The bocce ball court isn’t a complicated design, since it’s merely a long strip of land encased in gravel, clay, or crushed oyster shells. Depending on the location of this court, this strip must be perfectly flat and can also range in length. Lighting is not exactly set up for holding FIFA level lighting requirements, so only simplified overhead lights are needed. In this universal guide, you can learn about the lighting standard for bocce ball courts.
Everything that you might know about outdoor or indoor lighting will be covered. We’ll also include some breakdowns for wattage and cost figures. This can help you understand the drastic reduction in wattage used for LED lighting. So let’s dive in already!
How to get started with the bocce court lighting layout?
1. Knowing the field size
Perhaps you know that a bocce ball court will vary in size depending on the level of competition. This affects the amount of wattage used and the total number of lumens that are required for bocce courts. On average the total length of a bocce court is 26.5 meters (80 feet long) and is 4 meters (12 feet) wide. Competition courts can be as long as 90 feet long, but this is the exception.
Most backyard bocce courts can be as short as 60 feet long and 12 feet wide. So the first measurement gives you an all-round number as the general court size. The longer the court happened to be, the more likely you’ll want to add more lights.
2. Number of light poles for outdoor
Outdoor courts that measure up to 60-80 feet long will require 3 to 5 poles along the edge of the court itself. These need to be spaced evenly over the two hitting foul lines. Optionally there should be one fixture set up on the end of the court for the players. It’s not set in concrete how many lights you need but at least two for the main court itself. Longer courts should in fact have three lights spaced along the court edge.
This will provide more light as the length of the court is increased. The overhead light can then overlap each section more efficiently. The light poles for bocce courts typically are made of wooden posts that have an overhanging support beam. Newer courts like to install metal light poles.
3. Light pole height in bocce court
There is a general height requirement for light poles in bocce ball that ranges for all the outdoor courts. This gives you a general height limit of 4-6 meters for each pole installed. This is so the balls that are tossed down the court are more than clear of higher underhand tosses. The real reason is so the distance of the floodlight has enough clearance to spread the angle of light over the 12-foot wide court.
If lights are placed along the edge of a court, they can overhang a bit so they are more centered. Non-overhanging lights must be angled slightly so the light beam covers the court surface evenly. Either way, the lighting installation is not very complicated to setup.
4. Ceiling height for indoor courts
If you have enough room indoors to build a bocce bowl court, lighting this court tends to be a bit easier. You will need a ceiling height of at least 3-5 meters, or basically, 9-15 feet tall. Now you have the option to hang or mount ceiling lights directly above the bocce court. This gives you more lighting control and can use smaller floodlights for higher lighting uniformity. Indoor lights using LED floods can be placed in a similar placement just like outdoor lights.
You can use no more than two or three fixtures over the playing court. The advantage is having more options for overhead light outside the court area. Perhaps this can include lighting for a refreshment area or for those watching on the sidelines.
5. Distance between the bocce court ceiling lights for indoor
The overhead lights distance from each other can range from 20-30 feet per light unit. The reasoning for this all depends on the number of fixtures above the court. If you have smaller fixtures, the length between them is 20 feet. This is based on the type of wattage used for a LED floodlight. So in reality you can have a light fixture that puts off 100 Watts worth of light from each fixture placed.
These overhead lights can then spread out the beam angles and cover the court length accordingly. The higher the ceiling you have, you must also consider the angle of the beam. Lower ceilings need wider beams while higher ceilings need lower beam angles.
Bocce court lighting ideas and design
1. Lux
Lux is the measurement of the footcandle brightness standard. The method of how this works is very simple. If you have 1 footcandle, this will equal 10.76 Lumens. This is the number that’s equated in Lux to lighting up one single footcandle. Now when we get into recreational courts these numbers will range between 150-250 Lux. For higher competition events you’ll find as much as 500-750 Lux.
To calculate these numbers to Lumens you need to multiply 10.76 by the number of Lux. This means that 150 Lux is 160 Lumens whereas 750 Lux will be 807 Lumens. In reality, Lumens and Lux are very similar to each other so estimated Lumens is not too hard to figure in your head.
2. Lighting uniformity
This is a more technical breakdown of how light is measured. Light uniformity is graded on the level of light as it’s measured over a court surface from the ground. These measurements are often recorded 1 meter above the ground and take place within a square meter. For recreational courts, this light measurement is rated at 0.4-0.5 on this scale. When it comes to competition courts the lighting can register between 0.6-0.7 of the same scale.
Light uniformity is a serious matter for professional playing fields but also applies to bocce ball courts too. These numbers represent the total light coverage of two different courts, yet the numbers will all be similar in each square foot area. This in turn gives evenly placed light uniformity levels.
