lighting

WEEKENDMX_lg

i’m now researching the next big tapestry purchase. truthfully i’m about fed up with buying large items for tapestry, i would much rather use our resources doing something good rather than just buying more equipment. yet i guess this is a part of it all right now. anyhow, we will be meeting in a gym so the lit up ugliness factor of the room is pretty high. i want to reduce this ugliness factor by controlling the lighting and thus i am looking into buying portable lighting. the key concerns here are that the lighting needs to be a good value, rugged, portable, and dependable.

i know next to nothing about lighting (i put some up in the parkview student center and it worked but i think that was luck). right now i’m looking at this set up, the mbt weekender dmx. it’s $823 plus $110 in shipping. oh how i hate spending money like that for lights. still i want to hide as much of the gym ugliness as possible and lighting seems to be the best way to do it.

so blog readers who know a thing or two about lighting (phillip & chester)  lend me your brains. is this a good buy? too much lighting? too little? we’re not going to be doing much with lighting (other than hiding gym ugliness). on and off is a must, dimming would be nice but it’s not essential.  i don’t want to spend any more than this and i would love to spend less. any suggestions?

3 Replies to “lighting”

  1. pvc pipe and black cloth. Frame your entire seating section with this, use colored gels over floodlights/spots to splash color on the black “walls”. Do the same thing for the speaking platform – black ‘walls’ with some splashes of color from floodlights covered with theater gels.

    Second thought is this – does the school need theater lighting? anyway you can partner with the school and get lights put in together?

  2. you should email david…he is out on tour which most likely has lighting techs!! if you don’t have his email just let me know and i will send it to you. 😉

  3. @grant – lot of work but it would work. i might look into that after awhile of seeing how long the “must have” stuff takes to set up. we’re already trying to have the “work with the school” mindset. they have lights on the stage but we won’t be using the stage so it’s not really a need they have. i have already mentioned the possibility of building two additional storage units, one for them and one for us, later on.

    @sharon – that would help but i don’t have david’s email address. could i get it from you?

Leave a Reply to GrantCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.