Buyer’s Guide

It’s been about 35 years since the first batch of hard edged arc sourced moving Lights were mass produced by Vari-Lite. With the advent of… Read More »Hard-Edged Arc Lights

It used to be that you either wanted a hazy mist on stage to augment light beams or billowing fog effects for masking the performers.… Read More »Hazers and Smoke Machines

The first moving LED wash lights appeared on the scene about a dozen years ago. Upstaging lighting took a couple hundred Martin MAC 300s and had them retrofitted with RGB “Skittles” LEDs on the front, replacing the arc light source. LD Leroy Bennett requested such a fixture be made. Within a couple years, GLP came up with their series of Impression LED moving wash lights. Because these lights had no base and seemed to be able to just flip over in any direction at an incredibly fast rate, LDs started to refer to them as “pancake” style fixtures. These fixtures have undergone transformations and modifications, and it didn’t take long for them to start selling like hotcakes. Today, every major manufacturer offers at least one fixture that fits within this category. Each fixture has at least one unique aspect or feature that separates them from the rest. Look here for who’s offering what this year.

It’s been more than 20 years since the first consoles designed to run automated lighting fixtures appeared on the market. Proprietary consoles for running certain companies’ light fixtures were available in the 1980s, but it took a while for someone to invent consoles that could spit out DMX and run any automated fixture as well as dimmers. Early on, there was the Whole Hog1, Scan Commander, Light Coordinator, Animator and the Status Cue to start the long learning curve. Here, we have more than a dozen top-of-the-line consoles listed. They are available to meet the needs of users with a wide range of features and price points. This month, as a bonus, we also reached out to more than a half-dozen LDs to get their perspective on the favorite features and functions of a sampling of different consoles.

LASER — “Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” While lasers weren’t invented until 1960, by the 1980’s they had cemented a place in the… Read More »Laser Systems

Commercial wireless devices for DMX have been around for about 20 years now. They were used for theatrical plays where running a cable to a… Read More »Wireless DMX Devices

It’s been about 15 years since media servers made a splash and one did not have to be a professional video engineer to play clips… Read More »Media Servers

To cast a light on a subject but avoid pesky shadows, you require a soft light beam. This is very important in film shoots as… Read More »Fresnels and Softlights

All lighting starts with electricity. The provision of good, clean power starts with the in house electrical service, but it’s up to the lighting company to ensure that the power is clean, safely protected from ground faults and sufficiently fused.

To download a PDF of PLSN’s March 2016 Buyers Guide, CLICK HERE

Often, you hear that the gear on stage is only as good as the crew who’s working with it. This is gospel in the live… Read More »Nashville-Based Production and Stage Managers

The first LED pars came on the scene over 10 years ago. Then, as in now, the actual par was a misleading term. There are… Read More »LED Pars