Comments on: What Stage Lighting Should I Buy? Intelligent Or Conventional Lights?

By: Ed

Ed — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 20:46:38 +0000

My opinion is that you need a mix, if you already have a lighting grid installed then even better. Use conventional lanterns to give washes and fixed spots. And then use Moving Head lights with iris, zoom, focus and dimmer (e.g. Martin Mac 575 Krypton) as these are very flexible in their applications. You may also want to use LED par cans as they have a full range of colours available to you. it however is entirely up to you. And depends on the style of performance if it is a musical then obviously go for the intelligent lighting, if it is a traditional play then go for more conventional lighting, if your performance is promanard (excuse the poor spelling)then inteligent lights are the key to success. The school i am in i currently doing a promanard performance and moving lights are used in it to great effect.

By: dein

dein — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:11:04 +0000

I am making a low budget film here in Africa – and need additional lights. I had a set of red head (ianaro) and want blondes and those small led lights, and fresnels. It has to be fairly used (cant afford new) maybe exrental..intelleigent lights will be nice. any ideas. I will pay in the UK…(have a home there) Can u help?
Cheap cheerful ex rental or something…

By: Rob Sayer

Rob Sayer — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 14:04:31 +0000

Hi Nick, although the opinions on moving lights in schools of myself and many others in lighting are pretty well documented, it all comes down to what you are going to do with them.

I can see a possible situation where a couple of small moving heads, hung in a useful place and properly programmed could provide some flexible light sources for a school’s many requirements (assembly spots, disco waggle, colour on stage etc). As far as being flexible goes, plenty of schools are buying cheap LED PARs to provide them with low energy colour washes and little maintenance while being fairly easy to control.

The thing that springs to mind regarding looking after the kit (assuming that the school has the skills permanently and they are not going to leave at the end of a year) is the cost and availability of parts. Oh, and the quality of the secondhand Mac250s.

In my experience, there are plenty of secondhand moving lights around, a certain lighting company specialises in installing Martin ex hire stock into new installs… but I digress. The point is, ex hire stock kit has always been thrashed, even if it’s been serviced and tarted up before shipping. It’s sold on for a reason.

So, why not think about the flexiblity and eco brownie points of LED colour washes as well as working out if you need an extra n number of 500w PCs or additional rigging positions/sockets. If you had those PCs where would the go and how many functions might they perform?

As a general rule in any school, there’s a whole raft of lighting goodies I might have on my list before 4 MAC 250s. Thanks for your question.

By: Nick Thompson

Nick Thompson — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:48:55 +0000

Hey rob our school as jjsut got a bit of funding in the tech deparpmenrt. I have helped the guy who is choosing the gear and we are getting.

4 mac 250s (second hand)
We are getting the Service tech at school to make a USB to DMX thingi.

We all reddy have the cables from a previous production.

The school also has the skill’s in house to fix anything that goes wrong

Shoud we go ahead with this or just buy some conventional’s and an other dimmer

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