Moronic EU propose to bring stage lighting under energy saving lighting rules

[mikeselectricstuff]

https://www.change.org/p/the-eu-energy-directorate-keep-stage-lighting-exempt-from-proposed-legislation-changes

 

[Brumby]

How to send an industry back to the days of limelight.

How to turn multi-millions worth of equipment into scrap.


Certainly common sense is absent here ... unless there is a 20 year grandfathering period.

[lukier]

Does anyone has a source for this? Is it this document?

https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/com_2016_773.en_.pdf

[janoc]

A much more useful thing to do is to lobby your European Parliament MPs and EC commissioners. That's what they are there for. These petitions are a dime a dozen every week and nobody ever reads them. Such "facebook activism" is pretty much hypocritical - it bugs me enough to sign an online petition/click the "Like" button but not enough to do anything of actual consequence about it.

And seriously, this is again yet another "sky is falling" cry, with a petition to maintain the status quo - the same thing as when the original wolfram/tungsten bulbs were to be outlawed (or vacuum cleaners and what not). We are several years past that and - surprise - everyone survived and we are not back to candles.

I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.

There are far worse things being rammed through in Brussels by various industrial lobbyists - such as the copyright reform that is so bad that it would possibly outlaw even Creative Commons, demand fees/tax for merely linking to news articles, make mandatory content filters (which could mean that Dave would have to implement one too as this forums allows user generated content and it is available in Europe) and similar nonsense. *That* could very kill the internet as we know it and nobody seems to be too concerned ...

[NivagSwerdna]

A much more useful thing to do is to lobby your European Parliament MPs and EC commissioners.

or simply leave the EU.. 

[CopperCone]

Sounds like there is money to be made

[lukier]

And seriously, this is again yet another "sky is falling" cry, with a petition to maintain the status quo - the same thing as when the original wolfram/tungsten bulbs were to be outlawed (or vacuum cleaners and what not). We are several years past that and - surprise - everyone survived and we are not back to candles.

I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.

I agree. The petition seems hysterical which reminds me of Daily Mail nonsense, hence why I asked for the sources. I cannot find anything related to the issue in the document I linked to which the petition seems to be refering.

Usually, the way it works, that there is a slow phase out and there are transition periods before the act is in force. It doesn't mean that the European Commission will be raiding theatres and confiscating bulbs and fixtures.

It might be true, regulations are not perfect and there are plenty of lobbyists in Brussels area, but I would prefer a source from europa.eu domain to confirm. Even then some random online petition is not a very effective way to change things.

[james_s]

How much energy can stage lighting possibly consume in the grand scheme of things? Sure it's inefficient but the fancy high efficiency LED street lighting along one main street through town likely consumes more energy than all the stage lighting in the whole city.

[ajb]

I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.

I'm not familiar with the details of the regulation, but regarding the cost of retrofits:  The workhorse of theatrical lighting is the ellipsoidal reflector spot, aka "Leko".  The standard in the industry for that class of fixture is the ETC Source Four.  Without a lens tube (since those are common to the tungsten and LED versions), the tungsten fixture body costs about $330 new, and takes a 575W or 750W lamp.  The LED retrofit kit for the tungsten body (Source 4WRD) costs $599 and is meant to be photometrically equivalent to a 575W tungsten fixture.  There is no retrofit equivalent to the 750W lamp version.  So that's $600 plus labor to retrofit each fixture, of which a theater may have anywhere from dozens to hundreds, and applications that have been relying on the increased output of the 750W lamp may have to increase their inventory of fixtures by ~30%, which means buying complete fixtures with lens tubes--at least $1000/ea for Source 4WRDs, depending on the type of lens needed--plus additional cabling.

The other option is to buy Source Four LEDs, which cost about $2000 each.  For flood fixtures, there's really no retrofit path, so that means buying new fixtures at $200-600 per LED par. 

There are cheaper options, to be sure, but it's going to be exceedingly difficult to match the performance and reliability of these sorts of fixtures at a lower cost.

Native-LED fixtures require a data runs to each fixture, which means a lot of new cable to buy, and possibly new infrastructure wiring and distribution equipment.  Older lighting desks may not be able to address the number of parameters required, especially since multi-color fixtures will require 3+ parameters each, in which case a new desk is in order, at a cost of anywhere between $10,000 and $80,0000, or more if redundant control or network processing is required.  Venues that were designed for tungsten lighting (most of them) will probably need to have many of their dimmers converted to non-dim to be able to reliably power LED fixtures, so that's another $200 or so per circuit, plus labor.

Of course, most theaters and production houses are moving in the direction of LED already, when they can afford it, which may mean buying a handful of new fixtures in a year.  Being forced to upgrade everything in the next two years (if that is in fact what the new regs require) is going to be TREMENDOUSLY expensive to the point of impossibility for many organizations. 

[dmills]

A decent rig in a large theatre can have a 150kW or so of TH lamp in it, maybe a little more, but not all of that will typically be in use in any given scene.

