School upgrade

[stuartglen]

I have just been given my budget for new lights and gels for this year.

 

The drama dept is being given £350 for new lights gels and gel frames.

 

This is our current setup:

 

A strand 24 mx

 

DMX demultiplexer

 

4x analogue act 6 dimmers

 

32 way patch system

 

A few floods

 

lots of frensels

 

a few pc's

 

some old pattern 23

 

and about 5 prelude variable spots.

 

 

My question is this, my thoughts would be to get a few par64's with gell frames, then get various bulbs for them so that they can be used as spots or floods.

 

We need to get some new gel frames, up till now we have been using cardboard wraped in reflective tape. Would it be better to spend on frames for the existing lights or buy parcans with frames included?

[TomLyall]

First priority, IMHO, would be to repair any existing equipment (lanterns) you have, assuming it is economic to do so. This would include buying proper gel frames for these lanterns, cardboard really isn't suitable.

 

After that, make sure you have all the running spares you need, extra lamps, gel and other consumables.

 

Finally, look at what money is left to invest in some new equipment. Pars are a very cost effective way of providing light, particually in a school environment.

[mac.calder]

Kupo Multipars. Basically the same as buying a par with a number of bubbles, except you pay more for one lantern, but you get 3 lenses (narrow, mid, wide), and you use the one bubble. AU$273 for a lantern, (roughly 100 pounds each) being a school, you may get it cheaper. They come with gel frame, hook clamp, safety chain and bubble.

[PDD]

I agree with what tomlyall said - £350 won't go that far so improve your existing equipment first - gel frames, then parcans. I wouldn't get anything fancy - a deal with a can and a CP62 (or CP88 500W more suitable?) shouldn't cost you much.

[James S]

Hi,

 

We recently sold some old patt 23s and 123s on ebay that we no longer used.

 

With this we bought 8 PAR56s on ebay (they were new and included bulbs). They are great - they can be used for most tasks in small and large areas for conventional theatre or concert type illumination. They were £170 for 8cans, bulbs and delivery. (Can post the seller details if you want).

 

That would give you plenty left over for gel frames and consumables for your current equipment.

 

However, saying that www.stagelighting.co.uk are selling PAR 64s of which look like good quality for £10 each inc VAT + postage (minus bulbs of course)

 

You dont neccasarily need to buy new - you can get great second hand lighting deals on ebay.

 

Hope this helps,

James

[joelbur]

Hi, I agree with mac.calder.

Changing the lamps in par's, especially when they're rigged up, could get fiddly if you needed to do it a lot. Surely, (I'm assuming as its a school they have a lot of productions etc.) using multi-pars it would be more cost effective on buying lamps, and am I right in saying you can also use 300W, 500W and 100W lamps in one lantern?

I'm sure I've seen them for around £50 each somewhere, just look around and you will find good prices.

HTH

 

Edit: 'Bulbs' changed to lamps - thanks Paul.

[paulears]

pedant mode on/

Bulbs go in gardens - lamps go in lights!

 

One thing about this 'bulb' changing - even wide pars aren't remotely wide and narrow ones close in won't do much good.

 

For typical school stuff, the snag with PARS is simply that they don't blend well unless there are lots close together. They are also very intense. I'm not sure what you'l be doing with them - but if any of your work involves video recording the results are pretty poor - when lit, people bleach out and if not lit, they are in the dark. As has been said, fixing your old fresnels up will be pretty useful.

 

Paul

[stuartglen]

most of our lights do currently work, those that don't mostly just need new lights, I was thinking of using 4 parcans for a couler wash effect, rgby. Do you reackon this would work and do you know if you can buy gel frames for old lighs or would it be easier to make them.

 

Ps it would be very useful if anyone could send me a link to a page with details of the different bulb types as I don't know the names the bulb types of some of our old flood lights

[Shaun Foster]

What height do your LX bars usually sit at and how big is your stage? As Paul says Pars arn't really wide enough or soft enough for short throws. My old high school has 9 of them with CP62's and you can only really get 1 wash out of them (on a 9Mx6M ish stage at 4M rig height). I found that the fresnels do just as good job for colour washes - frames and barn doors would be useful if you can get hold of them, and a decent selection of colour to put in them. Also maybe a few Gobos and holders for your profiles? Gaffer and LX are also pretty useful to have in stock.

[Ynot]

Kupo Multipars. AU$273 for a lantern, (roughly 100 pounds each)

Drama-King on Ebay regularly has the Skytec (I think) Multi-pars, like THESE at £55 incl VAT. I've got 4 at the mo, with a couple of pukka S4 Pars, and though I've yet to hold them up against each other, I'm not expecting a huge difference in output. Yes the build quality on the S4 is better, but at around a third of the price or less than an ETC lantern, you can't go far wrong!

 

TD

[James S]

If you call kave theatre services for a catalogue they have a useful guide inside for bulb types/ lanterns with some other details.

 

They are also good for purchasing school lighting