# Intelligent Lighting in High School



## The_Guest (Oct 10, 2004)

Intels, they're beautiful. But, expensive. I'm just curious to see how many of your schools actually OWN (not rent/borrow. But district sharing counts) intels? If so how many? And list the models and what you're using to control them.


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## propmonkey (Oct 10, 2004)

we're hoping to rent then buy 2 roboscans this spring.


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## zac850 (Oct 10, 2004)

When I'm asleep my school owns millions of intel's, all perfectly maintained, and we have a grandMA board to control them all.

When I wake up I need to fix 2 of the 36 dimmers...


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## hollinj (Oct 10, 2004)

We have 2 Verilight 1000 and a VL 1000S


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## avkid (Oct 10, 2004)

we have none,but if anyone would like to give me several thousand dollars i could deal with that!


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## The_Guest (Oct 10, 2004)

hollinj said:


> We have 2 Verilight 1000 and a VL 1000S



Well if you own them why does it say no one owns them in the poll? Weird.


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## Nephilim (Oct 11, 2004)

TPHS owns three Chauvet moving heads. Very low-end, but they've served us well.


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## The_Guest (Oct 11, 2004)

Nephilim said:


> TPHS owns three Chauvet moving heads. Very low-end, but they've served us well.



Haha, gee thanks for voting.


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## SuperCow (Oct 11, 2004)

My school has five Trakspots, controlled by an ETC Emphasys system.


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## soundman (Oct 11, 2004)

2 techno lux robo scan 250s and two robo MSzooms 250 xts I think http://www.robe.cz/default.aspx?con...49D&lang=9D2D0548-2D4A-46FB-8AB2-3E356457EE73


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## Peter (Oct 12, 2004)

My school + $$ = NO :-(

we have considered hanging a freshman from the bar (read: swinging wide open bar 2 stories above the audence, no catwalk) and having him/her move the lights during the show, although osha wouldnt like that!


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## JP12687 (Oct 12, 2004)

2 American DJ Accu-Spot 250's
1 Omni-System Pilot 150
4 American DJ Concept 1's

Controlled by an ETC Express 48/96 and a COlortran Inovator


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## zac850 (Oct 12, 2004)

Peter said:


> My school + $$ = NO :-(
> 
> we have considered hanging a freshman from the bar (read: swinging wide open bar 2 stories above the audence, no catwalk) and having him/her move the lights during the show, although osha wouldnt like that!



Good point. I would like to revise my answer to:

Yes, we have two moving lights, thought they are not intelligent. They are operated by me yelling over to the op and telling them what to do. Hence the not intelligent part.


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## autophage (Oct 12, 2004)

My school has two Intellabeams. They were so cool and shiny and new when we got them just two years ago but they quickly started glitching out... and they blow fuses more often than it seems they should (I've changed them before, it's not hard, but the school board REALLY doesn't want student techs doing that). All in all, we use them far less than we should given what we paid - they weren't worth the money.

(Is crossing fingers that the rumors of new fixtures on order are true).


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## Nephilim (Oct 13, 2004)

Okay, okay, I voted.


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## Radman (Oct 13, 2004)

autophage said:


> My school has two Intellabeams. They were so cool and shiny and new when we got them just two years ago but they quickly started glitching out... and they blow fuses more often than it seems they should (I've changed them before, it's not hard, but the school board REALLY doesn't want student techs doing that). All in all, we use them far less than we should given what we paid - they weren't worth the money.
> 
> (Is crossing fingers that the rumors of new fixtures on order are true).



I could probably take them off your hands. For $... wait no I'm broke... um zero dollars. Yup. But only 'cause I like ya.


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## JP12687 (Oct 13, 2004)

auto- School boards never like students doing anything...even when they are better at it and have more experience then thier assigned faculty member....


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## The_Guest (Oct 13, 2004)

JP12687 said:


> auto- School boards never like students doing anything...even when they are better at it and have more experience then thier assigned faculty member....



