Intelligent Lights for Show

91steve

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Hey guys I was wondering what lighting I should rent for a show I have upcoming in May with a Rock/powerpop band. The band moves around a ton, and puts on a high energy show. I want the lighting to reflect that. I don't have a ton of money, but I just need to rent it all for a day. Should I use intelligent lights or should I go for something cheaper and more of it? What would give me the most bang for my buck? I think simple PAR lighting would not attain the atmosphere I am trying to set. Tell me what you think? Thanks!!
Oh and the stage is about 35ft width, 25ft in depth if that helps any.
 
If you tell us where the show will be, we can probably point you to some good rental companies in the area. It would also be good to know the budget so that we can recommend a package based on that price range. Also, will you be hanging from positions that already exist, or will you need to rent trussing, stands, and/or chainmotors?
 
Hey thanks! The show will be in Knoxville, Tennessee. We are really looking for sponsors for the lighting so we hope that we don't have to pay a lot. If we need to though we are willing to pay $500 for the day. Not a lot I know... There isn't any installed lighting right now except for house lights and 8 par 64's. We would need to rent trusses if we were to use them. I had also heard/seen the idea of using trusses as pillars and putting them in the back of the stage and placing moving head lights on the top of them?

I think we are going to have some sponsors so even if your 'package' might cost more than are budget go ahead and shoot it my way. Thanks again!
 
for $500, you should probably be able to get 3 or 4 mac 250's that you could set on the floor US and a board to run it on.

You might also want to consider renting a bunch of led pars as instead.
 
I'd look at moving mirror fixtures. Cheeper then moving heads, and for what your doing just about as effective. Trackspots are nice, and shouldn't be all that much to rent for a day.
 
Well, if you want to drive there are plenty of rental houses in the nashvegas area. Big question is... what kind of console do you have available, that can make or break the bank.
 
Trackspots usually run $50/day anywhere in the country and the rental house will throw in all the cabling and occasionally the controller, if required.
 
Thanks guys. We were definitely thinking about moving mirrors, but can you set them on the floor? or do those have to be mounted?

the only board we have is an elation stage setter 8 for the 8 par 64's that we use regularly. Also, I'm not sure about traveling to Nashville, we would prefer to rent from inside the Knoxville area.

If i were to go with the mac 250's how many would be good coverage for a stage of that size (35ft. width, 25ft. depth)?
 
Thanks guys. We were definitely thinking about moving mirrors, but can you set them on the floor? or do those have to be mounted?
the only board we have is an elation stage setter 8 for the 8 par 64's that we use regularly. Also, I'm not sure about traveling to Nashville, we would prefer to rent from inside the Knoxville area.
If i were to go with the mac 250's how many would be good coverage for a stage of that size (35ft. width, 25ft. depth)?

Trackspots don't deck mount well, however technobeams deck mount extremely well because they are built to do it.
 
You could do a lot with some ACL's, blinders, and a hazer.
 
With a custom-built base out of 2x4, you can mount trackspots on the floor. Works fine. If the house rents Intellabeam 700HXs that are in good shape, they're bright fixtures that have a decent set of gobos and colors, but no prism or rotating gobos.

Oh, and the Bandit Lites World Headquarters is in Knoxville. I wonder if they'd rent out a few lights for a one-day gig. If so, they should have enough older stuff laying around that no one uses any more that you should be able to get it for a really good price if you talk to the right person.

I know what you mean about pars not having enough energy for the concert. Sometimes beams sweeping through the air with patterns blasting the haze is what fits best with the music. But you really should start with a nice base of 500W pars, then add two or three movers on the back truss and two on the floor if budget allows.
 
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Also, you're probably going to have constrain your designs around the power/dimmers available in the space?
 
In our area - Techobeams usually have the best bang for buck ratio. A little clumsy, but yeah you can set them on the deck. Just make sure that the fan at the bottom isnt blocked.

Trackspots are ok, but only four of them will look weak.
 
A little word of caution here, bear in mind that you are going to have a long hard day rigging this show and by the time you have it rigged how much time will be left for plotting?
It is my experience that you need a lot of plotting time to get your effects with movers and you really need to know the board or have a visualizer for it so that you can pre-program.
So depending on your skill level you may get better value out of a bigger conventional rig, but don't expect to learn a new desk on the day and have time to plot lots of great mover effects.Time is always the enemy on one night stands.
 
All good advice, but since 50% of my income comes from lighting bands comes and doing it with little to no set-up time, here's what I would do:

First, find out what lighting software you can rent. I say that because you can download it for free, set up and program the rig from now until show day. Most of them have a visualizer so you can create your color and gobo palettes before you ever connect a light. Then the day of, all you need to do is touch up the focus points.

