Control/Dimming - Which Lighting board for a cabaret show??

[BDS0111]

So, you have a show with 30 - 40 fixtures and only 8 or so will be conventional instruments and the rest will be automated fixtures?? Do you have experience using movings lights with the ETC boards you know? How much time will you have to load in and program the show? Would you have time to learn a new console before the show? Are you doing it all? Load In? Design?? Programming/cueing?? Operation?? Load Out? Do you have crew to help you or are you doing everything on you own. This is a very big show to manage on your own.

This is a large rig for someone who has not handled this many moving lights before. 30 - 40 fixtures is a lot of data and information to handle and I promise you that it will overwhelm you very quickly when you sit down to begin programming. While you are under pressure to program and meet deadlines is not the time to be leanring a new console. That is hard enough even if you do have experience with large rigs.

Messing with the offline editors and watching videos on youtube is a great tool, but for those who don't have experience with large rigs it just is not the same. What you really need to do to prepare for a show of this size is to actually get your hands on the console and a handful of fixtures to screw around with for a week to learn.

Do you know what kind of fixtures you will be using yet?? How long do you have to plan for and design this???

[SouthFloridaSFX]

Whats a good model hog that will do what I need? Thanks all again.

[gafftaper]

Any Hog or GrandMA you can get your hands on will probably be just fine and certainly a better fit than any old ETC console you may have worked with. What can you afford is a much more important question. Is this a rental or a purchase? What is your budget range?

[BDS0111]

You would want to be looking for a Hog II or a III. With the GrandMA I'd shoot for the full size... It would be worth looking into Avolites and Compulite Vector too! As for ETC, the EOS can handle large numbers of moving lights just fine...it is nothing like other ETC boards.. Tell us some more about your budget if you can. Where in FL are you...maybe we can point you to a place to where you can get a good deal!?

[NickJones]

If you do want to pre-program, or just get a feel, GrandMA has it's own Visualiser that's free, so you can pre-program the show on your computer, and then just make ajustments when you get to the venue, again, plotting time is really important, consider finding someone to be your board op, will save time,
Nick

[BDS0111]

Hey Jon. Any update???

[VL5]

get the ETC ion if you have the budget for it, I think it is like $4,000 and it is easy to use and is great with both movers and conventionals

[SouthFloridaSFX]

Still looking, had found a few on gearsouce.com for around 4800, but it loks like they revamped there site and there all gone now. Best Ive found is 6200.

[SouthFloridaSFX]

Anyone have any ideas? I dont know if all the boards from GS are comming back.