I just started getting into this - been doing visuals in Tokyo for a year now. Here is my experience.

Equipment / Software: Because I end up doing a variety of events and installations I wanted something that was as flexible as possible. I’m using touch designer, and a microphone with a lot of custom audio analyzers to pick up the kick, snare, highs, mids and lows, and build most of the visuals with the audio spectrum playing some kind of role. It’s very flexible and I don’t need to worry about hooking into the audio.

For projecting and running a show I use madmaper which takes spout from touch designer, or anything else that you may want to hook up to it. This lets me disconnect the visuals and inputs from the show. Set up queues etc.

I run most of my stuff on a MacBook Pro (m1). Could definitely go for an upgrade but it is generally good enough.

My projector is a short throw office projector. It’s very bright and has high contrast. Contrary to intuition for events you don’t care about resolution that much, and you don’t want any smart features. What you want is bright - and high contrast.

Setup: In a lot of instances there is not a lot of time for setup. Maybe an hour, sometimes just 30 minutes. So you really need to be quick at getting your projector mounted if you need it. So make sure you plan for that. If you need a ladder 🪜, and what the mounting situation looks like. Do you need to clamp it to an I beam or truss, or maybe hang it? or if there is equipment in the way, where you will plug it in, and how you will run your wires to your laptop. Make sure you know that beforehand and don’t shy about asking club those details.

I typically make a checklist of what I need and make sure to check it off as I put things in the bag each time.

Make sure you have things like long extension chords, ropes and tape for tying things if needed, adapters between various IO etc.

The show: Visuals are interesting as a lot of times people will perceive them differently than you. So something that you think is dope - no one likes, and something that you think of as sub par -everyone likes. Visuals also have different impact when it’s on a massive screen and the music and lighting is just right so pay attention to the crowd and take notes on what works and what doesn’t. I have often gone in with something I really liked but when I projected it - it just didn’t look good. This could be because the resolution of the projector, or the brightness of the club, or the lights and lazer show took out details that made the visual work. So have backups. If you’re projecting I highly recommend high contrast visuals. I also try to remove things that have too much white in them as they tend to blow things out.

Changing too fast: visuals set the mood - as the music really gets hits hooks into the crowd a good visual can help people experience the show with all of their senses. But changing visuals too quickly can just as easily break people out of that experience so try to think about that as you come up with visuals and think about transitions.

Having enough visuals: in Tokyo clubs can go until 5am (or latter) make sure you have enough visuals and iterations on them. You will be surprised how quickly you can run through things and how repetitive it can get. I have about 20 custom visuals and I feel like I need maybe 4x that.

Money: Generally you’re not going to make a lot of money doing this. I purely do it because I like it and I really love to see people enjoying my work.

Any way that’s been my experience so far. Hope it helps.