Hazer for 700-seater venue

[Bryson]

So, I'm considering replacing my Le Maitre Neutrons with something else. They're both in need of extensive repairs and they've been with us a while. Any recommendations?

 

Budget is $4k ish (that's about 2k in English). It needs to fill a stage 40' wide by 75' deep, with a fly tower and a 40' wing each side (lots of space to fill....)

 

So far I've looked at the newer Le Maitres, the MDG atmosphere, and the Jem K1. I like the MDG but wonder if going to one machine only is a mistake. We run 2 Neutron XS at the minute.

[gareth]

We used to have a Neutron hazer (still do, in fact, but it never gets used nowadays), which is a pain in the hoop with its constant maintenance needs, random self-cleaning cycles, etc. To replace it, we bought a couple of Hazebase machines - Base Hazer Pro - to use as our portable hazers. Nothing particularly special about them, but they do the job very well - quiet (unless the fan is running at a high level), pretty frugal on fluid consumption, decent output, reliable (so far!), and comparatively cheap to buy. We also auditioned machines from LeMaitre (too expensive, not as impressive) and Jem/Martin (OK machines, but our woeful experience of their aftersales 'service' and supply of spares with our fleet of ZR smoke machines has put us right off buying another of their products), but the Hazebase won out.

 

We run a Cirro cracker on the main stage, which the Hazebase comes pretty close to in terms of how well it fills a large space on the occasions when we have to deploy one in there. They work very well in our smaller spaces and on tour.

 

You may be wise in looking at two machines, as your stage does sound quite big - and the low price of the Hazebase could, I guess, make it a contender for that reason. However, the most common place for us to use ours is in the studio theatre, which is a 17m x 17m x 9m 'box' and which one Hazebase machine, ducted in from an adjacent plant room via an axial fan, fills very nicely.

 

They used to be distributed by Lighting Partners in the UK, but that relationship appears to no longer exist, and there is no other UK distributor at the moment. Neither do they appear to have a distributor in Canada, but their website gives a distributor in Florida who apparently covers your part of the world.