Simple LED can controller

[Stutwo]

Can anyone recommend a simple low-budget controller for 8 channel RGBW LED Pars? We have an increasing demand for Dance school "end of year show" type lettings in our small venue. There is very little budget on these, so in the past we have set up a basic parcan RGB wash and backlight, all softpatched down to an Alcora with a few chases - this means our letting agents can operate the lights themselves and we can keep them out of our usual control gallery. I'd like to replicate this but use our LED fixtures to cut down on rigging time. The Showtec LED operator Touch

 

http://shop.showtec.co.uk/lighting-controllers/led-controllers/showtec-led-operator-touch

 

looks useful but without actually getting our hands on one it's hard to tell how user friendly it actually is.

[david.elsbury]

Jands Stage CL?

[Stutwo]

Thanks David, great looking desk - but out of our budget for these low income shows, would have been helpful to say we're looking sub £250.

[Ynot]

...but out of our budget for these low income shows, ....

 

Off topic, but might I ask why the dance shows are set by the venue as 'low income'?

 

At my space, dance schools are in the second highest venue hire category, over the two am-dram categories and below the odd professional show that comes in.

 

This is because they're classed pretty much as a business user rather than an amateur organisation (the latter enjoying some measure of subsidy due to that status).

AND they're most likely to fill the bums on seats as they have that literal captive audience of hundreds of parents, siblings, grannies, aunts and cousins who tend to support dancers above many other genres...

 

Every group, regardless of their fee-paying ability, gets the basic LX rig, which is fairly comprehensive anyway, and anything extra that gets rigged from hose stock would be included except they'd normally be charged for extra set-up time.

 

Having said that I'd also observe that many of the schools we deal with (we have something like FIFTY of them on our booking list who use us from time to time) are quite frugal in how they look at the venue and very few of them have any real idea of how to properly budget for a show which might actually improve how they look to the punters. :)

 

 

 

[Stutwo]

I agree with everything you said. Our management however don't want to know, and total control of the space is handed over to the letting agents, who see the theatre as a space to be let by the hour day or night that happens to come with an unattended RGB wash if they need it or not, hence the basic control. Extra support is an optional extra that most just don't take up.