Well, it all depends on what you want to do. All light boards do roughly the same thing, although go about it in completely different ways. The GIO5 is
portable and pretty promising, yes you can busk on
EOS. I do and I enjoy it, although I currently don't do a whole lot. My board of choice would be an
EOS Ti.
I don't think I could recommend the Cobalt. I love the
button layout of the Cobalt 20 but im not in love with the software, plus the forums have quite a few complaints of random crashes, although most seem to be caused by massive showfiles...
I don't think I could ever recommend a Hog at least right now, besides the recent
purchase of High End by
ETC I've seen too many of them crash either just before or during a show. The last guy had his rig at our
venue go down right in the middle of a set and he says "Did you see how fast that reboot was? SSD's are awesome!" and im like "You see this
ION? its never crashed!" lol
GrandMA is awesome for live events, although I see it as the same thing as direct select with
EOS, plus
EOS has Magic Sheets ;-) I have seen 1 GrandMA2 go down before a show, but not during, and it only happened once, so i wouldn't really hold that against them. I think its a great
system and there are a ton of forums and videos dedicated to learning the
system, it has a great community, although people dont seem to be as open on
busking 'secrets' as they are on other consoles. Also, i don't think any
system is as good GrandMA with
MTC if that's something you are interested in. Also linking multiple consoles in the same
system seems to be more friendly than
EOS, (meaning the
system is more open with
artNet rather than
ETC's net3) if you'll be running backup systems or programming wings. It also comes in fairly affordable and roadworthy setups like the MA onPC, and something in every budget.
Chamsys is definitely worth a look, at least the stadium consoles like the mq500! I haven't tried one yet but I am itching to get my hands on one. Reasonably priced, well built and the newer software has definitely caught my attention. I'd pass over the smaller boards with them but the stadium series i'd at least give a shot.
Also
Jands Vista is a pretty awesome
system, super easy, super fast... I hate it! lol, it's like ADJ's myDMX on steroids. it takes all the technical skill out of lighting design in my opinion, also, in my opinion, its way too over priced for its
ease of use... just my opinion
My best advice, if your in the Vegas area go check out 4Wall, they rent and sell dang near any
console, new and used, and you check out the consoles for yourself. Also, almost all of them have an offline version of the software that you can download for free to get a feel for how the software works... they all do the same thing, its just how they go about it that needs to be comfortable for your needs.