From my experiences you'd be suprised. Last year I created a proposal to the district's educational foundation and got $5,000 out of it. This is was after several months or research and pricing. It's a all matter of being professional. You can't appear like a student wanting gadgets to play with. You have to have the whole thing figured out: storage, training, benifits, money, maintaining, and most importantly applacations. Districts prefer to fund things that will make a noticiable difference. Particularly major improvements. A good reason why districts often decline student funding requests because it's just simply not organized. So what if you get approved for a batch of mac2ks. How will they get used, are they even compatable with your existing system. Will they continue to get used after you graduate. Educational funding is entirely about long term funding. No school board wants to grant money (which mind you is tax money) and grant money once more because you made a mistake. This type of funding must be secure and efficient. These sort of things are incredibly audited, if there is a single hole you could receive nothing. A final tip, it does help to get staff/faculity to assist or endorse your efforts. And most likely your TD will. Of course they like getting money for new equipment why shouldn't they. If you want it bad, you gotta push for it.


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## zac850 (Oct 13, 2004)

I just found out that for a arts fundraiser up in a large old textile mill we will be using a ton of intelligent lights. I'm not designing it, but I'm on the tech committee (only student on a committee for the gala) and the design is to use 70 pin spots and several intelligent lights, and by that I mean that besides the pin spots, there will only be one conventional light (one source 4 with one of those colored glass color stroller things in it).

Don't know what board is going to run it, because the Express 125 the school has won't run it all. The designer is bringing a light board in for that. I can't wait!!!!

There not the schools movers, but, hey, movers are movers.

I'll be sure to take lots of photos of the gala and post them up here.


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## The_Guest (Oct 13, 2004)

Nephilim said:


> Okay, okay, I voted.



Thats what I like to see, Nephilim.


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## autophage (Oct 15, 2004)

The_Guest said:


> From my experiences you'd be suprised. Last year I created a proposal to the district's educational foundation and got $5,000 out of it. This is was after several months or research and pricing. It's a all matter of being professional. You can't appear like a student wanting gadgets to play with. You have to have the whole thing figured out: storage, training, benifits, money, maintaining, and most importantly applacations. Districts prefer to fund things that will make a noticiable difference. Particularly major improvements. A good reason why districts often decline student funding requests because it's just simply not organized. So what if you get approved for a batch of mac2ks. How will they get used, are they even compatable with your existing system. Will they continue to get used after you graduate. Educational funding is entirely about long term funding. No school board wants to grant money (which mind you is tax money) and grant money once more because you made a mistake. This type of funding must be secure and efficient. These sort of things are incredibly audited, if there is a single hole you could receive nothing. A final tip, it does help to get staff/faculity to assist or endorse your efforts. And most likely your TD will. Of course they like getting money for new equipment why shouldn't they. If you want it bad, you gotta push for it.



I wasn't talking about purchasing anything - our purchase order system I actually sort of for the most part understand, and they'll sign just about anything. I meant in terms of allowing students to save the school money by putting knowledge to use that we've gained outside of the normal means (ie, they don't teach how to change fuses in the tech theatre class). It's not difficult, and if you know enough to be changing them in the first place there's a good chance you know how to go about it - but I realize the potential for error and don't blame them wanting to protect their equipment. Thus, I only do things like this when I'm 100% sure they'll work, when time's running out (can't rush a repair order through the opening night of the show no matter how hard you try) and when nobody's looking (or at least, nobody that'd care what I'm doing).


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## len (Oct 25, 2004)

autophage said:


> My school has two Intellabeams. They were so cool and shiny and new when we got them just two years ago but they quickly started glitching out... and they blow fuses more often than it seems they should (I've changed them before, it's not hard, but the school board REALLY doesn't want student techs doing that). All in all, we use them far less than we should given what we paid - they weren't worth the money.
> 
> (Is crossing fingers that the rumors of new fixtures on order are true).



Fuses in the fixtures, or breakers in the building? Either way, that is not normal. Find the money to have them looked at. HES has pretty good customer service, so they may do it as a warranty repair.


