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I am going to be purchasing some moving head fixtures that I will be placing on truss and on the stage. A majority of my work throughout the summer and fall is wedding receptions. I don't know that I can sell the client on just buying a great light show for the band but I can probably maybe get a few dollars if I sell it on a great show and some added bonuses. A couple I can think of are...

Custom gobos with the name or initial of the bride and groom.

Some ambient lighting although I don't know how to approach this.

Any other suggestions that I might be able to offer a client to close the $ gap?

btw, I am looking at DS 250's and DW 250's.

Thanks!
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Brian.. Lighting is huge!!!
How many times do you go to an wedding and they have no lights!! It frustrates the heck out of me.

You're selling the lights.. your selling the memory of a vision that will stay in all the guests minds of one of the best weddings they have been to in a long time!

Aside from the stage lighting, the lighting can also convert to club dance lighting for the party.

And when it gets dark you will have the fixtures to keep the ambient lighting down and have really good color lighting.

But your most important tool will be pictures.. you will need to take some really good pictures to show your customers the with and without lights look.

Best regards,
Lighting doesn't just light. It helps set the mood and accents the room as well. Movement is also a part of lighting, and with it adds another dimension. I have done a ton of shows which I just have movers slowly moving around the room for glow and effect, other times just changing and shooting gobos on different targets for effect like this:
Sorry for photo quality, camera phone. But the center piece I have 2 Mac 700's shooting on it using different gobos and colors for different things at different times.

You also can't go wrong with the up light look:
This is a dinner party I do yearly and this past year they added movers so I could play more, have more effect for when speakers walked up, someone won an award, etc etc. I also used them to help light the room with their colors when the lights were turned down low.

Don't think of movers as rock and roll and DJ only. They are far from it. I use them in just about every theatre show I do now and all the time for corporate events.

Pictures of the theatre show I am working coming this weekend, I promise guys.
it depend on the location too. It amazes me the amount of money people put into weddings. We did this one HUGE set up with lighting. the wedding was in a 3 acre backyard. there was a pond with a water fall, tons of trees, a stage for the band, a huge dance floor and all the seating area. what we did was for every group of trees of 3 or more we would light with century colour 2500's. individual trees we used the design 250 (PR) . the pond and waterfall was all LED lit. front truss was pars for front lighting and 4 designspots 250 for the dance floor and 6 robe 1200's on the backtruss. the cake center piece had 3 lekos, and the tent area where all the seating was was all lit with small leds. now i have never run into anything this big for a wedding again. but it just goes to show you that there is lots you can do with lighting for stuff like that. not so much for effect but to make everything pretty. even if you don't have the gear you can always subcontract if there is a budget for it.
I definitely know how important lighting is to a wedding...however it's hard to sell a mom on some lights on a band. However, I have found it easier to sell the mood of a room, their name on a gobo, a spotlight on the first dance, uplighting the backdrop or rear wall the same color as the bridesmaid dresses...this is the stuff that makes sense to the purchasers. However, I want the lights for the show!

On a side note...I went to demo a design wash 250, and design spot 250 today. If found out two things.

1. I don't have enough AC for 8 lights and , can only afford 6 movers as far as the AC bank goes. (I know I can get a PD but most of the places I play don't want to pay for electricians and really don't want them tapping into their boxes which are usually in places where people will see them).

2. I love CMY! It just has a great look so it looks like I might go with four Design Spot 300's and two design wash 300's...or maybe just 6 design spot 300's. I'm thinking four on the rear truss and two on down stage corner washing in on the front line of girls.

I have attached a pic that a shows a typical looking stage for me. This is a 16' x 24' stage with some pipe and drape. The red is from 6 DLED 36's the yellow is from four S4's with Apollo Color scrollers that do a general wash of the stage. I also have one S4 on each side that washes the girls for color. I like the clean look behind us but I could use some eye candy.

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Just a quick thought bdunad. Have you thought about rack mount power distros? They have a much cleaner look.

You can also run some sort of feeder cable to a pd from where ever as appose to leaving them out in the open. This might actually turn about to be a cleaner look if you have need tons of power in one location. Instead of running 6+ different AC lines, one feeder cable might look better. Just some food for thought. Multi cable also works nicely, but is generally more expensive then a hunk of feeder and a pd.
The problem is about 60% of the time there is no disconnect. So I would have to hire an electrician to tap into the box which a lot of hotel and country clubs won't let me do...and if they do the client doesn't want to pay for the expense. I do agree that a rack mount PD is the way to go and someday when I am just doing big hotels I will have a rackmount PD...although I don't want to pull around feeder cable!
The power distro that I built has 5 20 amp circuits and 4/4 cable. Maybe I could add one more circuit to it and get a hubbell connector. The problem is getting someone to tie it in. Do you have a link to the hubbell that you are using? Are you talking about a single hubbell connector that will take 4/4 copper? I would be very interested in seeing it as it would make a few thing easier for me.

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