Help: Cool ideas on the cheap?

[Modge]

stick a switch on the end of the line to turn it off

And the same applies to the arc line. It get irritating after a while (not an overly short one in my book ether!). Thinking of the solar's proposed earlier yes they rock but I'm led to believe (by those who buy me such things) that even on ebay despite being ancient they hold there value really well. This has 2 sides to it: if you want to buy one it'll cost a more, but if you don't like it / move on then you can get what ever you spent back again.

[Whitty]

hmm, flamebar... makes sense. just a question, do you guys still have smoking inside your pubs over in england? it got banned at the end of last year over in australia. I guess it does kinda clear the place up a bit though.

 

man, that arcline looks awesome in the video running around the desk like that but I doubt I'd have the cash for that.

the egg strobes look cool though, that's not a bad idea. I could try rigging up some sort of "patio lighting" thing and just chuck em all in line

 

also we dont even have a rigging setup. heh. you guys might be underestimating how low budget this is.

I'm going in there tonight to do some setting up so I'll take some photos for ya to kind of give you the idea of what it looks like.

 

and that's a good call on the confetti cannon too. I'd be pretty pissed off if my beer got filled with paper.

although on the other hand, I was browsing through the forums and found a section claiming that you can install a set of venitian blinds packed with confetti across the ceiling and then simply open them to shower the crowd. has anyone actually attempted that? it would look awesome for a grand finale night.

 

does anyone know if there's a way to have bubble machines not make a floor slippery as hell? I'd be cool to have one inside and turn it on occasionally (if I made sure it was only VERY occasionally then I should be alright) but the last thing I need I people slipping over and sueing my ass.

 

how about a cheap alternative to those audience blinder lights? anyone got any ideas how to have a bright flash that lights up the audience when fat beat drops in or something? it looks really cool at big music festivals and makes the crowd feel like they're part of the show..

 

and what about foam parties? has anyone been to a club that's had one? apparently they just have mountains of bubbly foam pissing into the place and everyone dances around in it. it ruins all of your clothes but if you've had enough drinks to not care, it sounds like a lot of fun.

 

one last thing, does anyone have any advice as the where to place my fog machine for maximum effectiveness? do I need to place it high or low or does it not really matter? should I keep it away from my projector and decks to stop them getting gunked up? I'm thinking of either trying to mount it to the ceiling (about 4m in height) or simply sitting it on the desk next to my turntables if I get lazy...

 

cheers for all the creative responses so far.

 

P.S. I'm in Adelaide

[Jamtastic3]

A few comments:

 

Bubble machines... hmmm a bit 'tacky' in my opinion. You really need a high powered machine that produces thousands of bubbles but still, they are bubbles.

If you are using a machine with proper bubble fluid then the dancefloor should be OK because the concentration is completely different to your DIY washing up liquid and water - now that makes a mess!

 

Foam machines are of course far better than bubble machines, but you need quite a big space and they cost a bit to hire.

 

Audience blinder lights: You could get a couple (or 4) of Par 56 cans patched into a small dimmer and control them through a small fader controller (no need for a big dimmer and a big desk).

Even cheaper would be to replace the cans with a couple of 500W outdoor floods but in both cases you need to have a dimmable pack and a controller and not just switch the mains off and on!

 

Usually in your type of circumstance (relating to mobile discos over here) the smoke machine is near the DJ, usually on the floor or knee height to the left or right of the DJ's 'stack'. This is because most of the DJ's lighting equipment surrounds the DJ and a quick blast will highlight the lights further. Don't have it blasting at head height!

 

But yeah your next best idea would be to get some UV strips in there with some painted drapes.

[musht]

If the smoke is clumping too much , use a desk fan and bounce the output of the smoke machine off the front of the fan, pointing throgh fan seems more normal but fog fluid will eventually gunge the bearings.

 

Balloons are a good low cost way of filling space. Balloon drops from nets, balloon confetti bursts, get electrical and air operated bursters. UV active balloons. Internally lit balloons:

 

http://www.balloonbrites.com

 

http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/deco_effects.html

 

Just dont be tempted to go for an outdoor balloon release

 

http://www.mcsuk.org/mcsaction/pollution/w...dly+balloon+use

[Whitty]

yeah, I can see how bubble machines may look tacky but I really like em. something really fun and kidlike about bubbles. they're also an awesome way of getting attention out the front of your club too. nothing will make people wonder what kind of awesome event is going on like filling a street with thousands of bubbles.

 

I've seen other places using a fan to disperse their smoke around the room, seems to do a pretty good job of distributing it evenly. I'm a little worried though, I bought a $100 unit from ebay the other week, an Antari Alpha f80-z to be precise. I'm sure you guys are gonna tell me its right poop. it only has a 1 litre tank capacity and we were trying out just a little while setting up the room (I only have 1 litre of fluid for it at the moment so we didn't want to waste it) but it didn't seem to be fogging up the room all that much. I know you cant really see fog so we had some lights running to highlight the effect. the beams of light did show up momentarily but nothing really special. does it just take a bit of time for the room to fill up or is there a chance all the fog's just wafting out the doors? we placed it at knee height just to the side of the dj desk as per your instructions. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

 

also we tried to have balloons before but I dont know whether it was because we bought the cheap-ass kind or whether the floor of the place is naturally covered with micro splinters of glass for hundreds of smashed bottles but as soon as they touched the ground, they burst! it was pretty entertaining though to watch everyone log in the pants each time one went off.

 

what would be the problem of trying to run an outdoor flood light off of an on/off switch? would the abruptness of it turning on and off simply make it look crap?

at the moment instead of a lighting control desk, we're just using a 6way powerboard with individual on/off switches to trigger incidental lighting effects like the police lights and the strobes. mmm, quality! but in its defence, it is working quite well in place of a 4pak for the time being.

