General question about Par Cans

I had 8 par64 to ligh the crowd, but not many variations to play with them or make a good show. due to high powerconsumption most of the time I couldn't use more lights in the small places I do shows. I changed to Par38, with lots more of them in many colors. these are not that bright becose it aren't halogene lamps, but the advantage is the short afterglow time, they can almost go stroboscopic.


For larger shows or outdoor events u normaly use the par64 due to higher light outputs.
these can by hang a lot higher above the crowd and still color up the dancefloor.

I prefer to use par 46's for effect lighting - such as using a bank of 4 together with ACL lamps in them. 46's are good at throwing more focused light across a typical stage.

Par 56's, I find, are perfect for most events/shows. They do not require all the power of 64's, and I can use more of them and get significant stage coverage. I use them as my primary mains and front lighting. I supplement them with the 38's, which do have a short, wide throw (when using MFL lamps). These work great as drum lights.

If I was doing very large, outdoor/concert/arena-sized shows, par 64's would be the only way to go. As for the 'typical' gig, they are too big, overkill, and consume too much power. I think 56's/38's will be the best option (46's are nice/fun too, but again, I usually use them for effects, and not primary lighting).

Another thing to consider is the type of lamp you install in your cans. Medium Flood lamps (MFL) or Narrow Spot (NS), etc all affect how far/focused your light will be. Also, wattage and lamp type (incandescent/halogen) both affect performance and output.

Best,
-Tech

I am really surprised why more production companies aren't going with the LED Par 64's that are available now. I saw an outdoor concert in St. Louis here a few months ago which had well over 100 cans. On my way to the porta-potty, I couldn't help but notice the 4 or 5 6" thick power cables to power it all. Sitting in the front row I could feel the heat these things were throwing off as well. Good thing the light rig was about 40-50 feet in the air. Anyway, I think however you go with lighting on your can size, LED should be an option.
As a dj, the biggest advantage to them is that they draw very little power when compared to standard lit cans. I have played at a couple of places where I had 1 outlet at 15 amps to run my lights out of. Putting up 2 of the standard cans would have killed eveything whereas with the LED cans, one could plug maybe 50 of them in and run them wide open all night. Factor in the 100,000 hour life expectancy of the LEDs and that means no bulb replacement, so you are saving money in the long run there as well. Get the RGB Color mixing LED cans and you don't ever have to buy a gel again as well. As far as set-up goes, no dimmer packs to mess with, so your set-up and tear down time is greatly reduced. Just run a jack strip or something similar up into you rig and plug it all in. All of the dimming on them is done through DMX. Strobing them would be a killer effect as well that couldn't be accomplished with standard cans either.
As a former band member, the biggest advantage is no heat. Just about any musician who has played under a standard PAR can light show will tell you that it's almost uncomfortable at times. Packing a stage with PAR 64's like the band I played in (up to 24 at the back of the stage)REALLY looks sharp if you have someone who can push buttons fast enough. With the newer light boards out there now, you could program some really killer stuff. The problem with doing it that way was, 1, heat, and 2, huge power consumption. Even running smaller cans, you are using a lot of your available electricity to produce unusable heat with halogens.
I know all of this is a little off from what you were talking about, but I have always been a believer in having equipment that you can use anywhere. Using 64's that you can tone down or even leaving a few in the trailer works a lot better for smaller gigs than using 38's and trying to get enough light out of them for an outdoor venue. In other words, get something you can use at either place instead of limiting yourself to using 1 thing that works good in one place. If it were me, I would go with all 64 cans if you do LED. They are MUCH more versatile for a band or theatre production than the smaller cans would be. That's my 2 cents worth : )

Why aren't touring companies using the LED Par64s?

2 reasons: Not enough output, and too much cost. When doing a big show, it's not terribly unusual to get 400-amps of AC right off the grid(well, more or less) just for lighting, so AC draw isn't really going to be the issue. Cost is not really the main issue, but rather pure lumens output. One LED Par64 is not even putting out a quarter of quarter a regular Par64 is doing. So, what does that mean? Well, an LED Par64 costs, what, 5-6 times as much as a regular Par64(at least), plus you're going to need 4 times as many, hence making your costs 20-30 times more expensive. Plus, now you have to deal with powering the things, so your standard socapex cables are going to be just fine, but since your brains are in your fixtures, now you have to run loads of DMX cabling up in the rigging as well, although that can be mostly pre-done. Oh wait, back to the rigging: now you have to rig 4 more trusses filled with lights, and it's already pretty crowded up there anyways. Oh, no biggie, just trhow more motors up there and hoist away. Wait!! Is the place rated for that? Do they have sufficient rigging points? Is this structurally sound?

