To buy or not to buy. That is the question

[Crisp image]

Good evening All,
It seems that lots of you know what you are talking about so I thought I would ask my question here.
We are a small community youth theatre company who mount 2 shows a year in a venue that we do not own but we have access to use it as a rehearsal space.
The conversation of late is should we buy 4 moving lights or just continue to hire them on a show by show basis.
Let me start by laying out the facts.
We would most likely buy Cheurvet intimidators 455z which are in the DJ range of lights but get good reviews and remembering we only do 2 shows a year which works out to be about 6 weeks of weekends with one week of tech and dressed rehearsals for each show.
Currently we hire in Rouge 1 spots which work well with our space
The cost of the intimidators is $1500aud
The cost of hire is about $1500aud per show for the season.

So over 4 shows (2 years ) if we hire we could have purchased them and then from then on it is just maintaiance of them with the possibility of hiring them out to other community groups.
We may be able to leave them hung in the rig and disable them so others can't use them without permission but if we can't then someone has to store them at home. I also think every time you rig and derig these lights there is more risk of damage.

If we continue to hire them we have the advantage if they do not work we ring up and get another one and we also would have access to newer lights as they are released.

So as the title of this thread asks "To buy or not to buy that is the question."

I look forward to your comments and thoughts
If you need to ask questions please do.

Regards
Geoff

 

[seanandkate]

If you like both the Intimidators and the Rogue 1 equally, I would buy. The warranty on the Chauvet movers is two years (in North America anyway), so the WORST case scenario has you spending no less money if all four failed catastrophically on the day after the warranty expires than you would have spent on rentals. But I would imagine that the service life will go well beyond your two year window. For stuff like this, I would almost always rather buy and have gear at the end than to spend slightly less money and have nothing at the end. It's still a lot of money for a community theatre though, so always get a demo in your space and make sure the Intimadators do what you want them to do. The review can say it's a good instrument, but you want to make sure that it's a good instrument for you.

 

[JD]

Now have a few 10 year old Chauvet movers, light duty (use a few times a year), but they're still working fine. If you were doing a road show and used them a lot, I would say no, but as long as they do what you need, then it makes sense. They have gotten much better over the years as well.