I'm beginning to think I'm overdoing this lighting malarky!

[Imagine]

This one (sort of) stems back to a conversation with an elderly gentleman 'oop North this afternoon...

I've been trawling around the interweb this evening and it would appear I use far too many lights (and could indeed save myself around another 15 minutes on setup time).

My current lighting setup for most parties?

• 2 x KAM PartyBar WFS for wash (they project light onto the floor/ceiling beautifully) OR four ADJ Megatripars if using the all white rig (because four of those is more than equal to the 8 pars on the Partybars!)
• 2 x Chauvet Intimidator 305's for movement
• 8 x very unstraight Freedom sticks (because they look pretty but actually give no lighting on the floor after about a foot)
• Occasionally, 2 x Spherions for pretty mirror ball effects mounted on aluminium trusses with truss warmers in them

I have other lighting effects I occasionally give an airing as well.

BUT....

Looking on 't'interwibble....it appears that there's a complete LACK of wash lighting being used. I'm seeing a trend for uplighting BEHIND the booth which from where I stand looks very nice if the dancers are standing and watching you for the night, but is useless on the dance floor.

From what I'm seeing, a lot of people now rock up with a set of Freedom sticks and a pair of scanners (Wizards/305s/others are available), and that's IT!

Am I missing a trick here? How do they actually ILLUMINATE the dance floor so that people can see what they're doing between the sweeps of the scanners without slipping in puddles of spilt booze/blood/vomit (yes...I've had all of the above and more on my dance floors in the past)

Seriously....are they working with room lights on all night? (I don't). Are their dance floors very dark apart from the scanners?

I once did a party (just the once mind) where I rocked up with some Mk1 Gigbars and got asked if I could put more light on the floor so people could see what they were doing (OK, the Gigbars weren't the brightest of things but you get my point).

It might just be because I'm from an age where lots of lighting meant everything (light screens, pin spots, traffic lights, scanners...you name it).

This isn't a trick question by the way....far from it. If I can get away without, for instance, putting up a pair of PartyBars and the customer wouldn't notice...I'm all for it.

What are the rest of you using?

[Imagine]

As an example....



It would appear that all wash-lighting comes from the podiums and a couple of uplighters behind the booth....the stuff on the floor is being done by a pair of moving heads and a proper mirror ball (and where that's placed....it's going to be a real pain in the bum all night on the lappy screens ) .

[Nakatomi]

No you're right. DJs all over the place have abandoned wash lighting in favour of 'bling'. Bling which looks great in photos, til an experienced eye examines the rig & realises everybody not right at the front will be pretty much in darkness. Just like the BAD OLD DAYS where the only light from a disco would stop at about waist height & a single line of dancers could plunge the rest of the room into dark.

This isn't progress!

I never gig anywhere without my trusty Gigabar. I'm no fan of how it looks but by jove it gets the job done. And how!

Last summer I had the dubious pleasure of setting up in a side wing of a marquee with low ceiling clearance - but having been there before I went prepared. I set up TWO wash systems - one on either side of the 'tent' & mounted a pair of mini movers on each, and a quad phase HP. Man, what a difference that made. Not being able to get the wash high enough wasn't as much of a problem since I could light the floor from both sides.

So to answer your question - do they illuminate the dancefloor? NO they blimmin well don't. They are, to all intents & purposes - once they've got people dancing - a waste of space.

The cheaper end of the market just floods the room with multicoloured flashing & strobing blobs of light. How that goes down with people who've had a drink or 3 I'll never guess but imagine it's not great. Do the 'more upmarket' thing & have a pair of movers on 1m podiums er.. some of the crowd will be lit by a moving beam momentarily... Or go 'high end' where only a single wizlok is applied - and see pretty much the same thing except it also does a great job of dazzling Aunt Doris. Nah. Every dancefloor needs wash lighting of some kind IMHO.

[Jim - Scotland's Party DJ]

I've got the opposite way a while back.

My "big" lighting rig is:

ADJ Ultra hex bar 12 under my booth
2 jelly domes

(my small rig is just these - the jelly domes give off a bit of wash, good for bowling clubs, low ceilings, drawing room type places but not much other than that.

I was using a pair of ADJ inno pocket washes and prior to that I was using chauvet 300 something or other barrel scanners.

As has been mentioned - both looked great for bling but weren't great for lighting up the floor.

I ditched those and now mount 2 ADJ ultra hex bar 6s to my uprights - dmx them to a fraction of their power because other wise you can't look in my direction at all and the jelly domes - you get some nice "bling" from the jelly domes - I've had more brides over the years comment on the "stars" effect than any other fixture I've used plus people can actually see on the dance floor no matter what size the room.

You can see a live example of it in action here at the 1:20 mark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeN_...ature=youtu.be

[ukpartydj]

I didn't use wash lighting until a couple of years ago.

Now using a couple of kam RGBWA+UV pars which are quite bright and 305 barrel for my main lighting with 2-4 up lights around the booth depending on the room.

Originally I did think I was a bit short on the lighting effects but once DMXed they do very well and haven't felt the need for many more for a long time now.

[rth_discos]

My weapons of choice are the Chauvet Intimidator Trio and Chauvet Intimidator Barrel 305

The Trio provides a wash, spot and effect, and the Barrel provides the gobos.

They work really well together, and I believe matches many larger shows in terms of versatility, yet doesn't take up loads of space, and no overhead bar etc.



I've not bought in to the vertical truss/totem style look - I prefer my lighting up high, pointing down on the dancefloor.

[Excalibur]

My weapons of choice are the Chauvet Intimidator Trio and Chauvet Intimidator Barrel 305

The Trio provides a wash, spot and effect, and the Barrel provides the gobos.

They work really well together, and I believe matches many larger shows in terms of versatility, yet doesn't take up loads of space, and no overhead bar etc.


I've not bought in to the vertical truss/totem style look - I prefer my lighting up high, pointing down on the dancefloor.

Hard to disagree with any of that.
In my very humble opinion, wash lights are a must, unless the venue doesn't play the game by turning some of their house lights off.

[mark@pegasus]

I'm still using wash as well. I recently purchased a pair of Chauvet FX PAR9's which are mounted to the top of my Vertus CLA604's with a custom bracket I had made. normally alongside a pair of ADJ Inno pocket spots, a 40cm mirrorball (lit by said movers) and a pair of KAM gobostars

[yourdj]

there's a complete LACK of wash lighting being used.

I think a lot off people must look at my two quad phase HP's and think thats it. I usually use 5-8 very bright HX9 wireless DMX uplighters, but have 14 in total for larger venues. Talking about dancfloor lighting, using the pars to light up the dancers looks so much better, especially in a venue like this, where uplighting the walls is next to useless.

[Benny Smyth]

I've been using 4 of the FXPar 9s since the summer. A great light (and the centrepiece of the Lightshow in the Chauvet Arena at BPM last year).