and thought processes.”

If you’re working in touring, corporate, or broadcast events — or teaching the next generation who will be — this one belongs on the shelf. Pick it up on Amazon or directly from Routledge/Focal Press.