3. CRI
The color rendering index or CRI as you can see here is the level of visibility and color index. For outdoor lighting, you don’t need more than a rating greater than 70 CRI for Bocci ball courts. It’s not a highly excitable game but the correct rendering does come in handy. The colors of the balls are already colorful enough. Visually, being able to see these balls in the correct color can increase if there is competitive gaming.
You might see a CRI rating of 80 for bigger competitions but no higher than that. More importantly, since there are no players on the field, you only need to see the placement of the balls.
4. Color temperature
If you haven’t begun to understand that bocce ball is a casual game so the color temperature also needs to match. The best light for any bocce bowl court game is going to start at 4000K. This is a warm color with higher amounts of orange rather than bright sunlight white. Just like the ambient indoor light you experience in your bedroom or living room at home. This light is considered comfortable and relaxing but still gives plenty of visibility.
Competitive gaming will indeed have higher amounts of Kelvin involved but 4500K is about the highest you can expect on a bocce ball court. Higher amounts of Kelvin will be overbearing and distracting. This can be considered harsh lighting that makes the game uncomfortable.
5. Flicker-free
Outdoor lights that use halogen or other filaments can produce flickering that is irritating at times. Using LED lights for outdoor or indoor games produces no flickering at all. This is because the bursts of light that come from newly constructed LED fixtures are so rapid, they can’t be seen. These micro-bursts happen several hundreds of times per second. What we see from the light that appears is a seemingly solid light.
In fact, its pulsing light that radiates so rapidly we cannot sense there is pulsing or flashing. This is another reason why LED light is preferred in sport fields. Even when using video cameras that have ultra-slow motion, this flashing effect is seldom ever seen.
How many watts for a bocce ball court do I need?
To calculate a 200 Lux court requirement, you need to multiply 200 Lux x 26.5 x 4m x 1.2 (The 1.2 is added for light loss). This gives you a total of 25,440 Lumens. Estimating the wattage required takes a total of 25,440 and divides it by 150 per watt. This gives you a total of 170 Watts of the LED light. This means you can use 2 pieces of light fixtures on a court worth 100 watts (per piece) on each pole.
If you use halogen you need 10x the wattage because of the lower efficiency of halogen light Vs LED lights. The energy consumption of bocce court lights is further converted now. If you’re using 200 watts per bocce court for an average of 8 hours a day you make another calculation. Taking 200 watts and multiply this by 8/1000, this equates to 1.6kWh. A total electricity cost is then converted with 1.6kWh multiplied by $0.1 in all. This amounts to $.16 daily, $4.80 monthly, and $57.60 annually when using LED lighting.
What lights are used in bocce court?
1. Flood lights
Floodlights are light fixtures that are used to illuminate large surface areas on the ground or on surfaces. In this case, flood lights are used to light-up a bocce ball court. The angle of flood light is determined by the height that it’s suspended or mounted. The higher a distance from the ground will use narrowed angles. This is because the light spectrum needs room to spread out.
Anything closer to the ground should be wider so that the light distributes easily. When ordering flood lights for high indoor bocce bowl court rooms it’s best to mention the ceiling height. This way you aren’t left with spill light that goes where it shouldn’t.
2. Landscape lights
Landscape lighting is the ambient lighting that is used to decorate backyards and beautify trees or homes. It’s not uncommon to see decorative lights built into a bocce ball court. These are smaller pot lights that are inserted into the wooden border around the court itself. They do very little for illuminating the court aside from being decorative rays of light. Placing landscaping lights around your bocce ball court is a nice way to make night gaming relaxing.
It also gives players or people who are watching the game room to navigate around your backyard. You’ll often see plotted trail lights on posts that show where walking or sitting areas are located.
3. Solar bocce ball court LED lights
A nice addition to having an outdoor bocce ball court is using solar-powered lighting fixtures. Not only are these a hassle-free installation, but these lights can also work on their own without additional electricity. They gather the light from the sun using solar panels and store that energy in special lithium-ion batteries. You don’t spend anything on powering them and the light can last from 4-8 hours depending on the battery capacity.
They do need to be cleaned more often so the solar panels work 100%, but that easy to take care of. The photovoltaic panels wipe clean using a soft sponge or baby wipe to clean off any dirt or dust.
Our conclusion
This guide is a great introduction to LED lighting for bocce ball courts. If you plan on building a court or already have an outdoor or indoor court, consider better lighting for them. LED technology is only getting better and the cost-effective lifespan they offer is worth your budget when planning for court lighting designs. I hope this info was helpful to you, but if you have any questions you can contact us anytime for more info.
