Just found at the local consignment store...

willbb123

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So I just got a text message from our Asst. Production Manager, She said she had found a Source 4 at the local Stuff Etc... I guess it works fine, it just needs a new lamp. They said it was brought in by someone in the mall down the street.

She said that there are some more instruments (lighting) that she has never seen before, and some large speakers. I think I'm gonna stop by in between jobs tomorrow.
 
Hahaha. Thats a great deal.
I guess someone in the mall swiped a display setup and made some cash.
 
I just emailed the pic to our PM, and he walked into the theater and said, "I hope thats not one of ours". (We r in the middle of a show, he was in his office I am running lights)
 
Years ago, before Kmart shut down most of their stores, they had these "blue light special" things that hung in each of their stores. It contained 2 JBL control 5 speakers, a S4 50 deg, a twinspin, and woods glass. They had one of these in every store. So, somewhere, across the country there is over a grand worth of production gear that no one knows what it is. So, if your up for a road trip, you could add some fixtures to your collection.
 
hmmm... a trip to infiltrate KMart's underground storage bunker, swipe a load of valuable fixtures, and to get out without getting caught... sounds like a great indie movie to me!
 
When their corporate offices here in Michigan moved, they had a HUGE auction in the whole facility. Kmart had their own black box and editing suite for filming their commercials in the 80's and 90's. They sold all kinds of curtains, lighting fixtures, dimmers, and some speakers. It was interesting. I got some EAW speakers for a good price from their board room.

~Dave
 
When their corporate offices here in Michigan moved, they had a HUGE auction in the whole facility. Kmart had their own black box and editing suite for filming their commercials in the 80's and 90's. They sold all kinds of curtains, lighting fixtures, dimmers, and some speakers. It was interesting. I got some EAW speakers for a good price from their board room.

~Dave

Going to pop a tent in front of GMC and Chrysler? I am sure they have some good stuff too.
 
Years ago, before Kmart shut down most of their stores, they had these "blue light special" things that hung in each of their stores. It contained 2 JBL control 5 speakers, a S4 50 deg, a twinspin, and woods glass. They had one of these in every store. So, somewhere, across the country there is over a grand worth of production gear that no one knows what it is. So, if your up for a road trip, you could add some fixtures to your collection.

I remember that! The only bad thing was they wanted $1,000 for the setup and weren't willing to part it out. All I wanted was the Source Four and rotator.
I remember seeing the gobo rotator precariously stuck in the gel frame. I'll bet the associates scratched their heads for hours wondering where to put it and why they couldn't get it to focus!
 
I remember the deal as well, as I drove a S4, rotator, 'Blue Light' custom gobos made of aluminum and Apollo #81 blue dichroic glass to their production company's office early in 2001.
The project was really pretty cool, but the events of Sept 11th didn't help the outcome of the campaign.....
 
I remember the deal as well, as I drove a S4, rotator, 'Blue Light' custom gobos made of aluminum and Apollo #81 blue dichroic glass to their production company's office early in 2001.
The project was really pretty cool, but the events of Sept 11th didn't help the outcome of the campaign.....

Did you guys get the project? If so, how many were produced?
 
Yes Footer, we received a portion of the project producing 2,300 aluminum BR sized 'Blue Light Special' gobos, Apollo dichroic glass with frames.

This is an interesting tidbit from an article of the day:

<Astor Place Kmart, in the East Village, is all about the color blue. Big billboards with tag lines like "Remain calm" and "Goose bumps ahead" feature pictures of streaking blue comets and lighthouses sending out beams of blue light. Blue banners advertise "Blue Light Zone!" and "Fantastic Savings Just Ahead." And in the middle of the store a blue canopy hangs from the ceiling, above a blue police light.

The blue is all part of Kmart's new, thirty-million-dollar marketing campaign, which has as its centerpiece the resurrection of a hoary Kmart tradition, the Blue Light Special. As Dave Karraker, a Blue Light Special spokesman, explained it to me, the new Blue Light Special is supposed to work like this: every hour on the hour, in every Kmart store in America, a voice over the intercom blares, "Attention Kmart shoppers!," the blue police light starts flashing, music kicks in (E.L.O.'s "Mr. Blue Sky," Johnny Cash's "Blue Train"), and some brand-name product (Samsung microwave ovens, Hanes T-shirts) appears on a cart beneath the canopy, available, for twenty thrilling minutes, at a significantly reduced price. "It's a reward for our regular customers—kind of a treasure hunt," Karraker said. "It's a carnivalesque atmosphere. People love that kind of stuff." They love it so much, apparently, that Kmart is trying to rebuild its struggling brand around it. >



It was sad to see the events of 9/11 strike all retailers, not just K-Mart. But the bigger surprise was the purchasing a few years ago of giant SEARS by the little engine that could... K-Mart.
 
Man, the local pawn shop by us had some par cans once, they wanted 200 bucks a can. I told them they were out of their minds.
 
I saw a gutted Colortran Mini-Ellipse at a pawn shop once. No lens tube, no shutters, no nothing. They wanted $125 for it.
 
Ahhh K-mart and the blue light special. I never saw the 2000 version. But I remember the original one (a small rolling cart with a blue police beacon on a pole).

