Onsite demo/trial of moving heads?

[howartp]

Hi,

 

We've got a couple of Mac500's on the FOH bar which are fine for what we use them for, but my two lighting guys want to go a bit more ambitious above the stage. Given that I'm impressed with what they produce from the rest of our gear, I've talked with our producer about hiring additional moving heads for the two big shows a year (July and December) and she's agreed.

 

Problem is, we don't know what model(s) to hire...

 

Other than hiring one of each to see what they do - are there any companies (hire or sale) that are wiling to bring a variety of moving heads to site (and temporarily rig) to compare? We've got Scissor Lift and IWB's so the rigging is no problem. I'm biased towards Mac's purely because that's all I've ever used - owned 500 and 600's, and hired 250 Entours - but we're open to anything that's hireable at reasonable price.

 

I guess failing that I could try and organise a trip to a showroom/warehouse, but we'd rather see how lights perform in our venue - distance from bar to floor, bar to wall, focus/beam angles etc.

 

Am I asking for something that ain't gonna happen, or are there companies out there?

 

We're a secondary school (Academy) between Skipton and Bradford.

 

Cheers,

 

Peter

 

 

 

[themadhippy]

Think your going about it arsebackwards.Normally you decide what effects your trying to acheive and then select the fixture best suited for the job.

[howartp]

Think your going about it arsebackwards.Normally you decide what effects your trying to acheive and then select the fixture best suited for the job.

 

We do know what sort of effects we're after (well, my lighting guys do) - we'll discuss these with any such companies that respond or are suggested, and ask them to suggest and bring a selection of units which might be appropriate so we can test them.

 

Peter

 

 

 

[Panchromatic]

http://www.plasafocus.com/leeds/ At the end of the month on the Tuesday & the Wednesday at The Royal Armouries Leeds PLASA Focus is on where all the major manufacturers go and exhibit their latest stuff. Its free (and lunch is normally supplied). You could see most of the latest stuff working there. Click the link to get details.

 

Nick

[howartp]

Hi Nick,

 

Thanks - I'm attending Plasa, but two years ago neither Martin or Robe were particularly interested in talking to me.

 

I'm not going to give them thousands of pounds of business, so they basically got rid of me as quick as they could. :-(

 

Peter

[Panchromatic]

Hi Nick,

 

Thanks - I'm attending Plasa, but two years ago neither Martin or Robe were particularly interested in talking to me.

 

I'm not going to give them thousands of pounds of business, so they basically got rid of me as quick as they could. :-(

 

Peter

 

I will be there in Leeds meeting some of our suppliers on the Tuesday, If you like we can meet up and arrange a few demo's. If you see something you like we should be able to help? message me with a contact number if you are interested and I will call you from the office tomorrow?

 

 

Nick

[ImagineerTom]

The money in dry-hire of lighting kit is tiny (literally a pound or two per unit per week) it's simply not cost effective to bring a van full of £50k of kit and a couple of staff up to a client who's going to have a couple of weeks hire per year (net profit, about £50) just so that you can "have a play".

 

As others have pointed out you have to decide what effects you want to achieve, drill down thru the tech-specs to ascertain which units are theoretically capable of doing the job, then trawl youtube or other live shows to find examples of that unit working in a similar situation, when you've finally got it down to one or two possibilities go to the hire company you're actually going to use and play with the light in their warehouse. For extra input it's worth asking for other people's experiences with certain equipment on forums like this but ultimately YOU have got to do the legwork and research to find the kit you want to hire and then just hire it.

 

Sorry

[david.elsbury]

The money in dry-hire of lighting kit is tiny (literally a pound or two per unit per week) it's simply not cost effective to bring a van full of £50k of kit and a couple of staff up to a client who's going to have a couple of weeks hire per year (net profit, about £50) just so that you can "have a play".

That's pretty cool. I didn't realise the market in the UK was so saturated that kit went out for that cheap. Must be great for clients to have that level of kit available for so cheap - must make for great events.

 

Here in NZ, a moving head goes out for between $200 and $400 per day depending on how new it is - that's roughly a couple of hundred pounds. Maybe it's cheaper to hire from the UK and get it shipped over to NZ if it's a long term hire?

 

David

[paulears]

Re: the trade show. This is just because you are trying to be honest and not a bother. You need to be very proactive and talk to them. If you hang around, waiting for them to talk to you on the busy stands, then other people bluster straight in, and you get left. Many years ago I did PLASA with a large chunk of funding in my pocket and my shopping list included a Soundcraft mixer. I was waiting for a chat, and twiddled a knob - a hand appeared, and reset it, totally ignoring me, carrying on a chat with somebody else. I crossed it off my list, and went to a competitors stand and they were nice - so I bought from them. I was writing the entire project up for Sound on Sound at the time, and when it was published, one of Soundcraft's senior people called me up to find out what happened.

 

You need to simply be quite blunt at trade shows, it's kind of standard practice - and of course, they're used to 17 year old Managing Directors of Dave's Dodgy Discos wanting to have a demo of a 5 figure price tag item, as if they're really about to buy one!

