Yes, a U.V canon is a Blacklight. Common forms of UV or Blacklight include fluoresecent tubes which are often 18", 2ft or 4ft in length and fit into a standard Fluorescent fitting, which are the same as you would find in school for example. Light output and power consumption of these is measured in watts, and an average 4ft fluorescent blacklight would give around 36 watts output, which can also be effective.

A Uv Canon, however uses a mercury Discharge (ARC) lamp which gives the same type of UV Output has a conventional fluoresecent but the fact that it is in a more powerful form increases the light output by many times. There is also a reflector mounted behind the lamp which projects the light. Given that the average UV canon has a 400 Watt Rating, you can understand the difference in light output to the 18 or 36 Watt 2 or 4ft conventional Fluorescent

Strobes still have their place at various functions but I only use one at around 1 out of every 50 gigs, mainly because older audiences find them annoying. However, the next guy may use his at every gig!, it depends on your audience and their age group.

Of course there is the safety issue as well, Strobes can be uncomfortable to people with poor eyesight and Migraine Sufferes and also be a major trigger of Epileptic Seizures in people who suffer from photo sensitive epilepsy. If you do intend on using strobe lighting, it is a good idea to point that out on your advertising literature and at least give your clients a choice . A warning "Strobes may be used at this Disco, please inform the D.J if you suffer from Epillepsy" type notice is also a good idea, displayed at any function where you are playing and intend on using strobes.

That is what i use for my Moving message sign

Gary, any chance of seeing a pic of this?

No reason at all Darren, although perhaps if you were in a town competing with D.J's who you felt were the same level of professionalism as you but who had crap lighting, then you may like to improve your own lighting in order to gain the edge over them!.

Other than that, Scanners tend to be out of control with regard to light spillage since they tend to scan well beyond the dance area and the width of the room at least, and there is nothing worse than being a guest, seated at a disco and having 250W of halogen, or worse still 575W of metal halide light catching you directly in the eye when you are trying to talk / look at the person sat opposite you at the table put up with this for 3 or 4 hours and you are ready to kill the D.J or smash the lights regardless of how good he is .

I speak with a little bit of client feedback. For the last 12 months, I have given the clients to my website, details of which lighting packages are available when they book, and with laymans descriptions of each package. The choice is in the form of checkboxes when they fill in the booking form, there is no price difference for whatever they choose since they all come at the same price, and so there is no economic reason as to why they would choose a lesser package than the next one above - other than by CHOICE.

So the results, which you may or may not find useful. The majority of my clients choose either the "Subtle" lighting package or the "Standard" lighting package, neither of which contain scanners. The standard package contains 2x Colourchangers, 1x chameleon 3E and 3x Moonflowers.

Further choices:- around 1 out of 20 elects for the use of a smoke machine by choice pending venue approval, which means by using one by default you could risk making yourself unpopular, and only around 1 gig out of every 50 requires the use of a strobe!.

Okay, so these are the clients choice, and may only reflect the known opinion of 1 out of 200 people attending, but I think that it offers a little food for thought when you come to choosing your gear. I'm not saying that this is the right way, but why not give your clients the option yourself at the time of booking? or carry out a poll on your website for visitors?. A little market research doesn't harm any business and you can learn a lot from it.

Thats Exactly right. The point raised once again, that we may be buying bigger and better lightshows for our own reasons when our existing one would do just fine . Interesting as well to point out that older lighting can be given a new lease of life by just cleaning them!. It's amazing how much 6 months of smoke residue, dust and ciggie smoke can cut down the light output of an average effect.

The lighting industry has become very boring recently and there is no longer anything unique out there.

Your Welcome. What a change to get some polite youngsters on here for once, asking some good questions - Well Done and a happy 100th Post.

If you mean ..... "what we THINK the public wants." Then I'm with you 100%.

I used to be drawn into lighting purchases by simply wanting "more than the disco down the road". I even bought a £900, 3ft hgh, 3-way motorised effect once, which was much more suited to a night-club than a mobile, but knowing that I was the only UK mobile DJ to use one was almost part of the "pull" for me.

The effect which it gave was about 30 flat, fanned out beams. Ability to add to the ambient lighting?: Very low?. Effectiveness while audience are looking at the effect from a distance?: Excellent.

The only thing is, I didn't want the audience at a distance, I wanted them on the dancefloor, which is usually 2ft infront of the disco. I ended up swapping the lighting effect for a diversity Shure SM58 radio mic system after about 4 years - which is roughtly when the lighting effects motors started wearing out - They often lit the "Overheat" light on the controller after the motor had been run at low speed for more than 5 minutes. Funny that my demo of the unit to the new owners only lasted 4 minutes...

However, with lighting, its true that a "Wow factor" does exist with audiences, but its more important to have a simple selection of lights which can effectively match the mood of any part of the show. Here are 4 examples of "parts" of a show, and what lighting I use.

1) "Warm up" - Something interesting for the audience to look at during non-dancing moments eg: while they're eating their Dinner at a Dinner/Dance. I have 2 x 16 bulb floor banks, up high on the rig, dimmed to 20% of their usual 60watt (per bulb) output, slooooooowly crossfading from channel to channel (2 or 3 channels lit at any one time). I also use a slow gobo rotator to highlight a key area of the room - such as the wall behind the top table, or the wall behind the buffet table, or any central/focal point - such as the first wall they'll see if/when they poke their heads around the door - as they do... Also, my front light screens are on a separate (less advanced) 4 channel controller, also doing a slow crossfade on "Dim".

2) "Slow Dances"/"Smoochies" - For some bizarre reason, fast spinning barrel effects just dont seem to go well with "Robbie Williams: Angels". So I use an internally-lit mirrorball type effect - EG: 300 watt bulb inside a large sphere with 103 lenses projecting tiny spots of light, revolving at 6rpm.

3) "Main dancing" - the overhead spot banks get dimmed up to 80% (or 100% in larger venues) and put onto a sound-chase mode, and some of the other gobo effects get brought into timed play, eg: a minute of THIS gobo moonflower, a minute of THAT effect etc...(not a minute of strobes).

4) "Boost lighting" - To high-light certain parts of songs eg: Sing along chorus's, I'll switch on my Rock-ball variation. 2 x 300watts of light spinning around for the duration of the chorus, adds to the atmosphere over the dancefloor.



Im in the process of buying 2 more lights to add to "Mood 3" above, which will be a pair of Constella Chameleon 5G DMX's (hint, hint, hint Chris ), and possibly an Abyss II DMX, which is a sort of Stargate/Water wall colour changer/washer, to add to "Mood 1" / "Mood 2" above.

hi gary must be the classic nisel intercepter lighting effect

Don't tell me! - it was one of those imported rope lights with the dangly little black box offering multiple programs??. It's worth remembering that these often don't have any form of supression inside them since they are aimed for use in a back garden rather than around delicate Audio Gear.

If you go for a ropelight then aim for the type that plug into a standard 4 channel chaser, rather than the built in controller type.

Yer Gary totally agree with that...think I made this point in this post or a fairly recent one. With my residency I occasionally get to see other disco's when they are privately organised...i dont see many who seem to make any effort in matching lights from the background stage, through to the first dance, disco, end of the night, etc

£2000 of lighting effects can overdo certain times at a function when some soft fill effects seem to be better suited

Steve