Presented here are studies of the impact of excitation angle on surface enhanced Raman and luminescence spectroscopy of dye immobilized on a plasmon active nanocavity array support. Results show that both Raman and luminescence intensities depend on the angle of incidence consistent with the presence of cavity supported plasmon modes. Dependence of scattering or emission intensity with excitation angle occurs over the window of observation. © 2010 American Institute of Physics.