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Justin Fontenot
Donna Corriher
English 1000
18 April 2014
Argument Paper
What makes a concert fun to look at? What allows the audience to capture the
environment of the concert and have a memorable event captured in a photograph? Thats right
the lights at the event. The lighting aspect plays an important role at live performances and
concerts. As time moves forward the technology implicated at these events progress and become
better over the years. New technologies are introduced constantly. Some of the developing
technology may fail, some may be slow to take on, but others will strive and develop and
become industrys standard equipment. For many years now the stage lighting industry was
dominated by Halogen bulb applications, but developing technology in LED (Light Emitting
Diodes) applications have stuck the playing field. Controversy has arisen in whether or not LEDs
should be the industrys standard.
LED lights were discovered in the early 1960s era. They had a very slow start
developing the technology and initially just used for indicator lights. The lights became known
for there incredible lifetime varying from 30,000 up to 50,000 hours of burn time. Over time
developers began to improved brightness in these devices. With long lifetime and increasing
brightness Dr. James Moody claims, In 1995 LED luminaires began to be shown at LDI, an
annual trade show for concert lighting and sound equipment and designers, in the form of stage
lighting (12). With LEDs being implemented into stage lighting equipment allowed for more
research and development because there was now a bigger market for the technology. Huge

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strides are being made because the LEDs are in constant development, and manufacturing
improvements consistently increase lamp life, intensity, color rendering, and color fidelity while
significantly reducing power consumption and lowering cost (Shelley 29). All the
improvements to the lights are leading them to become a new industry standard that was once
dominated by the Halogen lights.
In modern times LEDs have multiple advantages over Halogens for stage lighting uses.
First off LEDs are highly efficient and take up considerably less power allowing more lights to
be used on less power than halogens allow. Most stage lights using halogen bulbs are rated at
either 575 or 750 Watts, while most LEDs only use 3 Watts per fixture. Therefore LEDs can be
daisy chained together in upwards to 50 units on one power source while the Halogens are
confined to only being able to power three to six lights per source. Secondly, LEDs have the
upper hand when it comes to color. Dr. Moody explains, The initial interest in LEDs was that
we could package them with red, green, and blue (sometimes amber), and by controlling each
LED we had infinite control over an almost unlimited color range(177). Being able to control
the color within the light just by changing the intensity values of the different colors allows for
unlimited colors and seamless transitions. While with Halogens the only way to create color is to
place color gels in front of the bulb. Therefore they are limited by the amount of gels you had
and could fit in front of the light source. One of the most important advantages is bulb life.
Halogens only offer a bulb life of 400-600 hours, while LEDs offer an astounding 30,000-50,000
hour lifetime. Lastly, LEDs take up considerably less space than that used by the Halogen
applications. Not only does the space help for less cluttered stages and trusses, but also the saved
space cuts down on materials on the lights drastically cutting down the weight of these lights. In
addition, since the lights are smaller they can be used in par cans, moving yoke, strips, spots, and

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even grids and walls to create images across a network of LEDs . There are many more
advantages in LEDs, but the previously stated advantages are the major ones providing LEDs an
edge over Halogens.
In contrast, Halogens still have some major advantages over LED technology. Starting
off with cost comparison. Because LEDs are still developing the cost of these lights are
remarkably higher than the market standard Halogen application lights. Which allows the user to
buy multiple Halogens light fixtures to use for the same price as one LED light fixture. Secondly,
venues already have the Halogen lights. Just because a new technology comes out does not mean
the venues should get rid of all their previous equipment to get the new equipment. Even if the
owners of the Halogen light fixtures tried to sell their lights the amount they could get for them is
probably less than what the fixtures are really worth because people are more interested in the
new technology. Coming along with technology being in development there is always room for
there to be error and for the LEDs to have defects, while since the Halogens have been industry
standard the technology has very few bugs left.
Because both lights have their advantages and disadvantages it is very common to see
stages with a mixture of the two applications like the stage in the photograph below. See figure
1. As time moves forward and LEDs advance more the technology will become the industry
standard. But right now it is up to each venue to decide which type of light is best suited for their
needs.

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Figure 1, Armstrong, Lee. 180 Weekend Underway, 2009-2014;Web; 21 Feb. 2014

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Bibliography
Armstrong, Lee. 180 Weekend Underway, 2009-2014; Web; 21 Feb. 2014
Moody, James L. Concert Lighting: Techniques, Art, and Business. Boston: Focal Press, 1989.
Print.
Shelley, Steven. A Practical Guide to Stage Lighting. Boston: Focal Press, 1999. Print.

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