Our 3rd Annual Light+ event took place on Thursday, September 17, at the Tenaska Center in Omaha, Nebraska. This year, we welcomed more than 100 customers, manufacturers, and Mercer Zimmerman colleagues for an afternoon of learning, connection, and all things lighting.
The day featured two CEU sessions and an AIA presentation, along with a tradeshow showcasing the latest products and solutions from 37 of our manufacturer partners. Between sessions, attendees had plenty of time to explore the tradeshow floor, connect with manufacturers and industry peers, and enjoy everything Light+ had to offer.
Keep reading for highlights from each session, photos from the event, and a closer look at what made Light+ Omaha 2026 such a great day!
insight to light
Below are highlights from three of our Light+ educational sessions, featuring Tony Esposito, Katie O’Connell, and Bill Ellis.
Beyond V(λ): Rethinking the Value of Light
Tony Esposito, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Keynote speaker Tony Esposito challenged attendees to reconsider the lighting industry’s measure of value. His presentation explored whether traditional measurements capture everything light can do for people and the world around us.
Tony started with a simple question: Why do we provide architectural lighting?
The answer goes beyond providing enough light to see. Architectural lighting supports visual performance, helps people navigate, contributes to visual comfort, reveals materials and color, supports biological processes and influences how we experience a space. Lighting is valuable because of what it allows people to see, do and experience.
But if light provides all these benefits, how do we measure its value?
Looking Back to Understand the Lumen
Tony took the audience back to the research behind the CIE 1924 Standard Photopic Observer and V(λ), the visual efficiency function used to calculate lumens.
He compared efficacy to familiar rates such as miles per gallon. Lumens per watt represents a benefit compared to energy consumed, raising an important question: If we define the benefit of light only in lumens, what might we be missing?
What Does a CRI of 87 Actually Mean?
Color rendition offered one of the clearest examples. Tony showed a source with a CRI of 87 and asked what that number tells us. Does it mean colors are 87% accurate? No. Does it guarantee colors will look beautiful? No.
Instead, CRI tells us about color distortion compared with a reference source. As Tony emphasized, color rendition is relative. To explain this, the presentation used a trip through New York City. Imagine traveling from the World Trade Center to Times Square. Knowing it’s 3.5 miles away gives you the distance, but you still need the direction.
Color rendition works similarly. Rather than asking only how much a source differs from its reference, we can also ask how it differs. Tools such as TM-30 provide information about the magnitude and direction of those changes. It supports Tony’s larger point: the value of lighting cannot always be captured by a single number.
Light Is More Than a Visual Stimulus
Tony then shifted from what we see to how light can affect people. He described light as a complex stimulus shaped by four variables: time, intensity, spectrum, and spatial pattern. These factors can influence visual and non-visual responses.
For day-active people, one of the most memorable ideas was also one of the simplest: Bright days and dark nights. Tony emphasized that circadian lighting is only one part of the broader idea of human-centric lighting, which also considers visibility, daylight, color rendering, visual comfort, and health.
What Is the True Cost of Light?
After examining the benefits of light, Tony turned to the other side of the equation: cost. Energy consumption is part of that cost, but should it be the only consideration?
He explored artificial light at night, sky glow, and ecological impacts, encouraging attendees to consider environmental impact alongside energy use.
This creates a different approach to efficacy. Instead of starting with, “How many lumens can we get per watt?” perhaps we should first ask, “What are we trying to accomplish with the light?”
A Small Step Forward
Ultimately, going beyond V(λ) is not about eliminating the lumen. It is about understanding what our measurements tell us, recognizing what they do not, and thinking more intentionally about what we want lighting to accomplish.
Tony’s final message brought the presentation together:
“When lighting for people, the benefit should be defined by human needs. And the costs should be defined by the detrimental effects on our planet.”
Using DMX in an Architectural Market
A Q&A with Katie O’Connell, Midwest Architectural Regional Sales Manager, ETC
DMX may be best known in entertainment lighting, but its speed, reliability, and fine-grained control make it a powerful tool in architectural environments as well. At Light+ Omaha, Katie O’Connell explored how DMX can support dynamic, adaptive lighting strategies, from circadian profiles to weather-responsive public spaces. Here, she expands on the key ideas designers should understand when considering DMX for architectural projects.
Why does DMX make sense in architectural lighting?
DMX gives designers a fast, smooth control protocol that can handle highly dynamic behaviors. In architecture, that opens the door to lighting that responds to inputs such as weather, occupancy, time of day, or programmed logic.
Think about a pedestrian walkway where lighting sparkles in response to rain intensity, or a school where spectral content shifts throughout the day to support alertness, cognition, and evening wind-down. DMX isn’t about theatricality. It’s about enabling lighting behaviors that traditional architectural controls can’t execute with the same precision or speed.
What should designers understand before considering DMX?
DMX has rules, and understanding them early prevents headaches later. Designers should know how addressing works, with 512 addresses per universe, how many devices can sit on a line, and why daisy-chain topology and proper termination matter. DMX fixtures also come with profiles, which are essentially maps of how each parameter is controlled. These influence how many addresses a fixture consumes and how it behaves in a system.
Beyond the protocol itself, designers should understand how DMX interacts with sensors, logic, and scheduling. If a project needs weather-driven effects, circadian automation, motion-responsive transitions, or seasonal programming, DMX can support that when the system is designed intentionally from the start.