Concert lighting is both better and worse, better because they all tend to use some mix of metal halide and LED, worse because the metal halide tends to stay powered up all night due to restrike and warm up issues.

TH is desirable in theatres because of the mix of good CRI, continuous spectrum, a useful variability in colour temp with dimming level, the ability to dim smoothly right the way down to off (Yes that last 0.5% as the filaments drop into the infra red matters), and the ability to build reasonably compact high brightness sources (This last is what no LED really manages at useful power levels). Oh and NO FANS, being able to hear a pin drop is a feature not a bug!

I saw a useful looking LED backend for a S4 at a show recently, but it had fans and swiftly transpired that the thing was projecting a beautiful hard edged circle BY IMAGING THE LED SURFACE not by producing a focal plain in the gate, made it somewhat less then really useful.

Regards, Dan.

[ajb]

I saw a useful looking LED backend for a S4 at a show recently, but it had fans and swiftly transpired that the thing was projecting a beautiful hard edged circle BY IMAGING THE LED SURFACE not by producing a focal plain in the gate, made it somewhat less then really useful.

Was that the Source 4WRD, or a third party retrofit?  I've seen that there are a few retrofit options but I would certainly expect better than you describe from ETC!

[dmills]

It was some third party thing really aimed I think at architectural usage.

Regards, Dan.

[janoc]

I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.

I'm not familiar with the details of the regulation, but regarding the cost of retrofits:  The workhorse of theatrical lighting is the ellipsoidal reflector spot, aka "Leko". 

...

Of course, most theaters and production houses are moving in the direction of LED already, when they can afford it, which may mean buying a handful of new fixtures in a year.  Being forced to upgrade everything in the next two years (if that is in fact what the new regs require) is going to be TREMENDOUSLY expensive to the point of impossibility for many organizations. 

Sure thing but keep in mind that that is in the condition where nobody is asking for these retrofit kits because unless the theater wants to move to LEDs on their own, they have no reason to. So it is a niche product, produced by one or two manufacturers, thus costing a ton of money.

That will change as soon as more manufacturers come into the market (assuming the light fixtures are somewhat standardized and you aren't locked into buying replacement lamps only from the original vendor).

It is exactly the same situation we had with LED bulbs or solar panels before - they were extremely expensive and difficult to get because of low demand. As the regulation went in effect a lot of new manufacturers showed up ("Hey, an untapped market!") and the prices plummeted. I do realize that stage lighting isn't anywhere near the size of normal domestic lightbulb market, but still.

And re costs - yes, it may get expensive and some venues will not be able to afford it. Happens. The same thing happened with cinemas - there was no evil EU dictating energy efficiency standards there but Hollywood dictating all new fully digital projectors so that they can be locked down and DRM-ed right up the wazoo otherwise you don't get any new movies to show. A lot of small cinemas had to close because they couldn't afford such upgrade. And nobody wrote any petitions for them.

I don't see why someone should be guaranteed to be able to do business without significant investments forever. Legislation changes all the time, it is not like others don't have to deal with such issues. The main problem is that if you just keep pushing the deadlines away or keep maintaining various exceptions in the legislation, nobody will actually change anything - why, when they don't have to ...

[mikeselectricstuff]

I don't see why someone should be guaranteed to be able to do business without significant investments forever. Legislation changes all the time, it is not like others don't have to deal with such issues. The main problem is that if you just keep pushing the deadlines away or keep maintaining various exceptions in the legislation, nobody will actually change anything - why, when they don't have to ...

The issue here is there is absolutely no justification for regulation here. Theatrical & stage lighting is an insiginificant user of power. If anything, it makes matters worse due to the disposal of old equipment.
Classic case of regulation where none is needed due to ignorance of those making it.

[janoc]

I don't see why someone should be guaranteed to be able to do business without significant investments forever. Legislation changes all the time, it is not like others don't have to deal with such issues. The main problem is that if you just keep pushing the deadlines away or keep maintaining various exceptions in the legislation, nobody will actually change anything - why, when they don't have to ...

The issue here is there is absolutely no justification for regulation here. Theatrical & stage lighting is an insiginificant user of power. If anything, it makes matters worse due to the disposal of old equipment.
Classic case of regulation where none is needed due to ignorance of those making it.

That I would agree with. On the other hand the concept of minimizing the amount of various exceptions and special cases is also laudable because it simplifies the enforcement and reduces the costs of complying with legislation in general.

I think this is more "Heeelp, the sky is falling!!!" case again. Is it not possible for the theaters to stock up on spare lamps for their fixtures to last them for a few seasons while they are still available so that they can plan for any necessary upgrades at their convenience? Nobody is going to ban the use of their existing lighting fixtures, the only concern is that the replacement lamps may become more difficult to get if their sale is banned.

They will have to do such upgrades and modernization at some point anyway. And while the lighting systems may be an insignificant user of power from the environmental point of view, the theater still has to pay a non-insignificant amount of money for the electricity, so moving to more eco-friendly lamps could have a positive effect on their budgets in the long term.

