Agreeing with other posts and adding some information of my own to this one..
I agree that
Mac's are relatively heavy. Dependant on what you want per bar (are you using bar on fly or trussing?) then weight may
play a relatively important part of the decisions that you make haha.
I worked with
Mac 250's last week, I had 6 Entours and 2 Kryptons. The Entours are slightly different to the K's but simply in what they posses. The Entours have dual
gobo wheels with about 17 gobos in total, whereas the Kryptons have only 7 gobos. (whether the amount of gobos matter i'm not sure, it depends on what you want to do). If you want some more information, go here for the
Entour or
Krypton sections of the
Martin website. They also have downloads of manuals if you want more detailed information.
When you are thinking about
wash versus
profile, think about the design elements you want to incorporate in your show by using your movers. A set of profiles can do a
wash almost as well as a series of washes, but it will be alot harsher/sharper as most of them (as far as i know) dont have a frosting option, where as the washs do. So if you wanted to
wash your
stage in a particular colour, then grab a few washes, put them strategically on your
grid and then position some profiles near by or in different locations - for specials or ambiance or whatever your design requires, this is all dependant of budget of course.
With placement, what i usually do is have a couple of washes on the forward LX bars, then have one or two on the end of the centre ones and a couple for back light. Then I have a couple in the centre of the first two LX, a couple mid range in the central overhead LX bars and then some at the back for backlight/
cyc work. It depends on the design and what is required though, as i said before.
Len was heading down the right
track with costs. Most new Macs are between $1000 and $3000 depending on the model of course. I think in some cases the
Mac 2000 went up to almost $6000, but dont hold me to that.
I agree with 'catlunch' though. Head over to the Brisbane theatres of QPAC and ask the lighting guys there what they think. Give "Brisbane Production Companies" a google and see what their lighting guys think, as they would have experienced (i imagine) quite a few dealings with questions when they hire stuff out to school and touring productions.
Hope that helps.