With the small timers like me who can cover 2000-people, I can't afford a big power distro, plus most places won't let me tap into their panel and/or don't have a dedicated transformer with tie-ins for that sort of thing.

I am not, never have been and never will be a DJ, but I'm in the same general scenario with DJ's: I gotta tie into house power via AC outlets. UGH!!! Insufficient power, and clients always want MORE light than can be provided through AC outlets, PLUS they want sound too. Pop, pop, pop go the circuit breakers! ALWAYS front end your gear with your own power units(like Furmas) and pop YOUR breakers and not house breakers!!!

Anyhow after waiting 2 years for a reply, I think I got what I need. I'm getting away from the Par38's and going with some Color Changers for smaller events(see my web site for make and models), but it appears I'm best off with maybe 8-12 Par56's with color changers on them, plus 4-8 Par46's for more refined throw. Par64's are simply too large for my general events. When I do larger events, lighting is typically hired separately anyways. The Par56's seem to have the best compromise.

I totally hear(and see) your point with the Par38's, as I've run into the problems in the past

I am thinking very wide these days, and maximum flexibility is a big issue as well as looking into power consumption, truck space, casing, replacement and maintenance costs and more. I buy it, I use it, my crew makes darn sure they break it and don't tell me. Fortunately, my crew can be replaced(and is, one by one). Now I'm looking for a part time lighting operator, 4 camera operators, video director and 2 guys to run follow spots who are also my crew.

Hi Chris. I think I have to disagree with some of what you were saying about the use of LED instead of regular PAR 64's. Although you make valid points, I don't think you have considered everything you need to before coming to the conclusions that you did.

I think that you missed the point I was trying to make about the usages of LED over standard cans. Yes, if you have an infinite amount of power to play with, I would go with standard 64's for a BIG gig. But where power is an issue, the LED's are the only way to go I would think. Yes, you have to run link cables between the fixtures and 1 XLR cable from your board to your light rig, but I wouldn't think that it would be any more painful than having to jack around with say a ton of dimmer packs. As you said, most of the cabling issues can be a semi-permanent mount configuration, so it's basically a one-time setup. Now factor in the sheer numbers you can power just off of one 20 amp circuit if you are forced to use AC plugs. At .2 amp draw, you could set up pretty close to 100 fixtures out of 1 circuit. How does that compare to a standard par 64? Maybe 4 or 5 standard cans out of the same 20 amp circuit? Drop it to 46's and you might get, I am guessing here, maybe 8 off of that circuit? Piggy-backing off of what you said about clients always wanting more light, then LED is a possible solution for you. You could put up enough lighting to make people see Jesus all while using the power consumption of a small window air-conditioner paired up with your favorite toaster.

In as far as costs go, yes, the up-front cost is significantly more in going with LED. However, I think that you will agree that adding up all of the maintenence costs of standard cans over say a 10-15 year life-span that you would theorhetically get out of the LED cans would be considerably more than the initial costs of the LED stuff. Think about how many bulbs you would go through on a standard can to get 100,000 hours of total burn time that you should get out of the LED stuff. I'm not sure what bulbs cost for standard cans anymore, but I know they aren't cheap. Now I know I said that if power weren't an issue that I would go with standard cans. And I stick by that provided that all you do is BIG gigs. I would think that doing a medium or small gig would make the standard 64's overkill, so you would have to downgrade to a smaller can. So now your lighting costs include two separate light rigs. Having 2 light rigs is great if your company is big enough to run at 2 different venues at the same time, but if you aren't, then you are paying for something to take up space sitting in trailer. Yes, you could run nothing but standard 46's and 38's, but then you go back to power issues if you have to light a big show on short power with smaller cans and having to compensate with larger numbers of fixtures. That's why I said that the LEDs are more versatile, you can do either show with them.

