lighting for a gymnasium

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tunes4046

tunes4046

Mac Daddy DJ
Jul 24, 2008
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Fennimore Wi
I have been tasked by a local athletics booster club with coming up with a budget for some "effects" lighting for our high school, They want to add some pizzaz to the intro of sports teams before their games, I was thinking something where we could have some interchangeable gobos, maybe 4 to six moving heads that could be program to do a rapid sweeping crowd scan then focus on the entrance point for the kids, a little background info this is a small school total student population for the entire district is under 800, they do have a very active and well off booster club
 
I'll be interested to hear what others say on this. I will add in that we often do sweeping spotlight effects for mitzvah entrances. First thing, don't use any fixture less than 50 watts in that large of a space. Second, I doubt seriously that you'll pull this off without DMX and a computer. Seems all the fixtures I've seen or used either have very-slow sweep patterns or very-fast. Nobody has a good medium-speed, which is necessary to make this work right. Probably being obvious here, but there you have it.
 
A bigger challenge is dimming the main gym lighting .. generally it's ON or OFF .. and if you go OFF, some require a long time to come back on. Most sports arenas have gone away from florescent or sodium/mercury vapor lighting for that reason, but most gyms (at least around here, as I do sports photography) are mainly fluorescent and they take a few minutes to reset if shut off quickly.
 
rickryan.com said:
I'll be interested to hear what others say on this. I will add in that we often do sweeping spotlight effects for mitzvah entrances. First thing, don't use any fixture less than 50 watts in that large of a space. Second, I doubt seriously that you'll pull this off without DMX and a computer. Seems all the fixtures I've seen or used either have very-slow sweep patterns or very-fast. Nobody has a good medium-speed, which is necessary to make this work right. Probably being obvious here, but there you have it.
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I assumed computer controlled DMX
 
steve149 said:
A bigger challenge is dimming the main gym lighting .. generally it's ON or OFF .. and if you go OFF, some require a long time to come back on. Most sports arenas have gone away from florescent or sodium/mercury vapor lighting for that reason, but most gyms (at least around here, as I do sports photography) are mainly fluorescent and they take a few minutes to reset if shut off quickly.
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Brand new Gym with LED lighting, with built in DMX capability for on and off, was brought into this discussion when the gym was being built and for the minimal cost of the dmx upgrade I vehemently suggested they add it, they already use it for the stage for theatrical events
 
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tunes4046 said:
Brand new Gym with LED lighting, with built in DMX capability for on and off, was brought into this discussion when the gym was being built and for the minimal cost of the dmx upgrade I vehemently suggested they add it, they already use it for the stage for theatrical events
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Wow .. sweet.
 
ADJ inno spot pro or do I need to look at something more professional, I would think 8 of these would make for some pretty good shows
 
I want to know if they gave you a projected budget that they wanted to spend for this? Or is it that they wanted you to present something to them and then they decide what they want to do. Which way they want to go. My reason for asking this is because you said for the entire district the student population is 800. That's not a lot and with a school district that small I doubt if they have a lot of money to spend on this.

As we know depending on the type of lights the cost can be rather expensive. Also the old saying is true. You get what you pay for. My thing is having stuff that will work well and last a very long time before having to be replaced. I've seen some great moving heads. Some that I would love but the cost is way out of my budget. I'm talking $1,500-3k.
 
Mix again you didn't read the whole thread and just posted, this is booster club funded, the $7000-$10000 numbers were thrown around, please think and read thoroughly before you post
 
tunes4046 said:
Mix again you didn't read the whole thread and just posted, this is booster club funded, the $7000-$10000 numbers were thrown around, please think and read thoroughly before you post
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I read the whole thing. It just said booster club. It didn't mention any dollar amount. Besides I don't see them saying to him they have unlimited funds. I ask the question so that we can give better suggestions to him as to which way to go. It would be nice if we saw a picture of the gymnasium.
 
Cool .. Mix has taken up lighting design.
 
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MIXMASTERMACHOM said:
I read the whole thing. It just said booster club. It didn't mention any dollar amount. Besides I don't see them saying to him they have unlimited funds. I ask the question so that we can give better suggestions to him as to which way to go. It would be nice if we saw a picture of the gymnasium.
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a booster club has nothing to do with how much money the school district has, it's a standard modern high school gym a little bigger than a basketball court, they are all pretty similar, I sincerely doubt you have any useful input or knowledge about what I am asking
 
steve149 said:
Cool .. Mix has taken up lighting design.
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No I haven't. I just thought that if we knew the money they have to spend some on here would have some good suggestions. With that kind of money in the budget Tunes should do nicely for lighting in this gym.

The issue I have is considering that the suggestion was to go with DMX and a computer to run the lights is who will be responsible for running the lights? I ask this because as some of you know when it comes to a system in a bar or club they will hire someone to use the system but they don't have a clue as to what they are doing and damage the system. I know it's not exactly the same thing but for me I would want somebody that knows what they are doing so it doesn't get damaged. Considering spending that much for this setup.
 
MIXMASTERMACHOM said:
No I haven't. I just thought that if we knew the money they have to spend some on here would have some good suggestions. With that kind of money in the budget Tunes should do nicely for lighting in this gym.

The issue I have is considering that the suggestion was to go with DMX and a computer to run the lights is who will be responsible for running the lights? I ask this because as some of you know when it comes to a system in a bar or club they will hire someone to use the system but they don't have a clue as to what they are doing and damage the system. I know it's not exactly the same thing but for me I would want somebody that knows what they are doing so it doesn't get damaged. Considering spending that much for this setup.
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Mix .. Tunes last words in the first post were .. "a very active and well off booster club" .. so I make the assumption they would be OK with something above the bottom .. but at the same time, it's a school, so I have to assume that $50K worth of lights is probably out of scope. So being realistic. I make an assumption that the lighting budget probably falls in the $500-$2000 per fixture x 6 or so fixtures .. and we get a guesstimate of $3k-$12K and a target of $7500 .. just a guess.

You can get DJ level lights and you start to enter the possibility of pro level lights (Martin, Elation, etc.) once you're above $1K per fixture (though pro level lighting can go up to the $25K level per fixture).

As for DMX, if he's talking moving heads, it's pretty much a given .. unless you can live with the built in programs (unlikely in a gym for a specific need).

So .. suggestions seem to be welcome .. focus on $7500 +/- $3000 and you'll probably be in the ballpark .... fire away.
 
I too would suggest some combination of moving heads, but you might also put a couple of moving washes in there as well. I saw some at a concert last year. Two of them turned the whole damn stage different colors, and they did some strobe effects as well. I use pocket spots, which are no where near big enough for the job you want to do, so I will leave the suggesting of specific models to others.

One other thing.....if you do decide to look at some different effects instead of movers, check out the Chauvet Swarm. It has several different effects built into one fixture, and the DMX capabilities of the unit give it many different possibilities as to scenes. I have had one for about a year that I use in smaller shows. It has performed flawlessly.
 
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