# How Much Do Disney Lighting Designers Make?



## Dkick (Aug 5, 2014)

Does anyone know how much Disney lighting designers make a year?


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## Footer (Aug 5, 2014)

Define "Lighting Designer"... and... what part of Disney?


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## Erik456 (Aug 5, 2014)

There are many aspects to Disney. There is theme park design, Disney on Broadway (i.e.: Lion King, Aladdin, Newsies), Tours, ect....Designers (regardless of Disney) will usually get a design fee, and once the show is up and running get royalties (i.e.: weekly's). What that rate is: totally varies by designer, size of project, ect..


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## WooferHound (Aug 5, 2014)

We get Disney tours through our venues a few times a year. The guys traveling with the shows do not speak highly about his pay compared to other touring shows.


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## Erik456 (Aug 5, 2014)

What Disney shows? Feld? NETworks? or actual Disney Theatricals? 
With all of those companies the designer does not tour with the show though.


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## techieman33 (Aug 5, 2014)

WooferHound said:


> We get Disney tours through our venues a few times a year. The guys traveling with the shows does not speak highly about his pay compared to other touring shows.



The designer doesn't travel with the show. The tours are all done by Feld, which isn't known to pay well. They're one of the "starter" companies that will hire people with no touring experience. A lot of people will put in a year or two there and then move on to better paying gigs. They also do the Ringling brothers circus which pays even less than the Disney shows.


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## Erik456 (Aug 5, 2014)

Not all the tours are Feld. NETworks has Beauty and the Beast, Disney Theatricals is still doing Lion King, Newsies, and Aladdin. 
But yes, I have friends that have worked for Feld. Pay isn't the best but most use it as a stepping block.


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## WooferHound (Aug 5, 2014)

Perhaps I misread the exact job description that was asked about. But if a Disney Labeled show comes through, the tour guy will not speak very well about his pay or benefits.


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## TuckerD (Aug 5, 2014)

A friend of mine worked at Disney World near the beginning of his career as a tech. He was never a designer but he spoke very highly of the pay and very lowly of the work.


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## jstandfast (Aug 5, 2014)

The Park is sometimes colloquially known as Mousewitz.


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## ship (Aug 6, 2014)

TuckerD said:


> A friend of mine worked at Disney World near the beginning of his career as a tech. He was never a designer but he spoke very highly of the pay and very lowly of the work.



If you have to ask, you cannot afford to plan on getting the position. As per prices on stuff at say a high tail retail store - if you need to ask, you cannot afford it.

Instead perhaps plan on design in mastering it in than getting into it - what you might want later, or working up thru the ranks at Disney perhaps otherwise. My sometimes dream is still for a simple life of just changing the lamps in the "It's a Small World" ride. Ah'' another 120 Viper lamps to inspect and computer check in and out, and another 8 or 900 more dual ended lamps to look at, inspect for and receive and check out on the computer. Been busy in the past weeks in making and inventing stuff and lamp inspections have been building up on me.


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## gafftaper (Aug 6, 2014)

A couple years ago @dvsDave and I had a fantastic conversation with two Disney lighting designers at LDI. They talked about things like design lights for rides and even designing lights for an entire "Land" in a park. These gentlemen were serious bigshot designers and I assure you they were well paid and loved their work. One said something like, the first time I designed lights for a ride it occurred to me that when I design lights for a show a few thousand will see it if I'm lucky. When I design lights for a ride 10's of thousands will see my work in the first day. Many Millions will see my work over the life of the ride. That's pretty Cool. 


jstandfast said:


> The Park is sometimes colloquially known as Mousewitz.


 Yes and no. That's definitely the case for people with entry level jobs. But if you are good... really good... and work your way up the food chain a bit people get to do REALLY cool stuff on a regular basis and seem to like their jobs even though yes the hours can be rough. 


ship said:


> My sometimes dream is still for a simple life of just changing the lamps in the "It's a Small World" ride.


 Sounds good until you consider the logistics of where you put the ladder. Some of the older rides (Small world and Pirates) were not exactly designed with the safety of the guy changing the lamp in mind. As a result there are some lamps which require Spiderman with rope access training to reach. 

