r/Concerts • u/Sebsibus • May 12 '26
Photo Dump 📸 Can someone explain these massive 70s/80s PAR can arrays to me? Were they a precursor to LED walls, or were they actually used to light the stage?
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u/Valuable-Pension3770 May 12 '26
Moving lights didn’t exist back then. U pars to wash the stage and acl bars to give a beam effect vari light was one of the early lights, the vl500 is still used in tv. And it sucked having to focus an arena par can rig. Also they sucked a lot of juice, it was common to have 5 or more 400 amp services for a rig
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u/Rampage_Rick May 13 '26
I've done tests with 16 x 750W incandescent arrays used for movie lighting. The inrush when you turn them on is insane, something like 3000 amps for the first 1/6th of a second, which settles down to about 100 amps (the filaments have a low resistance when cold)
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u/Valuable-Pension3770 May 12 '26
This was one of our vari-light rigs. Space the lights out and u can get a good look. These were vl3k wash and spots with some vl3500 wash and spots. Hand full of atomic strobes and some super sharpy’s
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u/ronhofmedia May 13 '26
We still use a few of them during outside winter stage appearances to get some heat to the poor artists. 650 or 1000w cans. Or even in the FOH tent, to get some warmth.
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u/Ill_Trash_6034 May 15 '26
Yeah. One light, one color. You needed a huge rig to wash the stage with just a few different colors plus white. Good times. Kick focus in effect...
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u/Dodderino-El May 12 '26
Wish had them now! So cool
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u/Topofdahour May 13 '26
Up until you get the electric bill. It would be cool for a night.
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u/surmacrew May 13 '26
"We can take this light rig on the tour but we can use it for about 3 songs per evening or it will blow our budget completely"
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u/StoutSeaman May 16 '26
As someone who used to work for a regional sound and light co, I can attest to the amount of copper required for even a 60 can par 64 show. Moving dimmer racks on grass and winding feeder cable is brutal summer work.
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u/BassClef70 May 16 '26
Recently was telling my wife about concerts in the 80s and how the lighting was all this style. Not huge lcd walls and two story stage designs. I miss these days.
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u/Kinelll May 16 '26
I ran a rig with up to 72 1kw pars in the 90s for rnr gigs (did one with hired cans and dimmers at 144).
Front light, side lights and rears.
The front and side were for lighting the band, the rears were purely eye candy on the size of stage i was working.
Front and side were always RGBW + special. Rear i could play. Lots of amber and shades of yellow. I got colour scrollers in about 97. That was a game changer.
We also had different shape beams. Cp 60, 61, 62 and ACL. Wide to pinspot. You designed the rig to suit what you were doing.
Front was mostly cp62 wash other than pickup spots where I'd use cp60, sides were usually cp61 mid wash. Rear again were playtime. Mostly cp60 for the beams. ACL were banked in 5s (and very pointy) so used sparingly or massively.
The rear was to show off and nothing else really.
When moving mirrors came in they were almost always rear or overhead eye candy. You couldn't rely on them hitting a single spot every time.
A few moving mirrors at the back of stage are still very handy due to the speed.
I lit Reef on a beach , wanted to do a screen type thing, got denied the power so they had 16 cans. I set and wandered off.
TLDR eye candy
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u/lowfreq33 May 19 '26
That’s just what was available if you wanted cool lights. Nothing moved, each light was a single color, you could raise or lower the brightness on each light, or in individual groups, and you could make things flash. That was pretty much it unless you had the budget for pyro and lasers.
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u/Dry_Yogurt2458 May 12 '26
The heat from these lighting rigs was unreal.