house lights

[drummerrhys]

In school I have a 6th form performing arts show coming up, and my somewhat annoying drama teacher wants proper house lights.

Our normal hall lights are orange big square panels which are controlled from one point at the main entrance to the hall with a 'fish' key.

He wants me to be able to control them from the production booth which is up a flight of stairs from the hall. The lights need to be dimmable so I can dim them off at the start then up at the interval etc.

Any ideas how to do this with the existing lights? or should we invest in new ones? if so what? really stuck here guys so anything is helpful

 

Thanks,

Rhys

[DaveP]

Before you examine the 'orange panels' and find that they are non dimmable .. the first more important question is what is the emergency / exit light suitation

[drummerrhys]

Before you examine the 'orange panels' and find that they are non dimmable .. the first more important question is what is the emergency / exit light suitation

 

They are run on a separate circuit and are above the four doors in the venue, and so are always on

[Andrew C]

Hire some 500w floods and add them to the rig. Job done. You could even colour them to suit the production.

[Simon Lyall]

Alternative (if you want to do this more often) is to buy some of the cheap <£5 500W d0m3st1c halogen floods... and rig them up to hit the ceiling, the light bouncing back should look nice and even and soft..

[DaveP]

They are run on a separate circuit and are above the four doors in the venue, and so are always on

 

Great :o

 

Then the advice given by the last two posters will give you the house light effect you want and will save thousands of £

[Andrew C]

Alternative (if you want to do this more often) is to buy some of the cheap <£5 500W d0m3st1c halogen floods... and rig them up to hit the ceiling, the light bouncing back should look nice and even and soft..

Except that they are explicitly rated "for outdoor use only". I have had to pick bits of broken lamp out of a carpet that would have landed on an audience an hour later, so a closed face is a must.

[HobitLight]

Hire some 500w floods and add them to the rig.

That's what we use at school. We have four 500w floods and it's bright enough to light all of the hall. We run it off a timed submaster.

[Nick S]

Ditto. I use Selecon 500W floods for house lights all the time.

[mark_s]

As everyone else really. Two 500W Nocturnes hanging from our FOH position with a bastard amber in them.

[Shez]

I've always used pars - I'm allergic to floodlights.

Depending on the venue, half a dozen focussed appropriately on either the ceiling or walls looks infinitely better than floods. IMHO.

[drummerrhys]

Thanks guys!

Does anyone know of a good wall controller to stick on the wall of the controll booth to control the dimmer that will be sppecifically on the house lights?

[J Pearce]

I've seen a lot of venues set-up with a Zero88 Level 6 or similar for this, though newer installs tend to be going for Paradim wall controllers or similar.

[Dj Dunc]

We use a chilli with the chilli box which works well.

[Rhys west]

You might find it easier just to plug in two 500w floods as suggested and run them in to your existing dimmers and desk, rather than buying a zero 88 level 6/simular.

 

RW