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## techismylife (Nov 6, 2004)

Our school owns two Martin RoboPro 400 color changers and 1 elipscan mirror (similar to rosco's I-Cue, but cheaper). We also have a Martin Atomic DMX 3000 strobe We have rented Martin 918's before, and are now looking into buying some Mac 2000's. We currently control everything with either our Insight 2 or Express 48/96. We may upgrade to HogPC if/when we get the Mac 2000's
--Lincoln


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## Techop (Nov 28, 2004)

I think most schools are better off with more lekos and no movers because the lekos dont break or really need maintnaince plus we are talking about students and teachers who dont know what a moving light is. 

so go buy lekos saty a way from moving lites (like blow fuses)


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## lightguy21 (Dec 8, 2004)

My school did not have Intelligent Lighting, but I feel that if more school want to have a tech program and want to teach how to teach, buying Intelligent Lighting is a good idea. Today every show uses Intelligent Lighting. The collage I teach at just got 2 Mac 2000. I am not saying the all school need Mac 2000 but something to show how Intelligent Lighting works.


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## TechWench (Dec 10, 2004)

my high school owned 4 studio spots and 18 color scrollers.

fun stuff.

the studio spots are nice, however while working with them i discovered a few errors in the manual and system.
such as the focus channel is named as the efx rotator. 
but otherwise they were good to me.

and the scrollers are always fun to mess with.
especially during crew and making the entire crew feel like they are on an acid trip...ahh...

good times.

and yes. i voted. :wink:


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## mbenonis (Dec 11, 2004)

JP12687 said:


> auto- School boards never like students doing anything...even when they are better at it and have more experience then thier assigned faculty member....



Quite the opposite, in my experience. Over the summer, I ran the sound and lights for the annual administrative conference, which all assistant principals, principals, and higher-ups attend (up to and including the superintendent). During the conference, the superintendent made a comment to the effect of "when you want something done right, ask a young person to do it," and directed attention up to the booth and me. He also thanked me personally for all of my help.


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## nloui (Jan 5, 2005)

Yeah, my school owns 6 HighEnd Studio Spot CMY's and 4 Technobeams among a few others...


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## ccfan213 (Jan 5, 2005)

some schools and adults appreciate students knowledge and others think students are bound to screw stuff up. for example, our, i guess you could call him the staff TD but he never came to any rehearsals and had no idea whatsoever how to even turn on the sound or light board came into the booth the night of the show and said "i wish we spent more time learning how to use this stuff" we told him we knew what we were doing and he said, "thats what you think" he spent the rest of the show selling tickets. far away from the booth. other staff members like my director last year said she wished i could do tech for a show she wrote that was playing in NYC and i was only a freshman, i couldnt cause i dont drive and have other stuff i had to do, but still. my point is you cant generalize all school staff as either trusting or not trusting students with valuabale and complex stuff.


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## Jinglish (Aug 11, 2009)

Just two RoboScan 812's. Me might spring for an I-Cue eventually, though.


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## shiben (Aug 11, 2009)

For all the schools with MAC 2ks, why? If your looking to buy, I would recommend MAC 700s or something similar. They are cheaper (still expensive) and smaller. Although if you can get funding for them, more power to you.


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## LightingPenguin (Aug 11, 2009)

We've got 4 Elation Design Wash 250's, and 2 Design Spot 250's. Useful at times, but we're looking to get Mac 700's and trade the Elation's out. We'll see what happens.

If you want to count these, we've also got 6 I-Cues. But I don't really count those as movers


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## highschooltech (Aug 12, 2009)

The high school i went to owns two right arms with auto iriss and scrollers. I guess you could call them movers. They also have 24 more Coloram scrollers which are very nice. They were willing to rent as needed. In fact at the moment i'm plotting for their performing arts gala they hired my to do with something like 26 mover on it.


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## ishboo (Aug 12, 2009)

We have 2 Right Arms, 6 Color Commands, and 2 Rosco ICue's. So not really any Intels but we have the components of one.


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## Spader (Aug 14, 2009)

My school has three MAC300's, three Martin SCX600's, two Technobeams, and six color scrollers. When Martin was still in Simi Valley (I found their old office yesterday and was SO exited - until I saw that they had indeed moved away) I heard that they would often lend units to our school for different events.

The great argument that I have read in this thread and will totally agree with is if they will be used. Can the students learn how to use them beyond turning them on and pointing them at the stage? I'm sure that (even in today's world) it would be an excellent tool for students to learn how to use them economically and often. Can students learn how to find places for them in more than two spots in a show? What's the point of paying all of that money, even to rent the equipment, if they are only used in two scenes?

This is just my two cents, and I'm sure that there is some fault in it.


