Hey all, i am new to this forum and using lights. To give you some background i teach in a very small school (300 students from K-12 all in one building) in a real small town. So i decided to buy some lights on my own to try and bring a little excitement to our school dances. The kids love em and cant wait until the next dance. As far as DJ, i just hook my computer into our gym sound system which is very nice for a small gym. The gym we have is small, max cap is 500. It is an old "bandbox" (built in 1929) style gym with balconies about 20 to 25 feet above the floor.

Now my situation is i need some advice on how to set up my lights so my Halloween dance next week goes great for my kids.

This is the equipment i have

Mini Dancer II Effect Light (2 of them)
Max strobe light ST45
Beehive 2
American DJ Electra LED DMX x2 (2 of them)
American DJ B6B LED Beacon
American DJ Dual Gem LED Dual Moonflower
Power Panel (PC-08)
3 "C" Clamps with safety cables
3 old military tripods that will extend about 12 feet high.

SO i am thinking to put the Electras and Bee hive high, mounted with C clamps off the railing
and putting the Gem and two dancers on the tripods.

1. Does this sound ok or would you suggest a change?
2. Any advice on how to hang and aim these lights.
3. Should i keep them grouped together a little or spread them out over the gym (most kids dance together on one half of the floor)
4. Do you have any suggestions on maybe some nice lights that would go great with what i have. I am thinking of maybe getting 2-3 more and that is it.
5. I would love to add a Blacklight or UV wash of some sort, would you all know of a good one that can light up about half a standard basketball court. (Was looking at ADJ HP Panel)

Thanks for any help and have a good week.

Your not running dmx for any of these fixtures are you?

No, right now i am just using the sound active function. Once i learn more i may switch them to DMX mode.

Are you taking these down each time, or leaving them up? If they come down each time...keep things as simple as you can. If you can mount the lights to a stand, and remove the crossbar and keep the lights mounted to it without trashing your lights, then you will have that much less to do next time.
If the kids group up anyway, section off a spot of floor for a designated "dance floor", and concentrate your lights to that area. That will keep your lights from being to thinned out, and you can change up from light to light, to keep the show fresh. ;-)
This is personal opinion, but I dont plan to ever "upgrade" to DMX programming. I have a couple of small ADJ DMX sound controllers, and I run my lights to switch boxes. I have two, 8 circuit relay type boxes for the truss, and two direct plug-in boxes for misc. I might not get as awesome a show as with the DMX programs, but my customers and the kids, really couldnt care less. I'll flip different combinations of lights on and off from song to song, or during the bridge of a song...makes a great effect. The rest of the time, the internal controllers are doing their thing.
I shut my DJ business down about ten years ago, because it was getting out of hand. Bigger isn't always better. ;-) I just recently brought it back up...a little older and a little smarter. We'll see how it goes this time. lol
Bottom line... Use the KISS principal. "Keep It Simple, and Stupid.
Good luck!

9116_1266573782129_1163324898_30812311_5152526_n.jpg (40 KB, 4 downloads) Setting up for party last friday 10-23-09

1. Seems pretty sound to me. Try it out and if you don't like, you can always change it.

2. I clamp to rails a lot, we have a same style gym that my company often does events in. Are the seats blocked off? If they are, it adds more flexibility because you don't have to worry about someone knocking things over/getting into stuff you don't want them in.

3. I would keep them grouped together for better effect. Myself, for these types of events, I normally do room wash/ceiling wash/gobo splash and uplighting. Then I have the 'dance area/floor' for which I concentrate all my effect and movement lighting. Need areas to be able to calm down and cool off. Not everyone is going to want/be dancing the whole time. They will want to take breaks and not have strobes and random light chases going off in their faces all night.

4. Let us know what you think you are lacking or which way you want to go with your light show as well as how much you would like to spend. We can make better suggestions that way. There is a lot out there in the lighting world and a huge price range.

5. To fill that much space, you will need a powerful UV light. Something like a UV Cannon. I once used a 400w UV light to fill a 65'x30' stage from a trim height of 25' or so. The area that you are trying to fill is probably about that size. The other option would be get a series of UV lights like a UV Panel HP and space them out every 30 or so feet. With the signal light, however, getting it up high will be key and don't know if you can do this.

Thanks much for the suggestions. I will try what you suggested. The balconies can be blocked off so any lights i place up there will be safe. As far as lights to come or what i was looking at i am not for sure. I know i want a good UV light and eventually replace the beehive and mini dancers with LEDs. So that would be four lights all together. Money wise, up to 200 or 250 a light would be max i want to spend. So i guess what i was looking at was:
1. A good UV
2. A nice center piece LED light
3. Some type of LEDs to replace the 2 dancers.

Thanks again for any suggestions.

Your gonna need a UV cannon. Depends on how much blacklight you want.
for a center piece i would look at even a revo 4 or a majestic LED. Take a look around our LED section.
Two random LED fixtures? electra led? Revo roll or revo scan?
what i wanna know is what are YOU thinking as far as what light fixtures you want? this is stuff that catches my eye. What catches yours?
Sincerely,