I am working on lighting  a trade show display and turned off my ambient and directional lights so that I could figure out where spotlights will be placed to light the display in the convention center. I need to give dimensions to the electricians.

Unfortunately with the lights off and the model completely black, spotlights have no affect on the model.I can put it 6 inches from a surface or 30 feet away, Ambient, Brightness and Specularity all set as high as they go and everything is still dark.

I even tried a separate file, making a box and lighting it but spotlights didn't show up there either.

What am I doing wrong?