When theater gets to be too much you are going to find me on Maui selling smoothies in a hut along the Road to Hana.


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## DELO72 (Aug 6, 2014)

Dkick said:


> Does anyone know how much Disney lighting designers make a year?


 
It depends at what level they hire you in at. If you are someone coming out of college or grad school with an MFA in lighting design, they will pay you entry-level hourly rates-- (back when I applied post-grad school 18 years ago they offered $8/hr which I scoffed at.) You then work your way up through the ranks and eventually you get paid far better and become salary once they see what you are capable of and learn their system. Or you can be a big-name designer with an impressive resume and they will pay you top dollar if they see the value and want you bad enough for a project. This is Disney- and anytime you have a corporation that big and powerful, they don't need to pursue folks at the range inbetween where many of us fall. They'll pay top dollar for and pursue people of the "Don Holder" caliber and resume when they want something beyond what they feel they can get with their salaried folks, but their park LDs have a ton of daily, onsite experience, and are more than capable of doing any of their non-Broadway needs. Think of it this way- Disney is like a Major League Baseball team. They will pay top dollar for the mega-stars like Clayton Kershaw, Victor Martinez, Derek Jeter, etc., and then try get the rest of the team cheap by bringing them up through their farm teams (AA, AAA league, etc.)


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## josh88 (Aug 6, 2014)

I've got a friend who's worked for them for a few years and he's been treated real well. They've given him pyro training and when monsters U was coming out, he had they idea of why not use some projectors and turn the Epcot ball into a giant version of mike wazowski. And they ran with the idea and made it happen. So at the end of the night the giant green ball with an eye was looking around at people. 

Long story short, any job can suck depending on what level you're at and where you are in the company.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 6, 2014)

josh88 said:


> I've got a friend who's worked for them for a few years and he's been treated real well. They've given him pyro training



At least with WDW, they train all of their techs and from what I understand some of their management level employees in the Disney way of doing pyro. 

There's a really good (albeit 3 years old now) reddit IAmA on this: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gobkn/iama_walt_disney_world_entertainment_tech_ama/

I looked into the Entertainment Tech route a few years back when I was trying to force a career change and discovered that they pull most of their new techs through the internship route. I didn't have the experience then, and landed a job in a high school instead, but it still looks appealing to me (not the $10/hr part though). I've known a few people who have been performers there who speak highly of it. Not many places where a musician can get a salary and benefits, I'm guessing it might be similar for certain areas in their technical fields.


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## jglodeklights (Aug 7, 2014)

Depends what LD's you're talking about. The ones that design their BIG shows or help with installations in the parks. I spent a week and some change with one of their major touring shows working with company management. The cast and crew were definitely happy to be working on the show. I'm pretty sure the LD was happy, too.


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## ship (Aug 7, 2014)

ship said: ↑
My sometimes dream is still for a simple life of just changing the lamps in the "It's a Small World" ride.
Click to expand...
Sounds good until you consider the logistics of where you put the ladder. Some of the older rides (Small world and Pirates) were not exactly designed with the safety of the guy changing the lamp in mind. As a result there are some lamps which require Spiderman with rope access training to reach.

When theater gets to be too much you are going to find me on Maui selling smoothies in a hut along the Road to Hana.

gafftaper said:


> A couple years ago @dvsDave and I had a fantastic conversation with two Disney lighting designers at LDI. They talked about things like design lights for rides and even designing lights for an entire "Land" in a park. These gentlemen were serious bigshot designers and I assure you they were well paid and loved their work. One said something like, the first time I designed lights for a ride it occurred to me that when I design lights for a show a few thousand will see it if I'm lucky. When I design lights for a ride 10's of thousands will see my work in the first day. Many Millions will see my work over the life of the ride. That's pretty Cool.
> 
> Yes and no. That's definitely the case for people with entry level jobs. But if you are good... really good... and work your way up the food chain a bit people get to do REALLY cool stuff on a regular basis and seem to like their jobs even though yes the hours can be rough.
> 
> ...