 

now, here's a couple of photos of the room and a dodgy sketch I made to kind of show you the level of the room we're working with...

 

here's a quick drawing I made of the room (not perfectly to scale but you get the idea).

the four locations where I took the photos from are marked out to show the dimensions of the space

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/whitt/RhinoLayout.jpg

 

Photo 1

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/whitt/Vagoo1-small.jpg

 

Photo 2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/whitt/Vagoo2-small.jpg

 

Photo 3

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/whitt/Vagoo3-small.jpg

 

Photo 4

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v203/whitt/Vagoo4-small.jpg

 

so, as you can see, its not the biggest or most professional environment but I guess that's why I dont feel so bad about having the whole setup feeling a little "ghetto"

[mbthegreat]

FYI smoking in enclosed public places was banned last July in England and Wales, and before that in Scotland

[khali]

Yes, colourful drapes painted with day-glo designs can transform a place but remember to "Flamebar" them first!

Keep an eye out on eBay for any second hand Optikinetic Solar 250 projectors....still very effective and going strong after 30 years!

 

 

Being as the venue has a public license and is not a performance venue per say, do the soft furnisihings need to be flamebar'd? I'd be very surprised if pub curtains were.

I believe all new soft furninshings have to be fire resistant. Even down to something like an upholstered drummers throne. Curtain material will almost certainly be flame resistant.

[Whitty]

well, the lighting rig went awesomely.

we ended up having 5 small strobe lights: 3 attached at the front of the desk and 2 hung from the speaker in the top corner (see photo 3)

the two police lights either side of the desk (photo 3 again)

the smoke machine to the bottom left of the desk (not pictured)

and a remote control flood light as a blinder which we also hung from the speaker (also not pictured)

 

we controlled all of these via the 6way powerboard with individual switches running to another 6 way powerboard for the strobe lights.

given the cheapness of the set up, it really looked pretty cool

the flood light also worked out better than I was expecting it to. I know jamtastic said not to do it, but once you pressed the remote to activate it, the light stayed on momantarily before dying out slowly so it didn't just look like it was an on/off switch. (it looked especially cool when we played AC/DC - thunder struck, flashing it on during the opening when there's those huge drum hits)

 

the only real problem we had was that the fog machine didn't work all that well. it produced a nice plume of smoke but then it all dispersed within seconds.

I reckon its probably caused by the fact that the room, while being pretty small has 2 doors leading outside, 1 door leading off down a hallway and was running an airconditioner. also cause the smoke machine itself is rather small and probably quite crappy.

can anyone shed any light on this, plus offer any possible solution?

 

here's a link to a brief video I took on my phone of my mate testing out the lights. (the strobe flashes cant be seen cause the camera wasn't fast enough to capture them properly but you get the idea)

 

[Jamtastic3]

For a cheap set-up, the vid looked alright, remembering that you have loads of fairy lights behind and above you too.

 

Are they fairy lights the ones with various functions? For your situation this would be ideal because you can pick a sequence to suit your music (from the top of my memory usually 2 is slow to fast fades, 7 is flash then strobe, 8 being static). I personally hate the fairy lights with those sequencers but they aren't too bad for Christmas.

 

The thing about the flood and switch. I got told that with household wall switches for example there is an increased chance of tripping something or blowing bulbs if you flick your house lights on and off constantly, due to a pull in the power intake. That's why you shouldn't at home. But with your situation, it's more relaxed. I don't know, someone will have to correct me further.

 

As for the smoke, you need to look at how the room is ventilated and how the air moves in the space. If there is a set of doors open leading to the outside then the smoke will want to escape. Put the machine somewhere else if possible and away from extractors.

 

Oh and get try and get a UV striplight, the 4 foot variety.

[Whitty]

yeah, the fairy lights hung from the ceiling have got a chaser function but we've just got them set on twinkle at the moment. it adds a nice feel to the place, a bit of movement in the room but not much. the other lights we've got hung around the place, like the white icicle lights under the desk are just constant "on" ones.

I quite like fairy lights, they just seem to have an almost child like wonder about them. I probably wouldn't go as far as the flaming lips video clip for "turn it on"though :)

 

hmm, I haven't heard about that problem with flicking your house lights on and off before. the wiring in the place is pretty much just the same as any residential house as far as I can tell. I've tripped the circuit breakers a number of times before while mixing bands really loudly. heh heh. hopefully because the flood light has its own on/off function, it wont cause any power issues as opposed to flicking it on and off at the mains.

getting a 4pak would probably be a good idea, but they're surprisingly expensive for a glorified on/off switch.

 

another issue with the smoke machine was that it would take ages to reheat/cool (not sure which it does) after each use before being able to produce smoke again. is there anything I can do to it to make this regen time smaller?

 

as for the uv lights and glow paint, I'm a little worried it'll make the place look a bit too "rave" for what we're trying to do if we do it incorrectly.

anyone have any thoughts on how to set them up so they dont look tacky?

[musht]

Balloons popping can be static build up, or duff balloons:

 

http://www.balloonhq.com/faq/howpop.html

 

Smoke that disperses in seconds , sure it hasn`t been watered down?

Seriously, try a higher density smoke fluid.

Reheat time you can`t do much about, more you pay bigger the heater and longer between reheat cycles.

Like Jamtastic said look at the airflow in the space.

 

UV gimmix work better in dark blackness for pictures, http://www.uvfx.com in a white space projection would probably work bettter, Solar 250 or similar, video projectors dont like smoke fluid.

 

Though dosent mean couple of blacklights wouldn`t help with some UV reactive bits and pieces around the place:

 

http://www.glowshop.com/

 

More fairy lights while theyre on clearance and a disco chaser/sound to light.