Light Board for an Event

[lighttechie5948]

Hi Everyone,

In June I will be lighting my mom's 20th annual dance recital for the dance school she owns.

It is going to be held at the same venue as last year. The venue has 6 moving lights: 2 MAC 250s on their FOH, and 4 Robe AT250s over stage. Last year I brought in 10 color scrollers for the source four pars they had and used the 10 lights as downlight on the 1 and 2 Elecs.

This year I am deffinetly adding high side scrollers and putting scrollers on some of the S4 50degs i use on the booms for sidelight.

Since its her 20th year, we want to bring in several more movers.

The board they have at the venue is an ETC Express 72/144 with 240 chans. I used that last year and pretty much used all the channels between the 16 chan movers and the 2 channel CXI scrollers along with all the conventionals.

I was thinking about bringing in a new board for this year, possibly a Congo Jr. I want to do cool moving light dance effects, easily and in a tight time space. If I did alot with movers on an express I would need to set each mover to a position and write one cue, then change pan, tilt, color, etc, and create another cue, then another, then link them all together.

What makes it easier on the congo? What additional benefits would this console give me?

Thanks,
Joe

[highschooltech]

Not sure about the congo jr exactly but i use the ion a lot for dealing with the number of MLs you talking about and it works great. The console has an on board FX generator which allows you to map out a path for the light using the mouse and then adjusting the scaling. Then put the light at a starting position and tell it to run the effect. You can also do this with moving lights. Plus the console has a color picker that works well with CXIs so you can tell them what gel color to be in. In its default mode the console outputs 2 universes which should be enough. The cheapest model has 1000 channels but every light takes up only one chanel so you could potentially have 1000 MLs if you could get the console to output that much data. Like i said haven't used the Congo but the Ion has similiar capacities and is about half the price.

[icewolf08]

Originally Posted by highschooltech

The cheapest model has 1000 channels but every light takes up only one chanel so you could potentially have 1000 MLs if you could get the console to output that much data.

Just to clarify: The Ion 1K supports 2 universes of DMX or 1024 ADDRESSES, hence the 1K denomination. This is not 1000 control channels, so you could not have individual control of 1000 MLs.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[lighttechie5948]

Price isn't really my biggest variable, since I am only renting the equipment for a week. Either the Congo Jr or the ION would probably work.

What I'm wondering is how difficult would it be for me to create a rock concert look with the MLs on either of the consoles, and approx how much time would it take.

On an express a rock n roll moving light cue sequence would be extremely difficult to cue and would take FOREVER, at least several hours, if not days.

[beltsvillecrucib]

The first step would be to see if there are any rental houses around you that can rent you a congo jr. or ion. Be aware these are both theater boards. The syntax on the congo is also quite different from most consoles and chances are you haven't had experience with it.

Personally, I would go and find a hog 1K. It's a very easy to learn console and can produce great results with little programming time. It supports two universes (1024 addresses) and one (or is it two?) external monitors. Some people complain that it's more difficult to control conventionals on the board, but I disagree whole-heartedly. The effects engine comes with a number of preprogrammed effects, and if you wish to create custom effects this can easily be done on a laptop running Hog2PC and then saved onto a disk. The hog is much more suited to a live show environment and has plenty of faders and direct pallette control.

[SerraAva]

I would take it a step farther and look at a Road Hog or IPC. Touch screens will make life easier, and both have effects engine built in making rock and roll lighting very easy to accomplish. I just finished a Nutcracker show that was more rock and less ballet. Had 84 S4 pars, 24 lekos, 6 movers, 8 moving head LEDs which rocked big time, and some other LEDs on top. Show was quick and easy to program thanks to effects engine, tracking, palettes/groups, and those touch screens.

Rental wise a Road Hog or IPC shouldn't be too much more then a Hog 1k and will make your life much easier.
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[Traitor800]

I would stay away from the Congo for this show. Its a great board for theatre but its not the fastest to learn, nor does it handle moving lights as well as some of the other boards out there. Mainly it has no built in effects engine, which doesn't matter for theatre where ML's are usually just moved from one point to another, but it sounds like you want to do some fancier stuff with the ML's so I would look elsewhere.

[lighttechie5948]

how would I learn the road hog? I have an extensive knowledge of the expressions and have a basic knowledge of strand 300/500s.

[beltsvillecrucib]

HogSpeak is real easy to learn. Simply sit down with the manual and Hog3PC (if you go for Road Hog) or Hog2PC (If you select the 1K). The expression/Strand experience probably would not help you at all on the congo and from what I hear the Ion is much more similar to Obsession syntax than anything else.

If you really want to program the moving lights to look great in an efficient manner, go get a proper ML console. I say Hog just due to ease of learning and the amount of rental houses that stock them.

[SerraAva]

Hog 3PC can be downloaded here. When in the program, it will even have the console lay out exactly like a Hog 3, and very similar to a Road Hog or IPC. Then just sit with the manual and read away with the software in front of you. Then when you get the actual console, it is not like jumping into a pot of hot water. This is how I learned the console.