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## lighttechie5948 (Aug 14, 2009)

My school is a nationally recognized performing arts high school. We own 2 MAC 250s and 4 Robe 250ATs. Controlled by an Express 72/144.


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 16, 2009)

We don't own any moving lights, we have bulbs, electricity, color plates, and 48 dimmers  

Along with some renovations we are doing, we are thinking about getting two or four low end Chauvet moving heads, Wont be the best as I have been told be others here, but for the price, a moving head is a moving head, and would be nice to have a manual spotlight instead of switching between the 16 foh spots. Since I have also been warned the color intensity will be washed out by other lights, We are planning only using them for specialty performances like dance recitals, or to follor a moving singer or performer when the rest of stage is on blackout, or dim.


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## shiben (Aug 16, 2009)

Um, your still going to have problems. Keep in mind that Chauvet products are intended for Clubs and whatnot, so to really work, they need to be in the dark. Also, I doubt that you will find much versatility with them for dance performances. And have fun following the performers. Manual followspots will do that best. They might be fun to play with tho.


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## cprted (Aug 16, 2009)

MillburyAuditorium said:


> We don't own any moving lights, we have bulbs, electricity, color plates, and 48 dimmers
> 
> Along with some renovations we are doing, we are thinking about getting two or four low end Chauvet moving heads, Wont be the best as I have been told be others here, but for the price, a moving head is a moving head, and would be nice to have a manual spotlight instead of switching between the 16 foh spots. Since I have also been warned the color intensity will be washed out by other lights, We are planning only using them for specialty performances like dance recitals, or to follor a moving singer or performer when the rest of stage is on blackout, or dim.


Instead of spending your money on movers that aren't going to do what you want, why not pickup a follow spot instead?


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## soundlight (Aug 16, 2009)

MillburyAuditorium said:


> We don't own any moving lights, we have bulbs, electricity, color plates, and 48 dimmers
> 
> Along with some renovations we are doing, we are thinking about getting two or four low end Chauvet moving heads, Wont be the best as I have been told be others here, but for the price, a moving head is a moving head, and would be nice to have a manual spotlight instead of switching between the 16 foh spots. Since I have also been warned the color intensity will be washed out by other lights, We are planning only using them for specialty performances like dance recitals, or to follor a moving singer or performer when the rest of stage is on blackout, or dim.



Yeah, remember what I said in the other thread - until you have 96 dimmers and good fixtures for them, don't even consider moving lights. Scrollers? Sure. I-Cues? Why not. But moving lights? With the minimum cost of a decent mover for theatre (aka bright enough to make a difference and useful enough to justify it) at about $3200, why bother?


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## Tex (Aug 16, 2009)

We own eight LED PARS (semi-intelligent) and have a standing arrangement with a sister school to borrow up to 8 Studio Spots and 8 Studio Colors any time we need them.
I love the LED PARS. No more gels in Fresnels (or scoops ) for color washes and they easily change color on the fly. The High End instruments are great for specials, patterns and projections but I wouldn't want a whole beam of them. There is NO substitute for a Source Four...


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## lighttechie5948 (Aug 16, 2009)

Tex said:


> We own eight LED PARS (semi-intelligent) and have a standing arrangement with a sister school to borrow up to 8 Studio Spots and 8 Studio Colors any time we need them.
> I love the LED PARS. No more gels in Fresnels (or scoops ) for color washes and they easily change color on the fly. The High End instruments are great for specials, patterns and projections but I wouldn't want a whole beam of them. There is NO substitute for a Source Four...



I think a VL3500 is a good substitute for a S4.


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## Tex (Aug 16, 2009)

Guess I should have said, "In my opinion..."
Not to go off topic, but is a $10,000 fixture really a substitute for a >$500 instrument for area lighting? The only reason I say this is that my district just built a new school and a couple of salesmen tried to sell the idea of all intels. Fortunately, they had a good consultant who bought enough conventional fixtures to cover the stage instead of the meager, "almost enough" intel packages that were bid.
If I had to choose between $200,000 worth of intels in my beam or $200,000 worth of conventional fixtures spread throughout the space, I'd take the conventional fixtures.