I don't really intend on ever retiring, or at least if I do I would spend my days tinkering, building and designing at my local community theater. As I explained yesterday to my summer time help assistant yesterday, this is my career - I chose it and even if I didn't need the pay I would probably still be doing it or something very much like it. Perhaps not as much in taking more vacations though. PITA at times and lots of times when checking in and out lamps on the computer all day for weeks straight really boring, but there is enough design, experimentation etc. to make it fun. Plus there is the carrot on a sticks I have when I get home from work and Baby and Wife allow me free time, or not busy at work. Museum lights and lights for others to tinker with.... I have a 1909 carbon arc spotlight sitting and just waiting for me to work on it. Couldn't see myself with the above retirement plans.

Been told about my "small world" dream job once before during an earlier years ago discussion about the "dream" but not like the above for details.... sounds fun! Though I'm not as steady on ladders as I was ten or twenty years ago. Most likely next time I can afford to go, I would work thru channels and get the industry pro tour backstage on it and the wheel of change ride, and that would be enough experience for completing the dream. And by the time I next get there or might quit and live the dream' such rides would go LED anyway by than I'm sure.

Mark... didn't have my Master's but that's about what pay I started out with at Chicago Scenic Studios. Given a Union shop and I wasn't, it was a tremendous learning experience for as long as I could stay. At least with Disney you wouldn't have been first to lay off, etc... in really hard to make a living just out of college in the early 90's while building a name for yourself. Talking eating donuts for dinner if you could get enough pocket change or hungry. Career path we all went on I found some comparison to the Priesthood to in otherwise we could leave the field and make easier money. This was my career, finished getting the education towards that and as long as I kept learning, worked hard etc.... it would work out. And it does in doing what we want for a living. Me, I'm a tinkering nerd, others have their fun than retire on the beach I have heard from others also.

Back to topic... in all the above posters nobody lists their pay or probably really knows what a Disney designer makes beyond what is seemingly more than what we get or perhaps not. In the industry nobody really discusses at the upper levels their pay. I know I could make more (or at least ask for more) elsewhere if I left and especially if I changed my career to a job - especially in sales, but than I would give up what is easy and fun. Probably three figures if salary and with the above posts about a free lance designer hired in for a project. Very few positions available I would suspect.

For the most part, I would suspect you could find lists for careers like union architects and Master Electricians for the building industry in average income and most of us in the industry including the Disney designers and higher management level staff tech people would be in that bracket for pay or more if a bigger name. If really good at what you do and you keep getting better every year, the above concept could be an expectation or hope.


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## What Rigger? (Aug 7, 2014)

WooferHound said:


> We get Disney tours through our venues a few times a year. The guys traveling with the shows do not speak highly about his pay compared to other touring shows.


 
Actually, it sounds like you have Feld tours. If it's "on ice" or a song/dance show, it's Disney licensing it to Feld. But I may be wrong, I have been before.


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## StradivariusBone (Aug 7, 2014)

ship said:


> , I would work thru channels and get the industry pro tour backstage on it and the wheel of change ride, and that would be enough experience for completing the dream.



Carousel of Progress? It's my favorite ride. My wife thinks I'm crazy and my 3 year old might disown me, but I've always loved it for the hopeful, non-jaded view of the future.


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## Amiers (Aug 7, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> Carousel of Progress? It's my favorite ride. My wife thinks I'm crazy and my 3 year old might disown me, but I've always loved it for the hopeful, non-jaded view of the future.




Even as old as it is, I still enjoy it.


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## TheLightmaster (Aug 19, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> Carousel of Progress? It's my favorite ride. My wife thinks I'm crazy and my 3 year old might disown me, but I've always loved it for the hopeful, non-jaded view of the future.


 It's the only one I didn't hate...

That's a bit of an exaggeration.


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## Amiers (Aug 19, 2014)

TheLightmaster said:


> It's the only one I didn't hate...
> 
> That's a bit of an exaggeration.



I don't know when I went the CoP was right next to the Buzz Lightyear shoot-em up ride that was pretty cool too.


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