I would be hard-pressed to buy
any quartz fixtures unless strictly for
FOH and even then,
LED is feasible within reason, though expensive. I don't think we'll eliminate our 30
FOH Shakespeare 20° fixtures anytime soon, but we're working one grant at a time. If starting fresh, I would shoot for 100%
LED plus
maybe a dozen
conventional Source Four ellipsoidals with accompanying standalone dimmers and a selection of
lens tubes. No need for any other
halogen fixtures (
cyc,
wash,
etc) in my opinion. If I had to skimp anywhere, I would probably go
halogen on the
FOH rail but still work in a dozen or so
LED profiles for special effects.
We purchased 12 Elation SixPar 200's and 8
Altman SpectraCyc 100's a couple of years ago and I don't miss the beasts they replaced _at all_. Our space has a large semithrust which was primarily lit using 1K
par 64's - about 12 per side. I have it down to three SixPar's per side and think it looks excellent. With 8-12 more SixPars, I can feel fine about liquidating the old
par's entirely.
We kept the old
Cyc fixtures in case we ever needed to do a groundrow, but they haven't been touched (except to rob clamps and
safety cables) since they were relegated to the storage room.
If looking at moving lights; maybe 8-12 units with a 75/25 mix of spots and washes. I find moving head washes very useful for live
theatre (though we use 5 VL500's), and spots are good for flash-n-trash or hitting a
mirror ball. Things like that. People tell themselves they'll use them as re-focusing specials, but I have yet to see that happen 100% successfully. You almost always sacrifice having ideal angles on at least a few of those marks, and you have to spend quite a
bit for features such as framing shutters. That's where my "dozen or so"
LED profiles would come in.