A tad "unusual"

[gafftapegreenia]

As I may have mentioned, my highschool does not own a stage. Thus, we rent offsite for our musicals. This year we are at the brand new Detroit Shool for the Performing Arts. A truly beautiful theatre with many modern conveniences; they really had a nice budget when they built this. However, their mainstage plot slightly surprised me. It is all Source 4 Lekos (no surprise there), and fresh out of the box Colotran 6 and 8 inch Fresnels. It seemd a bit unusual to me that such a modern theatre would have such a generous amount of fresnels when the whole world seems obsessed with source 4 everything. Of course, the board and distribution are all ETC. Their cyc wash also consists of 12 4 channel Colotran Far Cycs and a groundrow of Altman Zip Strips. I'm not complaining, infact I love Fresnels and am excited to be designing with such a versitile plot (not locked into the RGB of striplight battens), but I can't help but wonder what made the person who spec'd this theatre choose fresnels. Any thoughts?

[jonhirsh]

Um because most theatres have fresnels. S4's are great but not very efficent for coverning large areas. some times you cant afford to use 20 S4's where 8 Fresnels will do. Allot of theatres use pars as well.

JH

[icewolf08]

I have to second John here. Fresnels and PAR Cans are pretty standard instruments in almost every plot we hang. I actually just purchased more PARs. This is in addition to the over 150 S4's we hang on a regular basis. Just because it is is fixture type that has been around for many years doesn't mean it is a bad or out of date fixture. There are just some things that ellipsoidals can't do.

[gafftaper]

Yes, not at all unusual. There is a quality of light to a Fresnel that no other instrument produces. Now if ETC would produce a Fresnel the issue would be solved and we could all live happily in HPL575 land forever. But the S4 Par and the Parnel simply can not do the same things as a true Fresnel. They are good products but have a different purpose.

My new theater's lighting package breaks down to about 50% S4 Ellipsoidals, 20% S4 Pars, and 30% Altman Fresnels.

[Footer]

5th,6th,7th, you get the idea. Fresnels are one of the best instuments there are if used correctly. They are one of the only instruments that blends oh so very well. I have seen too many theatre go "we want everything to be ETC, and therefore have no fresnels". They can not get a decent top light system to save their life. Fresnel's make great specials and great backlight/top systems. They also work very well in black box situations. ETC has yet to make anything even remotly close to the fresnel (the parnel does not count, it has the most uneven field out of any instrument I have ever worked with). It kinda blows my mind that they have yet to make an instrument comparable to probably the most widely used instrument in the world.

[gafftapegreenia]

I don't think its unusual to use fresnels, I use them all the time and they might just be my favorite instrument. I completely understand about the need for fresnels.

My point was this theatre is entriely Source 4 Ellipsoidals and Colortran Fresnels. There is not a SINGLE Par - ETC or otherwise- in their plot.

I've just been used to seeing so many new theatres using solely ETC products, PARs and Ellipsoidals, and well as many designers using soley ETC that I thought it a break from the modern trend to use so many fresnels in a brand new theatre. It's not at all a bad thing, just not whats "popular", but whats realiable and proven.

[len]

Possible the designer/architect doesn't like the ETC S4, or the vendor had a better deal on the fresnels, or had a bunch in stock he sold for cheap, or ... Could be a lot of reasons that product X was installed instead of product Y. Sounds like it all worked out for you anyway.

[DarSax]

I'm at a high school. We've never, ever ever used a PAR can in a theatrical show. Just fresnels, probably where we could use PARs.

What theatrical use would you have for PARs, on that note? I've always wondered. More specifically--what could a PAR do for you that a fresnel or a Leko could not?

[Footer]

Originally Posted by DarSax

I'm at a high school. We've never, ever ever used a PAR can in a theatrical show. Just fresnels, probably where we could use PARs.
What theatrical use would you have for PARs, on that note? I've always wondered. More specifically--what could a PAR do for you that a fresnel or a Leko could not?

Nice lanes of backlight. Because pars are elliptical in shape, you can create nice lane of backlight that covers the stage better then a fresnel. I rarely ever do a backlight system that is not done with pars. They also make great flat torm color punches and a ton of other uses. There are few things better then a 1k par64 to really get some light out there. And most of all, they are freakishly cheap, the fixture usually cost about at much as the lamp. The only downside to traditional pars is having to keep stocks of varying lamps.

[DarSax]

What do you mean by "lane?" I figured as much for the color punches/brightness, but I wasn't sure why a fresnel couldn't do it for you. (I was asking not on the topic of cheapness, which of course makes the PAR a lot more desirable).