Which Ellipsoidals or some sort of spot light?

[lordgarak]

We currently use pars for all our stage lighting but I'm never happy with the lighting in the front of the stage.

We have a ladder truss accross the back of the stage with two bars of 6 and 4 acls in the center and two trees with 4 pars each in the front, or on I should say on the side of the front. Our current trees have to be on the stage because on the floor they would be too low. And there is the problem. The bands aways want to be right out on the edge of the stage and I can never get enough light on their faces.

This weekend their was a fair bit of media coverage of the gig(it was a showcase for an awards show) and on tv the bands faces were really dark. At the main venue they had just about all ellipsoidals and a few spot lights out front and everything was nice and bright. So this got me thinking that maybe what I need todo is add a few small spot lights or rllipsoidals on crank up towers to our rig that can be placed back 50' or so from the stage off to one side.

So whats out their in affordable spotlights or ellipsoidals that would work in small to medium venues for front lighting?

-It has to be road ready.
-easy to setup
-Not too heavy
-easy to wire say 6 of them into a socaplex cable
-its going to be unmanned(so stuff like iris and color changers arnt needed)

I might as well add this, the rig is usually used for live bands playing rock music in clubs, small arenas, outdoors at festivals and confrence centers.


[This message has been edited by lordgarak (edited November 05, 2001).]

[meegaleedo]

A typical problem.
Sounds like not an issue of what equipment but where equipment.

You mentioned that there were ellipsoidals out front and that the light on the faces of your band is not adequate with out them. I think you need to position fixtures in front. That can be a challenge because many places have no place to hang lights in front of the stage. Having said that, Ellipsoidals can be expensive. I purchased 4 recently at $80 each plus lamps can run $30+ each. I would stick with Pars and find some way to do the FOH thing.
Trees out front? Hand pipe from ceiling? Use existing positions?

[faust65]

meeg. If you are paying 30 bucks per FEL for an Elipse then you are being cheated. I get mine for about 12 to 14 for an Osram 1k FEL. Sometimes i get the 575 FLK or FLW2 (something like that). But the Ellipses usually run from 75 to 200. and the lamps from 8 to 20 bucks a piece. Pars should light adequately. THe positioning is the problem. You need light from the front, at a 45 degree angle is the most optimal usually. Thats not always possible though. NOTHING STRAIGHT ON from far away. That will flatten out the performers faces.

[lordgarak]

The problem is to get that 45 degreen angle in most venues the supports would have to go right in front of the speaker stacks which dosn't go over good with the boss. To get clear of the speaker stacks I need to be back in the venue a nice ways. Too far for pars to be effective.

One club where I was just watching(for once) a show one night I seen what I was looking for. It was around 30' back from the stage and put a nice spot of light right on the lead singer. It looked like some sort of ellipoidals.

We just got two new 21' towers and 32' of truss. I'm not sure what we are going to do with it yet. We will likely hang another 2 bars of 6 pars and another bar of 4 acls. We will figure out where its going when we get our next big gig.

We are also going to put 1000watt pars in our front lighting soon and mount them a little better on the stands(standing on top, rather than hang on a bar below)

So to recap what I'm looking for... I need something that will give me front lighting from 30-50 feet away in hockey arenas and large conference centers.


[This message has been edited by lordgarak (edited November 13, 2001).]

[meegaleedo]

PARs should throw the 50' easy. You can use narrow-er beam spreads to avoid excess spill and consentrate the beam.

But if you are dead set on ellipsoidals, Altman used to make a decent basic fixture. The old designation to throw that didsance would be a 6x12 or a 6x16. (You might find them used.) Which I think roughly are 30 degrees and 20 degrees respectively.