 

On the demo front, I too think you're going about it the wrong way. If you did find somebody willing to slap up a pile of movers, what good would it actually do? Most have similar colours, gobos and features. The only real difference is beam edge quality, fan noise, servo noise and stuff like that - everything else can be got from the spec. Brightness would be the one thing I'd be looking at in a demo - but you really need more than a few minutes or an hour with more than one unit. I'd get my selection down to maybe 2 different ones, then hire a couple of each for a week and see how they work in real use, not an artificial scenario.

[Stuart91]

Whilst an on-site demo is not going to be cost-effective, the Mac 500s that are already in the venue are a "known quantity" and if you are getting a demo in a hire company warehouse, it might be worth seeing if they can set up a Mac 500 alongside the newest and greatest so you can directly compare brightness, beam edging, etc. etc.

[maxjones2000]

The money in dry-hire of lighting kit is tiny (literally a pound or two per unit per week) it's simply not cost effective to bring a van full of £50k of kit and a couple of staff up to a client who's going to have a couple of weeks hire per year (net profit, about £50) just so that you can "have a play".

 

 

I'd love to know where you're hiring from….

 

The *rather* large lighting hire company I work for certainly charge slightly more than that! …Bearing in mind, I work in the largest moving light department in Europe, I can say that we make a hell of a lot more than that off dry hires. Granted we mainly use more high-end equipment, but the principle is still the same; whether it's 6 MAC250 Entour's or 6 VL3500 Spots http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif

 

 

 

Anyway, to the OP: If you approach any small (or even large) lighting rental company, in my experience they're always willing to help - whether thats them letting you demo a few units in your venue or just providing suggestions that you can then hire to try out - it's well worth sending out a few emails or phone calls. People in this industry are normally very accommodating and will usually do anything to help (have to say, that;s why I love this industry…most of the people are lovely) http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif

 

Thanks,

Max

[cedd]

You're not far away from us (Yeadon). We generally hire between 15 and 20 moving lights per show as our standard rig, with a few more for Jukebox Musicals. Come over and see our next show (The Wedding Singer) which should have a decent mix of kit on it. Depending on what's available from our friendly local hire company it could be Robe 575 spots/washes or equally could be much newer Robe Robin LED stuff or possibly even some Pointe fixtures. We won't know till a bit nearer the time. We'd be very happy to chat with you about what we're using. Link to our website in my signature.

 

ZigZag are in Leeds and they've got plenty of stock, particularly of Robe kit. They do sales as well and I'm sure they'd be able to demo some kit for you, though they're quite busy with tours at the minute so it might have to be at their place. They're at least local ish though and are a nice set of folk.

Chris

[howartp]

Well, various replies there of varying help.

 

I guess one of the problems I have, even with spec sheets in front of me, is the different brightnesses.

 

Using three specific models as an example, off the top of my head, I would expect a Robe 575 to be brighter than a Mac 500, which is twice as bright as a Mac 250 - but I'm sure I've learnt/read that I'm wrong? (Possibly bad example, but I'm sure you understand the scenario) Is there an parameter that will be present in all specs that I CAN compare brightnesses?

 

Then there's things like 'Entour vs Krypton' - until recently I assumed a Mac250 was a Mac250. I don't currently know the difference but will go away to research it - but does a Mac 350 Entour have the same features as a 250 Entour, just brighter? That's a rhetorical question indicating where I'm lost in the world of moving heads.

 

I'll start later today with a blank spreadsheet of the units available at my local hire company (Light the Way) and see how far I can get.

 

Peter

[ImagineerTom]

The *rather* large lighting hire company I work for certainly charge slightly more than that!

You'll not I said "the money in" not "the hire fee" - looking around at hire companies (and we hire a LOT of kit) most hire companies business models are based on doing hire volumes; having units hired out for an average 30+ weeks per year and after paying the capital costs, business overheads, servicing, certification and maintenance the actual real "profit" per unit is a few pounds per week. They rely on the fact that most jobs actually rent lots of kit, that there's better mark-ups in the secondary items like cables and that a certain percentage of hires are longer term so have fewer maintenance/checking costs than when it's on a constant cycle of 3 day hires.

[WiLL]

Well, various replies there of varying help.

 

I guess one of the problems I have, even with spec sheets in front of me, is the different brightnesses.

 

Using three specific models as an example, off the top of my head, I would expect a Robe 575 to be brighter than a Mac 500, which is twice as bright as a Mac 250

 

Peter

It's not quite as simple as that. A MAC 500 actually uses a 575w discharge lamp. As a general guide the higher the wattage of lamp, yes the brighter the beam will be, however the varying optics of each model make a LOT of difference. The Clay Paky Sharpy (sp?) for instance is astonishingly bright for a relatively small wattage lamp due to it's very tightly focused optics. The best means of comparing is either comparing lumens outputs at a fixed distance in open beam, or by doing a side-by side 'shoot-out' of the different fixtures. Most people prefer to trust the shoot-out or experience of using the fixtures.

 

And as someone who has some MAC 500's in my rig, trust me you will struggle to find a modern equivalent fixture which isn't brighter.