When I was a kid, my Grandma used to love to take me to K-mart to get "ham" sandwiches from the concession stand. Do you remember the concession stand? The whole store smelled like a strange mix of popcorn and something else... never figured out what the other substance was. There was a HUGE candy aisle right next to the concession stand. The "ham" sandwiches were on little round rolls and I think they gave you 4 for a dollar. They were clearly made up weeks a ahead in a sweatshop and that resulted in the bread being just a little soggy from the extensive refrigeration. I remember looking forward to the day that I would be old enough to move up from the ham sandwich to the sub sandwich (which I'm sure was also soggy). She would also buy me an Icee, which made it all worth while. Got to do the mix: half blue - half red. :drool:

Good times... Bad food... but Good times.
 
K-Mart had a good hot dog from what I can recall. Not as good as Cosco, but still good. I always thought the food thing in the store was strange. Famous Bar used to do that with all their stores, they were known for their soup.

Now I want a cosco hot dog.

Strangely enough, I think the last purchase I ever made at a k-mart was pogs.
 
Ah' fond memories of the K-Mart balanced by the cursid green Tuffskins I had to wear at times during the 70's to the mocking of my classmates.... Fond memories of a store the way it was for how it was... unfond memories of what was achieved of a visit there... brown running shoes in a really bad color.... to the mocking of my classmates... Blue Light special, the food kitchen Mom didn't let us eat at no matter how hungry we thought we became after seeing the photos of food on the signs....

Recently finished making a bunch of "Blue Light Special" lamp poles for a trade show. that was a fun project and the prototype is now mounted in my area to be turned on when the Leko prep. department starts prepping their egg strobes in competition. This or to annoy the people in the hoist dpt. adjacent to us.. :)

Concept in making old style blue light special fixtures was different areas and when the section was ready to give it's spew about the product, they would flip on the blue light special lamp on a pole to attact the audience to what ever feature they were assigned to tell about at the specified time. Don't know how well it worked but last week they went out again on a second show a year later.

Do years later remember going into a K-Mart in seein a blue light special as it had changed and thought it was a cool upgrade this moving light blue light attraction. Didn't remember how it was done but on the other hand do also remember noting such a concept of the "blue light special" had lost it's overall concept somehow it had in the 70's where there would be a rush of people to it and a constant looking over one's shoulder in attempting to find it before announced. Last time I saw it, it was less about a give away as the concept as they were at times dirt cheap and good stuff offered, more just an annoyance and curiosity about the lighting given just a minor sale often for crap I had no interest in.

Ah' it dates me but also relates a change that might be in some way theater concept in how another era of growing up is different than today's generation. Could often afford a bit extra - just a bit though, but on the other hand what was offered was a really really good deal for good stuff.
 
Used to have a salvage/junk yard local to me called Kohler's Trading Post. Kind of like what one would see on the "Sandford and Son" TV show in not being about cars or car parts, they just had stuff like storm windows in broken glass lined racked areas full of them, trailers full of racks, maniquins, and other stuff from stores, and in general household junk that was at times valuable antique, other times just junk.
Growing up in the 70's/80's, this was a junk yard - yuck! One failing of my theater teacher that tought me so much, in not taking us there in helping us appriciate what was offered earlier. While in college, on trips back home or down town to the theater I designed at, re-discovered the place but didn't really have budget to get much. Left both behind and with it the need to get stuff unfortunately in these days being able to get stuff but now lacking the source.

Nothing like Salvage One in Chicago - a definate visit to go to in seeing wonders if rich one could get, but both and product in price, more just a place that if you needed a replacement motor for say a drill press, you could find stacks and stacks of them and as opposed to American Science and Surplus - another visit in Chicago, less overstock new stuff, more just stuff bought salvaged no matter the condition in relying the customer to dig thru piles of just plain stuff and find what ever they wanted, than track down a sales person to put a price on it. 5gal. buckets full of rusty bolts type of place, a few buildings that seperated more industrial from household goods verses what was amongst perhaps the rats or bugs in the 50's era corrougated side and rounded front storage semi-trailers out there - big lot one could wander about as long as good tires on the car and or good boots and flash light. Fascinating place - leaky ceilings and all in the buildings in being a shame at times in finding good stuff but water leaking down onto it having ruined it. Great stuff, an adventure every visit every time one visited it in never knowing what you would find.

Loved my visits to the place, too bad that they finally got closed down I think more for the value of the land than for any unsafe conditions. So what the if the households goods building burned down at some point, and walking around the lost was a testiment to tires or boots, and one was in going deep into the lot on a true adventure, it was a really relly cool place.

Got a few track lighting fixtures out of it, some of which I still own in having converted from say track to short snout stage type PAR fixture. The Halo PAR 46 fixtures especially once I mounted gel frame brackets to them became very useful. Never a true stage light out of the place but I was on their E-Mail list should they come across some stage lighting - something cool about a local junk yard in if they have a customer interested, they might bid or get stuff for you on the cheap.

For one show, I needed a very small stove from about the 1930's. Saw this really cool speckeled porcelain one there which by todays standards would still be cool, and I rented it for the show. Unfortunately it turned out to be by way of cast iron too heavy to transport between scenes, but in having it, I was able to make a really good copy, and the rental price with program placement for the source was decent. Loved that stove, this granted my wife would despise it other than from an artistic standpoint.

Lots of motors and antique tools I would be interested in today in finding out they are now gone feeling a loss, but there was also that Altman Q1000 they had. It had a cracked lens - no big deal and some bad juju going on in for some reason, the last user installed a something like L5-20 plug and connector inside the light fixture. Don't know what was going on with that concept in even as a carpenter to the trade, I knew something was not right there, but had I only the $125.00 to spare back than, I will have bought it up if only for giving it a home and or selling it off. Never in time got that money in returning back there. That was a great find. I'm sure there was other stuff I was not able to recognize back than I would now love.

Too bad the place is gone.
 
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