Make a bunch of generic looks and don't try to do anything that is cued to a specific song or moment. That takes too much time.

As for what lights to rent, call a few places and ask what they can get you within your budget. Some flexibility in your scheduling will help. If you're doing a Friday show, and can return first thing Saturday morning, you'll have some leverage to get a better deal. A weeknight might even get you more of a deal. Also, what you have in house will make a difference.

Par cans are great, simply because they're fairly cheap to rent. In Chicago I can get 24 cans on bars, a dimmer rack and all the multipin cable for about $300. Your mileage will vary. Most places will gel them for you if you give them a specific plot, or tell them the type of music you're doing. Movers require less electricity but you'll get less beams.

As far as rigging, the towers are a fine idea. If you have the time and the labor. I usually like a 3 person team to build a tower and hang lights from it, but it can be done with 2.
 
All good advice, but since 50% of my income comes from lighting bands comes and doing it with little to no set-up time, here's what I would do:
First, find out what lighting software you can rent. I say that because you can download it for free, set up and program the rig from now until show day. Most of them have a visualizer so you can create your color and gobo palettes before you ever connect a light. Then the day of, all you need to do is touch up the focus points.
Make a bunch of generic looks and don't try to do anything that is cued to a specific song or moment. That takes too much time.
As for what lights to rent, call a few places and ask what they can get you within your budget. Some flexibility in your scheduling will help. If you're doing a Friday show, and can return first thing Saturday morning, you'll have some leverage to get a better deal. A weeknight might even get you more of a deal. Also, what you have in house will make a difference.
Par cans are great, simply because they're fairly cheap to rent. In Chicago I can get 24 cans on bars, a dimmer rack and all the multipin cable for about $300. Your mileage will vary. Most places will gel them for you if you give them a specific plot, or tell them the type of music you're doing. Movers require less electricity but you'll get less beams.
As far as rigging, the towers are a fine idea. If you have the time and the labor. I usually like a 3 person team to build a tower and hang lights from it, but it can be done with 2.

Thanks everyone! I am going to have a good sized crew to help for the day so the rigging shouldn't be too bad, but as you said the designing takes all the time.

I was wondering if you could recommend a good, free lighting software for me to use?
 
I'd say that two or four movers would be a great addition. If you get a board that has enough subs, you can program them pretty well on the fly. I did a gig with 10 conventional pars, 6 Coemar LED pars, 2 MAC250's, and some T-3 worklights (great cheap blinders). I had an Express 48/96. I programmed subs that had pan and tilt of the fixtures (pan inverted to make fixtures symmetrical), and I programmed a few step effects, as well as some basic color/gobo combinations. Put these together, and you can make very good use of some movers. However, back to those LED pars - they add a whole lot to your show. If you can get some, do. Many makes have built in strobe functions, including a "random" strobe function that is great to bump for a few seconds during a high-energy part of a song. You might also look in to getting a few lekos, floor-mounted with small breakup gobos and a good light cold blue in them, and a few others with a saturated yellow in them. Cheap effect, works great. Put one on either side of the drummer, and put some behind amps, etc. You get the idea. If you actually plot things out on paper and wrap your head around where the MLs are going to hit at what values, you can program things in the offline editor fairly easily with focus points, groups, and subs. Then you format a disk on the console as soon as you get it, stick that disk in your computer, load the show to it, and stick it back in the console. Then your subs, effects, groups, and focus points are all transferred to the console. You can also pre-load all of the ML profiles you'll need this way.

People have already mentioned them, but ACLs are a great effect. Also, some blinders. For "smash blinders" as I like to call them, get some T-3 worklights from Lowes (you probably want the 500 or 600W ones), and use those without gels.
 
Thanks everyone! I am going to have a good sized crew to help for the day so the rigging shouldn't be too bad, but as you said the designing takes all the time.
I was wondering if you could recommend a good, free lighting software for me to use?

The software is free to download. Issue is you need a piece of hardware to make it run the lights. Martin and High End make among the oldest ones. Elation makes one, Chamsys makes one, Daslight, and a bunch more. The issue isn't getting the software, it's getting the hardware. Which is why I suggested calling to see if anyone rents the pc based hardware. Also, most of them are pc only, not Mac. There is one Mac based program, but it's not very common, likely because Macs aren't very common (relative to pc). Not a quality thing, just the fact that historically less than one Mac computer is sold for every 10 pc based computers.
 
Go down to Bandit lites in Knoxville: www.banditlites.com
give them your budget and see what you can get for it? They may be able to give you pointers and some hands on help as well. Going in person, will get you a better response than calling or emailing.
hope it helps
RB
 

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