As far as having to rig 4 times the amount of cans to get the same output, I think you are dead wrong here. Yes, I agree that the output on the LED cans is not quite up to standard can levels. However, I haven't seen any comparision of numbers on paper, but I have seen them running side by side and I think your quote of less than 1/8 the output is off quite a bit. Nonetheless, they are dimmer, but I don't think they are as dim as you may be thinking. Tell me this, though, how often does every can on a rig get turned on at the same time using standard cans? Everything I have ever seen at a show was set up on some sort of a chase or series of scenes, since every can had a specific color gel on it. As an example if you have 32 cans with 8 different color gels on them. Say you want to do a stage wash of blue, you might get 4-8 cans to do it with, depending on how you have them gelled. Now if you have 32 LED cans on the rack, you can set them all to do blue at the same time to acheive your wash. Set them up on a fade to red and get it all out of the same cans. If you see what I am saying here, you can get the same level of lighting out of the same amount of fixtures even though the light output of the LED is less than conventional cans because you can use more of them for any given color. That being said, you could feasible get close to the same lighting out of an equal number of cans. The only time pure total output would even be an issue would be in looking at the totals of everything when everything was turned on at the same time.

Now before you start thinking that I am the world's biggest LED guru, I do have some negatives that are worth mentioning. In THEORY, LED cans should last about 10-15 years or so going strictly off of the actual LED life expectancy. However in a touring situation, I don't know that they would be durable enough to make it that long. I know that touring rigs are sometime mistreated a little bit and the wear and tear adds up over time. That being said, durability would be a concern of mine. Also, the LED 64's do take up a lot of space, especially if you are talking about running 32+ cans. I know for me, the 8 that I have take up pretty much the entire top row on my light truss, as well as a large amount of space in the trailer to and from gigs. So it's not the perfect solution to every lighting situation, but I think it's worth considering.

By the way, I checked out your website. You run some top notch gear there man!

Wow those are some long posts

I thought I would chime in for a second. I'm a DJ and an American DJ dealer, and I can tell you that a lot of DJ's are going to LED Pars. I switched over a few months ago and love the color mixing capabilities not to mention not having to worry about popping the circuit. I'm not the only one who has been pleased with the LED's, I've been selling these like crazy, and now the color shots are becoming very popular. Most of the people I know who are using the LED's are performing for crowds of 200-300 so I can't comment on the effectiveness of the LED's for 3000 people, sorry.

Well, right off, for those viewing my site, you can clearly see I'm not a DJ. So, my needs are quite different. I do mainly concerts, but since I don't have loads of dough because I don't have corporate backing or endorsements(I'm a great endorsee and work with loads of A-listers!! Hint, hint!!), I fund everything out of my own pocket. Since I gotta buy, I might as well buy the best. I can appreciate it, and my skills warrant it.

I have ample space to carry at least 16 Par56's or 64's in the truck. Heck, depending on how I stack in there, I can cram way more than my typical load.

As far as relative brightness, what sort of luments are we talking from a regular Par64 vs. an LED Per64? Also, we have to think of things such as dissapation, beam width and effective throw distance.

My main application is lights hung from my various trusses, which must be hand cranked or raised into position, so hence throw isn't the main issue, putting power consumption and heat back as bigger concerns. I have another application where I do have large throws, such as up to 50 feet, but I've seen another fixture, like the OptiPar for that, and the requirement for that is very infrequent. Still I own, never rent.

But then again, since my stages are generally of the smaller variety, Par56's would get the job done 90% of the time. My main concerns are still the same though, outside of current draw. I need to know effective throw and beam width. Running extra DMX cables is a trivial issue, as is running extra power.

I have some potential events in February with crowds over 2 days expected to be over 20K worth of people, but that's with constant in and out traffic, with the main stage being up to 2000 people for each night. Right now I'm having the promoter ensure proper power(they don't like trying to come up with 200 amps of AC in one generator, so I said 2 120+ amp generators would be fine then, one for lights, one for sound). I can get by with what I've got right now.

Now what about the color changing LED Parcan fixtures? What sort of output are those doing, as compared to a gel'ed like can? I think that will really make my decision. Par38's have no resale value, so it's a loss item. Oh well, they are inexpensive and otherwise fairly reliable, so no trashing here. It's just time to move into something better.

In the meantime, I fired my entire crew since I can never get them to cooperate, so I am looking for someone to run lights, another for video, and 2 for stage and tech, plus all have to do general crew. It's tough enough for me to have to do FOH, recording and monitors as it is, without having to hand-hold all the other essential tasks.