Allegiant Stadium’s Award-Winning Lighting Design Makes Public Debut

One year ago, the Las Vegas Raiders kicked off their NFL season in a new city and a stunning new home. Unfortunately, it was a season closed to spectators, so public enjoyment of the facility had to wait.

The wait is finally over.

When the 2021 season kicks off on Sept. 13 with a home opener versus the Baltimore Ravens, it will mark the first time Allegiant Stadium opens its doors to full capacity, with a branded fan experience and dramatic ambience that is animated by a bold-but-elegant lighting design.

As the lead lighting designer for the $1.9 billion, 65,000-capacity venue, WSP USA created a design that utilizes lighting as a visible, graphic element in high-contrast spaces while maintaining visual comfort for its occupants throughout the facility.

“It’s an iconic building and specific aesthetic that utilizes lighting as a graphic and essential design element,” said Anne Rainbow Savage, lead designer for WSP on the project. “There’s the challenge to provide the big sweeping gestures – to provide an engaging spatial experience – and then there’s challenge to make it work, functionally.”

Joining Savage on the WSP lighting design team for Allegiant Stadium were Jay Wratten, Ethan Neslund, Eric Witthaus and Nicholas Dewey.

The fan experience begins upon approach to the stadium, where lines of light wrap the striking façade and frame views of the torch, concourse and VIP clubs that are visible from outside. The concourse-level bar wraps around an illuminated 93-foot-tall 3D-printed sculptural torch, while bar-front lighting mimics the stadium façade and its illuminated curved lines.

The concourse, open to structure and underside of bowl, creates a language of linear pendants radial to the field, with integrated lighting at display walls. Seating-integrated lighting and a backlit ceiling element provide ambient light for VIP suites, while lines of light in a black ceiling reference the gridiron.

"Linear luminaires curve and slice through clubs and concourses as design elements to conceptually connect complex multi-level spaces,” Savage said. "The black and white material palette serves as a high contrast backdrop for directed illumination, aimed to reveal the depth and texture of the materials."

Highlighted escalators present a dramatic entrance to the Event-Level club, while the carved volume beneath becomes an intimate space with foot-level lighting. Linear lights follow the sloped ceiling with a bold graphic line of light reflected in architectural finishes.

The MGM Club highlights textured finishes in tiered concentric lighting coves above the bar and dimensional leather wall panels at perimeter. The 150-Level Club features backlit fabric ceilings and tilted linear pendants that continue into the VIP suites corridor and illuminated fins mark each suite entrance.

Curved lines of indirect light sweep through the Sideline Club, with forms echoed by lighting in the curved bar, back bar and circular bottle shelves. This consistent language of linear bar-integrated lighting carries throughout the VIP clubs, where each application still allows for individual architectural expression.

Keeping thousands of linear feet of lighting within budget required creative detailing and numerous mock-ups to achieve the desired effect. While some appear as continuously lensed linear fixtures, they are recessed slot details with indirect sources that create complex shapes, as a creative alternative to custom fabricated luminaires.

A chandelier array of large-scale brushed-metal frames – a monumental centerpiece of the 200-Level Club – is fabricated from suspended ceiling edge trim components and linear LED tape fixtures.

“Lighting design is understanding that our perception of light is our experience of light,” Savage said. “Light is always relative to context; not fixed or absolute. We can find creative solutions with simple materials when we understand that we’re designing perception.”

While luminaires provide specific visual elements, additional concealed sources provide functional light levels for visual tasks, where dark finishes obscure any perception of brightness. This balance maintains the dramatic experience within a legible space.

VIP areas employ preset architectural dimming controls tied to the building-wide management system, allowing the stadium to remotely transition lighting scenes as needed. Scenes programmed for various event types, as well as timing within an event – pregame/game/post-game – create an immersive experience for fans.

Allegiant Stadium’s energy-efficient LED lighting and event-specific controls consume 49 percent below the energy code allowance of 0.40 watts per square feet.

On Aug. 9, 2011, the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) presented a 2021 Illumination Award of Excellence to WSP’s Allegiant Stadium interior lighting design, “for an exceptional contribution to the art and science of light.”

The challenge for lighting this stadium was twofold. As the IES award narrative described: “First, to use lighting as a visible, graphic elements in high contrast spaces while maintaining visual comfort; second, to create a branded VIP fan experience and design aesthetic throughout the facility, while adhering to the project’s budget.”

IES honored seven projects from around the globe – including four in the U.S. and two WSP USA projects – with the annual Illumination Awards. Recognized as one of the world’s premiere awards for lighting, the Illumination Award for Interior Lighting Design highlights exceptional interior lighting design that balances the functional illumination of space with the artistic application of light to enhance the occupant’s experience.

On June 9, 2022, the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) honored WSP’s design for Allegiant Stadium during its annual International Lighting Design Awards. The firm received the IALD Special Citation for Use of Lighting in Enhancing Branding and Identity.

“Lighting designers from WSP USA used linear luminaires to curve and slice through clubs and concourses, creating design elements that conceptually connect complex multilevel spaces,” according to the IALD announcement. “The black-and-white palette acts as a high-contrast backdrop for directed illumination, aimed to reveal depth and texture of materials while enhancing the branding and identity for the home of Las Vegas’s NFL football team, the Raiders.”

“It’s exciting to win an award for such a unique and visually striking project,” Savage said. “We don’t always get to amplify the dramatic experience like we did with this one!”

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