Intelligent Lighting in High School

[Tex]

We own eight LED PARS (semi-intelligent) and have a standing arrangement with a sister school to borrow up to 8 Studio Spots and 8 Studio Colors any time we need them.
I love the LED PARS. No more gels in Fresnels (or scoops ) for color washes and they easily change color on the fly. The High End instruments are great for specials, patterns and projections but I wouldn't want a whole beam of them. There is NO substitute for a Source Four...

 

[lighttechie5948]

We own eight LED PARS (semi-intelligent) and have a standing arrangement with a sister school to borrow up to 8 Studio Spots and 8 Studio Colors any time we need them.
I love the LED PARS. No more gels in Fresnels (or scoops ) for color washes and they easily change color on the fly. The High End instruments are great for specials, patterns and projections but I wouldn't want a whole beam of them. There is NO substitute for a Source Four...

I think a VL3500 is a good substitute for a S4.

 

[Tex]

Guess I should have said, "In my opinion..."
Not to go off topic, but is a $10,000 fixture really a substitute for a >$500 instrument for area lighting? The only reason I say this is that my district just built a new school and a couple of salesmen tried to sell the idea of all intels. Fortunately, they had a good consultant who bought enough conventional fixtures to cover the stage instead of the meager, "almost enough" intel packages that were bid.
If I had to choose between $200,000 worth of intels in my beam or $200,000 worth of conventional fixtures spread throughout the space, I'd take the conventional fixtures.

 

[fredthe]

We just got the go-ahead to order a pair of VL2500 spots . We've been renting a pair of spots, plus a half-dozen wash fixtures for the past 2 years, once or twice a year. While this normally wouldn't lead to a need to purchase them, in our specific case there are a couple of benefits...

- Give the students a chance to learn how they work throughout the year, instead of only for a few days before the show

- Where we mount the spots in the house is about 6' below our FOH pipe. So, every time we rent them, we need to also rent pipes, etc., and spend several hours getting them hung (with the assistance of a qualified rigger, of course.) With the purchase, we are also setting up permanent hang positions.

We will, however continue to rent the wash units when we need them. It's quick to mount them on the stage electrics, and the students will already be familiar with how movers operate, so programming will be easier.

-Fred

 

[Luminosity]

My high school has about 64 Moving Lights. They're all Studio Spots and Colors (32 of each) and all controlled from a Whole Hog II. Although we have such a high number, we only use 15-30 in the auditorium at a time. The rest are kept in the classroom for learning purposes.

 

[midgetgreen11]

My high school has about 64 Moving Lights. They're all Studio Spots and Colors (32 of each) and all controlled from a Whole Hog II. Although we have such a high number, we only use 15-30 in the auditorium at a time. The rest are kept in the classroom for learning purposes.

Whaaaaaaaat? Where do you attend high school?

 

[bri4827]

We are very lucky - we have 12 design spot 250s, 4 CF7s, 8 iwash LED, 24 color key LED par64s, 8 color scrollers, and one HES ibeam - I love our space

 

[Shillyer]

My former high school has:

4- Mac 300's
2- Mac 500's
7- MX-10E's

All of which seem to do a decent job however I wish they packed a bit more punch in the intensity department. Also I find the MX-10's like to cause headaches fairly often.

 

[Luminosity]

Whaaaaaaaat? Where do you attend high school?

Van Nuys HS
A few years back, Frank Zappa donated a whole bunch of gear and equipment.

 

[lightingdmx]

Well it seems that most high schools don't have intelligent lighting but we do we have
4-studio spots 575
4-studio spots 250
10-studio colors 575
2-technobeams
3-Mac 300s
3-manias scx 600
9-non working studio colors
5-non working studio spots
And over 100 lekos and pars
And our boards are
Hog4pc for our new theatre
And Hog2pc for the black box
And also a great sound system
Ls9 board and 2 other ones

 

[Les]

9-non working studio colors
5-non working studio spots

I'm guessing that's because there's no budget/personnel to fix them?

 

[lightingdmx]

I'm guessing that's because there's no budget/personnel to fix them?

Oh no we can fix them we just need to buy bulbs and some parts and we have the budget we just haven't kept on buying parts because sound needed money.

 

[Techdude9856]

We have 10 Varilite VL1100 Arc ERS AS and 8 Mac 401's at my High School.

 

[TimMiller]

My school has two Intellabeams. They were so cool and shiny and new when we got them just two years ago but they quickly started glitching out... and they blow fuses more often than it seems they should (I've changed them before, it's not hard, but the school board REALLY doesn't want student techs doing that). All in all, we use them far less than we should given what we paid - they weren't worth the money.

(Is crossing fingers that the rumors of new fixtures on order are true).

Even two years ago the intellabeam has already been discontinued for more than 10. I want to say it was around 1998 when they were discontinued.

 

[josh88]

No movers but we just bought a couple of Elation LED pars and some ADJ pucks for use in our blackbox space and for the various tent events that we do. For the price I'm actually pretty surprised. Certainly not top notch gear but it gives a new learning option and fits those event needs perfectly.

 

[techieman33]

Even two years ago the intellabeam has already been discontinued for more than 10. I want to say it was around 1998 when they were discontinued.

That post was made in 2004, so in 2001-2002 there could have been brand new fixtures laying around in a warehouse somewhere.