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## fredthe (Aug 16, 2009)

We just got the go-ahead to order a pair of VL2500 spots . We've been renting a pair of spots, plus a half-dozen wash fixtures for the past 2 years, once or twice a year. While this normally wouldn't lead to a need to purchase them, in our specific case there are a couple of benefits...

- Give the students a chance to learn how they work throughout the year, instead of only for a few days before the show

- Where we mount the spots in the house is about 6' below our FOH pipe. So, every time we rent them, we need to also rent pipes, etc., and spend several hours getting them hung (with the assistance of a qualified rigger, of course.) With the purchase, we are also setting up permanent hang positions.

We will, however continue to rent the wash units when we need them. It's quick to mount them on the stage electrics, and the students will already be familiar with how movers operate, so programming will be easier.

-Fred


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## Luminosity (Aug 19, 2009)

My high school has about 64 Moving Lights. They're all Studio Spots and Colors (32 of each) and all controlled from a Whole Hog II. Although we have such a high number, we only use 15-30 in the auditorium at a time. The rest are kept in the classroom for learning purposes.


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## midgetgreen11 (Aug 19, 2009)

Luminosity said:


> My high school has about 64 Moving Lights. They're all Studio Spots and Colors (32 of each) and all controlled from a Whole Hog II. Although we have such a high number, we only use 15-30 in the auditorium at a time. The rest are kept in the classroom for learning purposes.



Whaaaaaaaat? Where do you attend high school?


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## bri4827 (Aug 20, 2009)

We are very lucky - we have 12 design spot 250s, 4 CF7s, 8 iwash LED, 24 color key LED par64s, 8 color scrollers, and one HES ibeam - I love our space


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## Shillyer (Aug 20, 2009)

My former high school has:

4- Mac 300's
2- Mac 500's
7- MX-10E's

All of which seem to do a decent job however I wish they packed a bit more punch in the intensity department. Also I find the MX-10's like to cause headaches fairly often.


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## Luminosity (Aug 20, 2009)

midgetgreen11 said:


> Whaaaaaaaat? Where do you attend high school?



Van Nuys HS
A few years back, Frank Zappa donated a whole bunch of gear and equipment.


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## lightingdmx (May 8, 2013)

Well it seems that most high schools don't have intelligent lighting but we do we have
4-studio spots 575
4-studio spots 250
10-studio colors 575
2-technobeams
3-Mac 300s
3-manias scx 600
9-non working studio colors
5-non working studio spots 
And over 100 lekos and pars 
And our boards are
Hog4pc for our new theatre 
And Hog2pc for the black box
And also a great sound system
Ls9 board and 2 other ones


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## Les (May 8, 2013)

lightingdmx said:


> 9-non working studio colors
> 5-non working studio spots



I'm guessing that's because there's no budget/personnel to fix them?


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## lightingdmx (May 8, 2013)

Les said:


> I'm guessing that's because there's no budget/personnel to fix them?



Oh no we can fix them we just need to buy bulbs and some parts and we have the budget we just haven't kept on buying parts because sound needed money.


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## Techdude9856 (May 8, 2013)

We have 10 Varilite VL1100 Arc ERS AS and 8 Mac 401's at my High School.


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## TimMiller (May 9, 2013)

autophage said:


> My school has two Intellabeams. They were so cool and shiny and new when we got them just two years ago but they quickly started glitching out... and they blow fuses more often than it seems they should (I've changed them before, it's not hard, but the school board REALLY doesn't want student techs doing that). All in all, we use them far less than we should given what we paid - they weren't worth the money.
> 
> (Is crossing fingers that the rumors of new fixtures on order are true).



Even two years ago the intellabeam has already been discontinued for more than 10. I want to say it was around 1998 when they were discontinued.


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## josh88 (May 9, 2013)

No movers but we just bought a couple of Elation LED pars and some ADJ pucks for use in our blackbox space and for the various tent events that we do. For the price I'm actually pretty surprised. Certainly not top notch gear but it gives a new learning option and fits those event needs perfectly.


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## techieman33 (May 9, 2013)

TimMiller said:


> Even two years ago the intellabeam has already been discontinued for more than 10. I want to say it was around 1998 when they were discontinued.



That post was made in 2004, so in 2001-2002 there could have been brand new fixtures laying around in a warehouse somewhere.


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