Start from the back row, not the budget
The most common mistake with LED walls is choosing a size before anyone has measured the room. The number that matters most is the distance from the wall to the farthest person who needs to read it. If the back row can't make out a name, a slide or a face on the live feed, the wall is too small — no matter how impressive it looks from the stage.
A working rule we use: the wall should be roughly a quarter as wide as the distance to the farthest viewer. A guest sitting 60 feet back needs something in the region of 15 feet wide. For a dance floor or a reception where nobody needs to read text, you can go smaller; for a conference with slides, go larger.
Pixel pitch, explained without the jargon
Pitch is the gap between the tiny lights on the panel, in millimetres. Smaller pitch means a sharper picture up close — and a higher price. The trick is matching it to how close people will stand.
- Under about 25 ft from the nearest guests (ballrooms, weddings, stage backdrops people photograph): 2.6 mm.
- About 25–60 ft (larger halls, conferences, most galas): 3.9 mm.
- Beyond 60 ft or outdoors (festivals, parking-lot builds, big stages): 4.8 mm outdoor-rated panels.
Paying for a finer pitch than the room needs doesn't make the picture look better to anyone sitting at a normal distance. It just makes the quote bigger.
Shape: 16:9 is the safe default
Almost all video, slides and camera feeds are made in a 16:9 shape. Building the wall in that ratio means content fills it without black bars or stretching. Wide or unusual shapes work beautifully for stage design and visuals cut to a DJ set — but tell whoever makes your slides and videos before the event, not on the day.
Brightness and the room
Indoor panels are plenty bright for ballrooms and clubs; the operator usually turns them down so they don't wash out faces in photos. Outdoors in South Florida is a different story — daytime sun needs outdoor-rated panels, and the build has to account for wind and rain. If your event starts before sunset, say so up front.
Ground stack, ground support or flown
A wall can sit on the floor on its own frame (ground-stacked), on a truss structure (ground support), or hang from rigging points in the ceiling (flown). Hotels and convention centres have rules about what can hang from their ceiling and who is allowed to do it, so this is usually decided by the venue, not by taste. Send the venue's production requirements early.
What it takes to run
A screen is only as good as the person behind it. Someone has to manage the processor, switch between slides, video and camera, and fix it when a laptop disconnects two minutes before the keynote. Make sure your quote includes an operator on site for the whole event, not just delivery and setup.
A quick checklist before you ask for a quote
- Venue name and the room you're in.
- Guest count and how the room is laid out.
- Distance from where the wall goes to the back row.
- Indoor or outdoor, and start time.
- What will play on it: slides, video, live camera, sponsor loops, visuals.
- Any venue rules on rigging and load-in times.