For my sins, I am a governor at our local primary school and the hall is being rebuilt. We want to put some lights on a gantry for various productions and I'm being asked what sort of thing we need. I think it would be suspended from a roof beam at about 5m height and 5-7m from the front of the stage area. As it's deemed 'non-essential' the school will have to fund the actual equipment via donations / ptfa etc., so budget is a major contsraint. One of the people at a meeting today suggested that modern lights are just plugged into a supply and they are controlled via wifi. Is this a 'thing'?
I could spend ages researching online but the local authority want some kind of spec by Tuesday! Is this doable for under a grand? Any guidance on technologies / suppliers very welcome.
Comments
a dmx mixer or Luminair on an iPad (which is a far better option)
you'll need to budget for a wifi router and a dmx to wifi convert or from entech
also set aside a couple of hundred for integrated power and dmx cables
you can go wireless dmx but you have to run cables to power the lights anyway so if you get an integrated dmx IEC cable you are only running one cable anyway so it doesn't buy you anything
do-able for under a grand maybe
i have some fixtures I might be tempted to sell (too big for my bands pub based lighting rig) that would also give you a head start
be prepared for a bit of sharp education on DMX protocol but once you get it, it's pretty logical
A simpledmx controller system may be bought used that will be easy to use and lock out of sight.
KISS principle (Keep it Simple Stupid).
Some LED PARs out front (4-6) and maybe 4 Floods over the stage area. things like spots and moving heads all look great but take skill to set up and operate. A simple old fashioned follow spot is easy for a (supervised) youngster to operate and they are now quite reasonably priced used.
Whilst WiFi control is an option, I'd echo the advice that a hardwired control method is simpler and will cause less issues with device compatibility in future. If you feel really compelled to add wireless capability, this can still be achieved by plugging a small wireless DMX adapter into the socket where your lighting desk would normally be connected, so you can easily have it both ways.
An ideal simple setup would be to have some lights in front of the stage in the position you mentioned, and some more above the stage so you can light the backdrop in different colours whilst still lighting the performers on stage separately. Could easily be set up so the PAR cans can be organised in to groups and each have it's colour and intensity controlled in a way that is relatively straightforward for an unskilled operator to control.
Just a question on the hardware side: Just about everything I look at has a truss or bar mounted on floor stands. If I want to do a more permanent solution, does anyone know of a proprietary mount to suspend from a roof steel?
Sorry to sound expensive but getting it wrong could cost you your house!
It's one of those things that I wouldn't want to advise on without having inspected the site first so get a pro in!
Thanks again