Portable Rig

[the kid]

Can I encourage you to go for fresnels over pars? You'll get more versatility on where you can place you stands (as fresnels zoom bigger and smaller, and have a bigger angle available), and they'll blend into a much smoother wash than a bank of pars.

 

 

+1

 

I said above about a company I really would look at what small scale rural tours are doing £2K spent at lancylen will sort you out with 4 fresnels + 2 profiles + stands + control.

[J Pearce]

Lighting Partners also do some nice combination deals, and Whitelight put a nice setup together for my loose teaching kit at work.

[paulears]

Remember what we're saying about beam angles. You need variable beam angles to be truly useful. For a bodge, I take 4 of my LED bars - 24 3 x 3's RGB, and I mount them vertically on mic stands. I can light the 4 people in the band in any colour, but the light is brash and way too narrow. I can never get them far enough away for the people who move to stay in the beam (as in the guitarist and me!) I can hit the keys and drums, but I'm able to walk out of the light far too easily. We're lit, but poorly. For a music act, we get away with it - but it's not theatrical in any conventional sense. Draw your self a little set plan, to scale. Then using the published beam angles, try to place some typical LED kit. You will have to move them further away, and of course, they're not bright enough then.

 

The F word really is the only sensible way for anything vaguely theatrical. For music, dance, discos and brashness, use whatever you want - but wide and soft is the usual tried and tested method.

 

The look is the key - and unless you are into music and dance in a big way, we're probably talking pastels instead of saturated, and theatrical light. Look at any book on theatre lighting and you'll see Fresnels are the tool for most basic lighting, with profiles as the specials. If you're into music and dance, that's when I'd look at the tri-colour stuff.

[Junior8]

Go for fresnels every time, look at second hand, and I would also agree with the suggestion of using Zero 88 Alphapacks which are a lovely little unit for portable work. Indeed with these it would be perfectly possible in many settings for the performers to do their own operating with a bit of thought and planning. With a few stands and tee bars you'd have a very flexible rig offering few if any power supply issues and which would fit in most spaces.

[leapofdeath]

Ah, ok - again very good to know. I'll look into Fresnels, and also the Alphapacks which look very handy too!

 

Cheers all!