In our recent auditorium renovation, our school decided that we would be all LED (both architectural house and safety lighting to all theatrical lighting). The learning curve to understand how to work with all LED has been steep, but well worth it. I would recommend going all, or as much as you can, LED. There's a few reasons. One, when you switch to color LED you will want all of your instruments to start with the same life time. Depending on the quality of the lighting instruments, they will eventually begin to lose their intensity and saturation (this is barely noticeable to the untrained eye). Though it may be undetectable to most, what may occur is that if you begin replacing lamps a few at a time, they will all be on different life spans and may produce slightly different colors when you program them. This can add a strange effect to sets and costumes. The second reason is that your gels and your color LEDs will never match - in either saturation or intensity. Again it depends on the quality of the lamps, but you will drive any lighting designer crazy if they have to attempt to match different types of instruments for the same area. Finally, your upfront costs of purchasing the instrument is shocking, but you have to remember that for the most part you won't have to purchase as many gels and if keep the relays off when they aren't in use, you will save on your long term electrical and HVAC costs.
Your idea to replace rows, then cyc lights, etc., may be an economical option. It again depends on the quality of the lamps. The industry has come so far in just a few short years that many LED lamps can outperform the traditional ones.
RGB tricolored lamps are all that's really needed to produce a wide range of effects and colors. The seven colored offer a much larger range of creative options, but how it depends on just how particular you, or your lighting designer, are about reproducing your favorite gel colors.
I hope some of this helps. Let me know if you need additional thoughts or ideas! Best of luck.
-------------------------------------------
James Smith
Illinois Chapter Director
Ridgewood High School
-------------------------------------------
Sent via Higher Logic Mobile
Original Message:
Sent: 5/21/2014 9:07:06 AM
From: khall@lincnet.org
Subject: LED lighting advice
We are in the happy position of having an outside organization ready to invest funding to improve the technical capabilities of our middle school auditorium (which is also used regularly for town events as the high school is in a different town and is a separate school district).
While we have received advice form a few different theatrical lighting companies, I would love to hear from schools that have switched (in whole or in part) to LED lighting about your experiences.
Did you switch to LED completely, or do you have a mix of LED and incandescent? Which LED fixtures have you purchased, and are you happy with your choices? What have you found to be the advantages and disadvantages? How quickly did you make the change? In stages or all at once?
Our thought was that we would start by replacing our 3 rows of strip lights (WBGR) over the stage with LED pars for wash light; and that we will at least initially keep the incandescent ERS lights (one row over the pit, and a torm position at each side of the house, plus optional use over the stage also). Another question: how many colors should we go for with the LEDs? The lighting companies both pushed for the 7 color ETC Desire - but is that more fancy than we really need? Or are they worth it? If you have switched to
Thanks in advance for any advice and insights!
-------------------------------------------
Kristin Hall
Drama Director
Lincoln Public Schools
Arlington MA
-------------------------------------------