Sounds to me like it might be an energy consultant, not a theatrical vendor. A vendor would want to sell a lot of stuff. Energy guys come in and only make money when they save district a lot of money energy costs, sometimes connected to the actual savings. In this case it seems like he may have put fixtures in at a cost
level that the district will be able to pay off
in one year of energy savings, and hopes to take in commission based on the sale, and energy savings in future years. It is essentially free for a district to hire these guys, and they end up saving a bunch of $ after doing it.
Our energy consultant refuses to do
stage lighting, but has considered our
house lights. He makes a bundle every 5-8 years replacing classroom fixtures, and the district save a lot of money. He recognizes that to do
stage lighting correctly, there is a lot more required than basic lights to
cover an area, so he doesn't think the savings is worth it in a short enough time frame to make it worth doing for his pocket. In addition, on
stage, you don't use all the lights all the time, so energy savings is mitigated by the actual use of each
fixture if purchased based on energy savings price.
Based purely on this hunch (- I may be completely wrong here) it sounds like your guy has found a huge space, that can be lit with very few expensive lights, where he feels he can make a lot of $ from the energy savings from the old
system. If this is the case, they will disable/remove the old
system entirely,
rendering it impossible to use traditional fixtures because their use of energy will dramatically cut his bottom
line, and the energy savings incurred by the district.
Since it looks like the OP is a student, he will have very little influence on this process, but maybe getting information in the hands of the right people can change the process before it gets too far - Energy contracts are for many years, and once in, you are not getting out without a
buyout cost (again, making assumptions).