Moving Fixtures for a Theatre

[wctctech]

Good Day all,

We are currently looking at purchasing some moving fixtures for my theatre. It is a community road house managed by a professional producing Theatre company. The theatre is rented out for about 80% of the year and it sees a variety of shows. Live concerts to professional theatre shows. The push for movers comes from a number of areas. From me wanting to add that pizzaz to our shows (we are doing disneys Beauty this year for example) and the push also comes from the road shows asking what do you have for movers. To which we say errr arrgh nothing. We have demo'd a few units. My first inclination for to look for wash fixtures so we demo's a Martin TW-1 and a VL 500. I like the tuungsten fixtures for sure. Our thought was that the theatre show and day to day we could use the wash fixtures as our topwash. Reduce the number of instruments hung and speed up our turnarounds. But after talking as a group the TD of the space, my technicians and anyone that came through, we realized that a purely wash fixture may not be the best use of our money. It was suggested to look at a couple of other fixture the VL 1000 with shutters came up and I like the idea, but also we were suggested to look at the martin 700 profile although they are arc source. So all that being said, and opening the can of worms I just have, what do you have to say. Who have used these fixtures and what do you prefer.

Chris

[icewolf08]

Well, first off, there are dozens of threads on this, use the search feature. Next, what is your budget for this, and what do you want to be able to do with the fixtures? I assume you must have a pretty large budget if you were thinking about purchasing a bunch of TW1'a or VL500s. If you are on a tight budget and need spot fixtures, you might look at the ETC Revolution, the people in the music world will scoff at them, but for theatre applications they are good fixtures and you can get 3 of them for the price of 2 VL1000s. On the other hand, the VL1000 is a nice fixture and if you have the money you will get more features. I am sure others have more opinions, and like I said, search around a bit, because most of these fixtures have been discussed in other threads.

[jonhirsh]

Whats your throw, application, budget per fixture.

JH

[Footer]

Also, what are you using as your current lighting console. If it is anything made by etc that is not the EOS or Obsession, you might want to look at adding a new console into the budget.

[jmabray]

Originally Posted by Footer4321

Also, what are you using as your current lighting console. If it is anything made by etc that is not the EOS or Obsession, you might want to look at adding a new console into the budget.

I would have to disagree with this. (as much as I like ETC, and I do) you don't necessarily need an ETC desk to do moving lights - nor does it have to be the EOS or the Obsession. You can also do it with the Congo, Congo Jr., and SmartFade ML (to speak only of the ETC Product line - there are numerous others)

I think that what footer means to say ( and correct me if I am wrong here) is that you might want to consider looking at a desk designed to be in control of moving lights- and he is very correct in saying that. It will make your life significantly better to do so if you do not already have a console to do that. Can you program moving lights on a standard theatre style desk (i.e. an express) Yes - would you really want to? No.

Do make sure that you look at your control needs - not only your moving light needs.

[gafftaper]

While we wait for answers to those other questions: Two quick notes...

-Robe makes a Tungsten Wash light.

-Martin may have plans for a Tungsten Profile in the near future. (A Martin rep at LDI last fall told me that it was very likely depending on how the TW1 sells).

[Grog12]

Originally Posted by icewolf08

Well, first off, there are dozens of threads on this, use the search feature. Next, what is your budget for this, and what do you want to be able to do with the fixtures? I assume you must have a pretty large budget if you were thinking about purchasing a bunch of TW1'a or VL500s. If you are on a tight budget and need spot fixtures, you might look at the ETC Revolution, the people in the music world will scoff at them, but for theatre applications they are good fixtures and you can get 3 of them for the price of 2 VL1000s. On the other hand, the VL1000 is a nice fixture and if you have the money you will get more features. I am sure others have more opinions, and like I said, search around a bit, because most of these fixtures have been discussed in other threads.

Stay clear of the Revolution. It isn't worth your money. Sure you can get 3 for the price of 2 VL1K's but for that extra fixture you lose functionality because of their module's.

Originally Posted by jmabray

I would have to disagree with this. (as much as I like ETC, and I do) you don't necessarily need an ETC desk to do moving lights - nor does it have to be the EOS or the Obsession. You can also do it with the Congo, Congo Jr., and SmartFade ML (to speak only of the ETC Product line - there are numerous others)
I think that what footer means to say ( and correct me if I am wrong here) is that you might want to consider looking at a desk designed to be in control of moving lights- and he is very correct in saying that. It will make your life significantly better to do so if you do not already have a console to do that. Can you program moving lights on a standard theatre style desk (i.e. an express) Yes - would you really want to? No.
Do make sure that you look at your control needs - not only your moving light needs.

Buy a grand-MA make your life easy

[bslproductions]

for a road house the grandMA full edition (if you can budget it) and 8 to 12 robe colorspot 700 and colorwash 700 fixtures each would set you up for pretty much any small to mid sized show. You do need to look at profiles and washes, they each have their strengths and weekness's.

I prefer Robe when it comes to movers. They have all the same features as the Martin fixtures at a lower price and a higher quality. Robe used to make everyone else's fixtures for years. They just didn't advertize much till recently.

VL1000's are a great fixture, but you need more options than they afford for a road house.

[Footer]

Originally Posted by jmabray

I would have to disagree with this. (as much as I like ETC, and I do) you don't necessarily need an ETC desk to do moving lights - nor does it have to be the EOS or the Obsession. You can also do it with the Congo, Congo Jr., and SmartFade ML (to speak only of the ETC Product line - there are numerous others)

Odds are they do not have anything that ETC has put on in the last 2 years, if they have anything made by ETC at all. Because they are a road house, I am just guessing here, odds are they have either an ETC console or a strand console, and its not a congo, smartfade, smartfade ML, or any of their offsprings.

My feeling is that doing any type of intelligent light on an expression, insight, express, though doable, is the most infuriating process that a person can ever have.

If you are going to buy movers, take a look at your console and make sure it can actually handle it. If you need a new console be sure to bugdet it in.

[jmabray]

Well the Eos is even more recent the the congo.... ;-)

You're right about moving lights on an Express though - infuriating - an Expression 3 (or 2x) that has encoders - less so- but still not exactly a breeze.... especially compared to a console that is set up to do movers - like an EOS, Congo and the like. (Again there are other manufacturers out there that do nice products as well.)

But you are absolutely right in that they do need to take a look at the control situation and budget accordingly...

I will be very interested to see what s/he says that they already have for that...