Moving lights for lecture hall

[albinotuba]

Hi! I know this question pops up constantly, but I'm looking for recommendations for a moving light. Our lecture hall currently is all conventional lighting, and some of the fixtures are mounted on remote controlled pan/tilt heads so we can reposition lights, mostly so we don't need quite so many fixtures. We're looking at moving to LED and replacing the pan/tilt heads with actual moving lights. We don't really need any flashy features, no gobos or effects. The biggest new features I'd like that our current movers lack is variable white color temperature and a wide zoom range.

 

[macsound]

My favorite moving light of all time is the VL1000 and they do make an LED version.
Super quiet, 19-70 zoom, framing shutters, CMY. Pretty much a moving ellipsoidal.

A little downside is that they're very tall because of that long zoom, but the upside is they feel very svelt, partially because there's no beefy base, everything is built into the yoke.

 

[MRW Lights]

You get points for saying what you have and what you want/you're missing but..... What's your budget? What's the common use of the space? What's the throw distance? What's your available power/DMX distribution? Maintenance access? and what does the future look like? Are you sure you'll never want flashy features? Need Input!

 

[macsound]

Johnny 5 !!!

 

[soundlight]

With a feature list like that, I'd highly recommend the Martin MAC Encore Performance. You can get it with a warm white or a cool white LED engine, both have a color temp wheel - the cool source has a CTO wheel, and the warm source has a CTB wheel. Great units.

 

[SteveB]

How about an ETC S4 Lustr, 2 or 3, on a City Theatrical Auto-Yoke with a DMX controlled Iris ? No gobo's.

 

[albinotuba]

What's your budget? What's the common use of the space? What's the throw distance? What's your available power/DMX distribution? Maintenance access? and what does the future look like? Are you sure you'll never want flashy features?

Budget is $100k or thereabouts. The space is mostly use for lectures, panel discussions, the occasional string quartet. Throw is about 40-60 feet. There's no non-dim power in the ceiling so we'd be replacing dimmer modules, there's also no DMX yet but that's an easy enough cable pull. Maintenance access is a genie lift. I don't see us ever doing anything flashier than a Jazz trio, all our events are pretty tame.

Thanks for your help!

 

[MRW Lights]

Budget is $100k or thereabouts. The space is mostly use for lectures, panel discussions, the occasional string quartet. Throw is about 40-60 feet. There's no non-dim power in the ceiling so we'd be replacing dimmer modules, there's also no DMX yet but that's an easy enough cable pull. Maintenance access is a genie lift. I don't see us ever doing anything flashier than a Jazz trio, all our events are pretty tame.

Thanks for your help!

Then I would second @macsound with the VL1K. Do you also have the console to take you down this road? I'm an ETC junkie, so I'd say depending on your number of fixtures a nice little Ion Xe or a Gio5 oughta do the trick. But if you're in another world already there's likely an option there as well if you're needing an upgrade.

 

[Jim Tetlow]

I'm a big fan of the VL 1000 for all of the reasons listed by others, but with a narrow lens of 19 degrees, I feel that it's maxed out at a 40' throw and a 14 degree is my preferred lens at that distance. For a 60' throw, you are definitely into a 10 degree lens range. Better to find an automated fixture with a lens zoom to 10 degrees on the tight end.

 

[Jay Ashworth]

You get points for saying what you have and what you want/you're missing but..... What's your budget? What's the common use of the space? What's the throw distance? What's your available power/DMX distribution? Maintenance access? and what does the future look like? Are you sure you'll never want flashy features? Need Input!
View attachment 22040

Here and *I* thought that was an illustration of a possible candidate fixture...

 

[Pie4Weebl]

Do you need the hard edges of a leko, because it sounds like a wash fixture might be more what you're after. If variable white is the only color you use, it might be worth looking at Rogue R2X Wash VW

 

[DELO72]

I guess I'll ask the "elephant in the room question"- Why do you need moving lights in a lecture hall? Seems to me like you have a Square Peg :: Round Hole situation. If it's just about repositioning the fixtures easier, then an autoyoke and some LED ellipsoidals might indeed be the way to go. But honestly- Why not stick with what works and keep a good rep. plot in place with specials covering almost all areas? Just my 2 cents on it. Spending money on something that does 10x what you need for the space doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

[macsound]

I guess I'll ask the "elephant in the room question"- Why do you need moving lights in a lecture hall? Seems to me like you have a Square Peg :: Round Hole situation. If it's just about repositioning the fixtures easier, then an autoyoke and some LED ellipsoidals might indeed be the way to go. But honestly- Why not stick with what works and keep a good rep. plot in place with specials covering almost all areas? Just my 2 cents on it. Spending money on something that does 10x what you need for the space doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

My usual argument is because of shutters.
I can move a light all day with something like an Autoyoke but if my shutter cuts aren't parallel to the front of the stage, I'd personally prefer to not be able to move the light.

Also what is totally lifesaving in a lecture hall is having some light on the person speaking without washing out the projection screen. Even if it's just 2 looks that you setup on your console, being able to have a full stage wash and a projection cue, that's so great and saves you a whole additional system of Source fours.

 

[DELO72]

That's a fair and totally logical answer. In that case I'd look for a fixture that is quiet(ish), has a super high CRI for good skin tones, with framing shutters. Look for ones with Profile in the description for framing shutters.

Cheers,

Mark

 

[Ford]

You might consider the Silens 2 Profile. It seems to tick all of your boxes.

 

[macsound]

End up getting any demos?