Does using DMX mean the lighting has to be dramatic?
Not at all. DMX is often associated with entertainment because that’s where it originated, but in architecture it’s just as effective for subtle, quiet flexibility.
In a parking garage stairwell, DMX can create gentle motion-responsive cues that improve safety and wayfinding. In an office building, it can support transitions throughout the day that shift intensity and color without calling attention to the controls. Museums and lobbies can also use DMX to create slow, atmospheric changes that enhance the environment without becoming a show.
DMX is a tool, not a style. The designer decides how expressive or understated the lighting should be.
Where should the design conversation start?
Always with the experience. What should the lighting do? What behaviors matter? What factors such as weather, occupancy, time, or events should influence the space?
Once the intent is clear, the team can determine whether DMX is the right control approach and where an integrator fits into the process. Integrators play an important role in coordinating fixtures, addressing, programming, and system behavior. A good specification includes identifying integrators early, defining their scope, and planning for coordination meetings and owner training.
What’s the biggest takeaway for someone considering DMX?
DMX succeeds when design intent and technical understanding come together. The protocol is powerful, but it requires thoughtful planning, including correct addressing, clear fixture profiles, coordinated integration and tools that support commissioning and ongoing operation.
When those pieces come together, DMX becomes a foundation for architectural lighting that is flexible, adaptive and responsive to the environment. The goal isn’t to use DMX simply because it’s available. It’s to use it when it helps the lighting accomplish something meaningful.
Well, Hello DALI!
Bill Ellis, President, Candela Controls
In this session, Bill Ellis walked attendees through DALI lighting controls, from how a system works to programming, design considerations, and what to look for once DALI reaches the field.
DALI, or Digital Addressable Lighting Interface, allows equipment from different manufacturers to connect within a single lighting control system. In practical terms, it gives designers flexibility in how fixtures are controlled, grouped, and adjusted.
Understanding the Basics
A wired DALI system brings together several components, including a power supply, wiring, controller, LED drivers, sensors, and switches. Each plays a role in allowing information to move through the system and ultimately control the lighting.
DALI also offers flexibility in how the system is wired. Bill showed daisy-chain, star, and free-topology configurations, giving teams options for how devices can be connected.
Address, Group and Control
One of DALI’s defining features is the ability to individually address devices and organize them into groups and scenes. This means fixtures on the same system can be programmed to respond together rather than being controlled solely by how they are physically wired.
Bill encouraged attendees to begin with groups and scenes and build from there. He also recommended designing systems to approximately 90 to 95 percent of capacity, leaving a little breathing room if another fixture needs to be added down the road.
That planning ahead was a recurring theme throughout the presentation.
Understanding DT6 and DT8
Bill also explained the difference between DT6 and DT8. With DT6, a basic LED channel uses one address, and applications such as tunable white may require two. DT8 can handle multiparameter color control while occupying a single address, including options such as color-temperature control.
For designers and specifiers, understanding this distinction can help when selecting equipment and determining how the control system will be configured.
DALI in the Field
Some of the most practical takeaways from the session came when Bill shifted the conversation from how DALI works to how to make it work successfully on a real project.
For specifiers, he stressed the importance of selecting the appropriate DALI equipment, understanding where project costs are coming from, and arranging a prewire site visit with the manufacturer. Most importantly, project teams should clearly specify what they want the lights to do so the programmer understands the intended result.
One line from the presentation summed it up especially well: “Skilled programmer = happy lighting designer.”
Coordination continues through construction. The project team needs to understand how to test digitally controlled lighting, allow time for system turn-on, and communicate when fixtures are added or moved. One advantage Bill highlighted is that when something changes, it does not necessarily mean the system needs to be rewired.
Bill closed with a simple message: follow the basic rules for success. When those fundamentals are in place, DALI can be highly scalable, allow equipment from different manufacturers to work within the system, and deliver consistent results.
Ultimately, Well, Hello DALI! showed that a successful DALI system isn’t just about the technology. It’s about planning ahead, understanding what you want the lighting to do, and making sure everyone involved is working toward that same goal.
lighten up
Shining It Forward
We wanted our customer giveaway to be something a little more meaningful this year. Through our Shining It Forward initiative, customers received charitable gift cards purchased through Give Nebraska and had the opportunity to choose a participating Nebraska nonprofit to receive their gift.
Rather than choosing one organization for everyone, each person was able to support a cause that meant something to them. Together, $5,000 was directed to dozens of nonprofits across Nebraska, supporting causes including education, health, human services, animal welfare, the arts, and the environment.
As Steve Clark, Mercer Zimmerman’s Omaha Branch Manager, shared:
“We were excited to give our customers in the architectural, engineering, and design community the chance to support the places where we all live and work. Seeing those gifts flow into organizations strengthening Nebraska communities is exactly what ‘Shining It Forward’ is meant to do.”
What started as a customer giveaway became an opportunity to support organizations doing important work across Nebraska and let each recipient decide where their gift could make an impact.
“I was able to support an organization that was a light in my life during a very dark season and I feel like there is some beautiful symbolism in making this choice for this event. What a special facet of this event!” – MZ Customer
thank you
We Appreciate You
Thank you to everyone who stopped by, joined us for a session, walked the tradeshow floor, or simply spent some time catching up with our team.
We couldn’t have done it without our manufacturer partners. Thank you for making the trip to Omaha, showcasing your products, and helping us put on another great Light+!
