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Thursday, March 13, 2025
Moving Light Madness 2025 // Results & Analysis
www.limelightwired.com: Forget the basketball courts; the real action's happening right here on @LimeLightWired. We are here to celebrate the brilliance of 64 top-tier moving lights, all vying for the coveted title of ultimate fixture.
This is so cool! I love all the creative ways that various arts groups make good natured spoofs on the college basketball phenomenon of March Madness. The first one I became aware of was the March Mania bracket of John Philips Sousa marches. My high school band teacher would play the day’s marches for us and have us vote on which one we thought should win, then reveal which one actually won. It was great fun! This theatre tech version with lighting equipment is so creative and fun. I would be curious to know the criteria upon which the voters judge the fixtures, and if there are common priorities across the data pool. It would be really fun if each of the technical disciplines did similar brackets with things relevant to their field. Sound could do speakers or mics, costumes could be fabrics, scenic could do wood or perhaps tools, etc. This is such a fun idea!
Ooh I love niche category competitions! Some of my other favorites are definitely less practical though, like recently I saw jan Misali doing a series of polls to determine the best keyboard character(?), and yesterday I watched a video about a competition where people enter different waters and then judges determine the best waters. I’ll be excited how this one turns out. I am very amused by the fact that the parcan beat out ETC SolaPix, though it’s really not surprising at all. I think just the other day I tried and failed to find the roadcase for a SoD Robe iForte that was on Ghosts during strike so cool to see that fixture in the wild. The beam bracket is the one I have the absolute least familiarity with. I don’t think I’ve ever used a beam fixture in my entire life because they just really don’t have a ton of applications in theatre. Perhaps one day … Anyway I hope the parcan holds out for a few more rounds.
This looks like so much fun, competitive lights shows seem like a bunch of adults with adult lighting toys playing around with who can make the coolest stuff. I’m curious what the actual competition is based on though, if there are certain requirements that every group has to complete in order to qualify. It looks like its just popularity based but I would wonder what a rubric for this sort of competition would actually look like. I think it would be also really interesting if there were specific kinds of different limitations on them, like if it was speed based and you only got so long to write all of the cues, or if you could only use certain kinds of fixtures. I think this would be very exciting and fun to watch. I would absolutely love to participate the next time they do this if I’m given the chance.
I would love to participate and engage in a competition like this one! I wonder if this competition and voting was held online or in person during a convention or event. It would be cool if it happened as USITT convention. I think it's fascinating that they set up the competition like sports brackets, with each light being compared to an other lighting. However, I don't think it's fair to determine the lights competent-ness relative to one another. What if a really good that would be 2nd best overall got eliminated in the first round because it was unluckily put against the ultimate winning light? Then they wouldn't get to participate in the competition, even though they were a REALLY good light. Anyways, all of the categories were super cool. I wish the article had gone a little more into depth about what the categories meant exactly. What qualities of the "Beam" were the lights being judged on? There are so many factors that might impact or influence the beam. I would have trouble voting. I also am so so curious how all these voters have possibly had experience with all of these lights. Maybe they are all tio-top industry professionals. I cannot imagine digital research could possibly substitute for spending actual time working with the lights. How od they afford it?
I think this a hilarious and wonderful competition. People in the theatre industry have such clever ways of taking things from other areas and using them for ourselves, in this case a basketball bracket for moving lights. I find such joy in the things that nerdy technicians create, mostly because I find them just as interesting to me. Movers are a great category for this kind of competition as they all have their own unique features that personalize them and make each one better and a certain job than others. Personally, I have not worked with moving lights enough to have a strong opinion about which one i think should win, but that doesn’t discourage me from watching with excitement and thinking its a fun way to engage with the entertainment lighting industry. I can’t wait to see how the competition develops futher. I hope to gain more experience with moving lights and all the different manufacturers so that I could participate more fully in this competition.
5 comments:
This is so cool! I love all the creative ways that various arts groups make good natured spoofs on the college basketball phenomenon of March Madness. The first one I became aware of was the March Mania bracket of John Philips Sousa marches. My high school band teacher would play the day’s marches for us and have us vote on which one we thought should win, then reveal which one actually won. It was great fun! This theatre tech version with lighting equipment is so creative and fun. I would be curious to know the criteria upon which the voters judge the fixtures, and if there are common priorities across the data pool. It would be really fun if each of the technical disciplines did similar brackets with things relevant to their field. Sound could do speakers or mics, costumes could be fabrics, scenic could do wood or perhaps tools, etc. This is such a fun idea!
Ooh I love niche category competitions! Some of my other favorites are definitely less practical though, like recently I saw jan Misali doing a series of polls to determine the best keyboard character(?), and yesterday I watched a video about a competition where people enter different waters and then judges determine the best waters. I’ll be excited how this one turns out. I am very amused by the fact that the parcan beat out ETC SolaPix, though it’s really not surprising at all. I think just the other day I tried and failed to find the roadcase for a SoD Robe iForte that was on Ghosts during strike so cool to see that fixture in the wild. The beam bracket is the one I have the absolute least familiarity with. I don’t think I’ve ever used a beam fixture in my entire life because they just really don’t have a ton of applications in theatre. Perhaps one day … Anyway I hope the parcan holds out for a few more rounds.
This looks like so much fun, competitive lights shows seem like a bunch of adults with adult lighting toys playing around with who can make the coolest stuff. I’m curious what the actual competition is based on though, if there are certain requirements that every group has to complete in order to qualify. It looks like its just popularity based but I would wonder what a rubric for this sort of competition would actually look like. I think it would be also really interesting if there were specific kinds of different limitations on them, like if it was speed based and you only got so long to write all of the cues, or if you could only use certain kinds of fixtures. I think this would be very exciting and fun to watch. I would absolutely love to participate the next time they do this if I’m given the chance.
I would love to participate and engage in a competition like this one! I wonder if this competition and voting was held online or in person during a convention or event. It would be cool if it happened as USITT convention. I think it's fascinating that they set up the competition like sports brackets, with each light being compared to an other lighting. However, I don't think it's fair to determine the lights competent-ness relative to one another. What if a really good that would be 2nd best overall got eliminated in the first round because it was unluckily put against the ultimate winning light? Then they wouldn't get to participate in the competition, even though they were a REALLY good light. Anyways, all of the categories were super cool. I wish the article had gone a little more into depth about what the categories meant exactly. What qualities of the "Beam" were the lights being judged on? There are so many factors that might impact or influence the beam. I would have trouble voting. I also am so so curious how all these voters have possibly had experience with all of these lights. Maybe they are all tio-top industry professionals. I cannot imagine digital research could possibly substitute for spending actual time working with the lights. How od they afford it?
I think this a hilarious and wonderful competition. People in the theatre industry have such clever ways of taking things from other areas and using them for ourselves, in this case a basketball bracket for moving lights. I find such joy in the things that nerdy technicians create, mostly because I find them just as interesting to me. Movers are a great category for this kind of competition as they all have their own unique features that personalize them and make each one better and a certain job than others. Personally, I have not worked with moving lights enough to have a strong opinion about which one i think should win, but that doesn’t discourage me from watching with excitement and thinking its a fun way to engage with the entertainment lighting industry. I can’t wait to see how the competition develops futher. I hope to gain more experience with moving lights and all the different manufacturers so that I could participate more fully in this competition.
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