Big Jay

Stage Electrics do...

In my experience, alot of Congo's ended up in venues purely because it was one of very few options at the time. 500 series was dead, the pallet from strand was a dud and Eos line whilst very much near completion was not available at the time so the only option sales people were pushing was Congo by ETC! It had its uses, very well taken in Europe but that was about it really from my understanding. I borrowed a full size from a venue that had a couple (ended up with them for the exact reason above) to cover a broken junior at another venue and they won't take it back! The poor thing has been sitting in a flightcase for a good 4/5 years now.

My suggestion to the OP is contact people like White Light or Stage Electrics and see if they have any need for parts etc or certainly white light have an very active second hand department ran by a chap called Rodney. May be worth asking them to push it out for a little commission depending on any offers?

Could it not be the X4 bars in pixel mode therefore you can have control of each Pixel of the batten?

No experience of the 1QS but have you looked at the Rush Par 2's? They are discontinued now but with the new version now released, you may find a good deal on Ex-Hire units? They are essentially the Mac Aura Standard without the Pan and Tilt and still has motorised zoom. 

Great little fixture!

Lower price bracket may include the Chauvet Maverick. Decent for the price. The Solaframe 800/1000 may do it but without a rough budget, can't really recommend!

SLX in Bristol have a big stock and do theirs in kits of 4 and have always priced very well (for me anyways)

The easiest way to get clarification is to contact the local authority the event will be taking place in. The GOV will set the main guidance but LA's also can impose its own restrictions.

The reason I said much in the same is bar the differences I've said with monitors and faders, they are the same desk so in terms of processing or ability, they are the same it just depends on the application.

 

For me, I'd always go for the standard Gio, the only advantage in my eyes you get is the copious amount of macro buttons but when im programming, I don't really use more than maybe 4-5 macros.

I'm going to have to disagree with Big Jay and say I don't consider them much the same- software-wise, yes, but physically I find the @5 much less ergonomical to work at.

 

I had an @5 to tour with a couple of seasons ago...I hated it- everything feels like much more of a reach, and to be honest, off the back of that, I'd never spec one for programming either. I found the @5 much more cumbersome, and when I'm programming, I prefer to have more (inboard) smaller screens (mainly configured to be UI- direct selects and such like) than one big one, and a couple of big external screens for output (channel table/PSD etc)- I find that the way the EOS display system works just doesn't lend itself to cramming two small screens worth of stuff onto one big one. Consequently on the tour I'd always have to cart around and set up a second external monitor with the @5, which then also turned one trip from the truck to FOH into two, along with the extra set up time- in your case, you'd probably find you'll end up carting an extra screen and your extra fader wing whenever you move the desk...;)

 

Footprint-wise, the @5 is not actually that much smaller than the normal Gio (you save 13cm on the width, but it's bigger in every other respect), and it's 3.5Kg heavier- and you do notice it!

I think this is one of those situations where you should really hire one in for a tech week (or whatever your usual use-in-anger situation may be, as I think it will very much come down to logistics/personal preference based on the points I've made.

 

They're much in the same. Just the @5 has the one big screen with 5 faders vs the 2 smaller screens and 10 faders on GIO. Nothing else really.

 

Whats the usage? You can hook up to 3 external touch screens to standard Gio also.

Take a look here, http://www.onstagelighting.co.uk/lighting-design/stage-lighting-cad-theatre-lighting-symbols-dwg/ I believe all the ones you require are on this page.

Have you asked the venue?