What light to choose for medium stage.?

[Datte83]

What light to choose? Thinking on getting PAR 64 short housing with a 500W bulp. Our theater is a quiet small. Like 4x9 meters stage. I'm thinking of buying eight of them PAR as front light for show and theater. They will be placed on a beam 4 meters from the stage edge. Could this figuration work??
Short or long PAR housing?
Please need an awnser fast.
Thanks Martin

 

[Les]

The configuration you describe should light the stage, but don't expect much control and be prepared for hotspots. The length of the housing on the pars will have a negligible difference - the real determining factor is the lamp you use. I assume you are overseas - I'm not sure if your par lamps are the same (in terms of photometrics) as ours here in the US, so you might want to take a look at your choices and see what the best fit would be. Manufacturers should give the beam angles of their lamps, and you can use that to determine the beam size from your particular distance.

 

[Datte83]

Thanks Les! You're right I'm overseas, Sweden acctually. So what type of par lamp sould I get in yor opinion?

 

[StradivariusBone]

As far as beam angle goes, you need to figure on the distance from your lighting positions to your stage, taking into account that the beam itself is conical in shape.

This is a good site that explains it well- http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~loebinfo/loebinfo/lighting/lighting.html (you have to scroll down a bit to find the section on PARs).

I'm not sure though if there are different sorts of PARs in Sweden however. I would guess the angles would be similar?

 

[DELO72]

What light to choose? Thinking on getting PAR 64 short housing with a 500W bulp. Our theater is a quiet small. Like 4x9 meters stage. I'm thinking of buying eight of them PAR as front light for show and theater. They will be placed on a beam 4 meters from the stage edge. Could this figuration work??
Short or long PAR housing?
Please need an awnser fast.
Thanks Martin

You want a Fresnel. It has twice the capability of a PARcan. You can spot it, flood it, barndoor it. PARcans in that space are overkill with very little controlability in my opinion.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Why not a PARnel?

 

[DELO72]

PARNels are fine as well. Fresnels (ETC, Selecon, Altman, etc., etc., etc.) tend to have a wider spot/flood range, and they barn door better (sharper cuts) than a PARNel does, so in a smaller space, I'd recommend a real fresnel over a PARNel for those reasons. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE me some PARNels, especially on larger stages, but if you only have one fixture to choose from, for me personally, each and every time I'd go with a Fresnel.

 

[RickR]

I don't know about Sweden, but many of our simple smaller stages use the Altman 65Q fixture. At less than 1/4 the price of higher quality fixtures the cost/benefit ratio is excellent. I'm also told they can be made for the HPL lamp.

 

[Datte83]

I've bought our lights today, I got 8 PAR64 500W