So while this entire "lightbulb" legislation was probably unnecessary as a whole (people were replacing their incandescent bulbs with CFLs and LEDs anyway because they last longer and cost less in electricity bills, so legislating it only sped the process up a bit) it is not that huge of a deal as some people are trying to make out of it neither.

[TheAmmoniacal]

What's next? Greenhouses?

[b_force]

With all the respect, but I never get the facepalming, kicking and bashing
In general people are trying to make stuff more efficient, and for the better IMO.
I work in the professional audio field, and yes for audio technicians it's to stupid for words that these old very heavy energy consuming light solutions are even still allowed.
Sometimes using almost more than a small village. Especially in the areas were these big events are being held on a regular basis

I would rather see it as a challenge for the tech industry. Good reasons to innovate.
But I guess some people still like to live in caves and warm themselves with a crapy campfire. 

[Bud]

What's next? Greenhouses?

Lights in sports arenas and stadiums.

[TheAmmoniacal]

What's next? Greenhouses?

Lights in sports arenas and stadiums.

And then inside kitchen stoves/ovens? Wonder how LEDs would fare 

[wraper]

And seriously, this is again yet another "sky is falling" cry, with a petition to maintain the status quo - the same thing as when the original wolfram/tungsten bulbs were to be outlawed (or vacuum cleaners and what not). We are several years past that and - surprise - everyone survived and we are not back to candles.

I am not a fan of stupid regulation but I simply don't believe that it would be impossible to find suitable replacements for wolfram bulbs, relegating the current equipment to scrap or requiring expensive refits. Right now nobody makes them simply because there is no demand. Once there will be, I am sure halogen bulbs or dimmable LEDs outfitted with the right sockets will appear in no time, given the size of the market.

For housing, all you need to do is replacing bulbs with LED counterpart as old bulbs fail. For stage lighting, you'll need to replace most of the equipment, not just bulbs.

[NiHaoMike]

Big Clive has done a lot of work on stage and other event lighting. Maybe he can explain why retrofitting old lighting equipment is not cost effective?

[dmills]

Thing is LED is NOT an improvement on Tungsten in theatre applications, except in so far as it pulls a little less power.

Seriously, no squint likes cooking up at the top of a 'scope while focusing, and where it is practical the industry is LED or discharge already, but projecting a gobo needs a point source and costume (and set) types swear at you if you do not have continuous spectrum sources in use (Because discontinuous sources make the paint and dye look odd).

Further I would note that like cars, modern lanterns are generally a lot more efficient then the old ones, in terms of lumens per watt (Even while using essentially the same technology), there is NO contest between a Source 4 or Pacific and say an old Furse or SIL 30. A Modern 750W unit is typically much brighter then an old 1,200W.

Much of the advantage of LED is in generating efficient saturated colours by just emitting at the required wavelength, that works for concert and club lighting but if you need to start with a white source and then do subtractive mixing (Which you really do need for theatre) the efficiency quickly goes to pot even with LED.

Oh and FANS are a complete non starter which makes a lot of high intensity sources way hard to deploy (The hum heads whine if you have too many fans in the rig).

BTW the 'BAN' on tungsten filament is far more nuanced then that, I can still get 60W tungsten bulbs easily. They make FAR Better house lights then anything else, a 10 second fade on tunsten starting at maybe 40% of full shout looks good, the same thing on LED looks meh (And usually has an annoying snap out at the end), and TH does not last long at 40% power because the halide cycle does not get hot enough to run.

We use about 40% on the house lights (which is way less then 40% in terms of light output) because the very low colour temperature looks GOOD in a largely red painted auditorium, total run on that system is about 2 hours a night so not particularly interesting. 

Sports and stadiums are actually usually going for reasonably efficient things anyway because power is a reasonably significant cost for them, and they basically just need white with little need for overly precise beam control, mostly they are MH of some form, which is pretty close to LED efficiencies already.

Regards, Dan.

[wraper]

I don't see why someone should be guaranteed to be able to do business without significant investments forever. Legislation changes all the time, it is not like others don't have to deal with such issues. The main problem is that if you just keep pushing the deadlines away or keep maintaining various exceptions in the legislation, nobody will actually change anything - why, when they don't have to ...

The issue here is there is absolutely no justification for regulation here. Theatrical & stage lighting is an insiginificant user of power. If anything, it makes matters worse due to the disposal of old equipment.
Classic case of regulation where none is needed due to ignorance of those making it.

Not regulation, but around 2010 Greenpeace forced Apple to get rid of PVC in their products (world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer). As a result, Apple cables are going to landfill after 3-6 months of use unlike any other cheapest crap which lasts much longer. Well done, environment saved, my ass.

[dmills]

It comes down to needing a continuous spectrum point source approximation that can be powered (and DIMMED right the way down to black) with thyristor phase controlled power (Because that is what theatres make available in large numbers of circuits).

Turns out that that need to dim smoothly right the way to black on phase controlled power is something a hot wire is actually really good at, LED not so much! 

You are also talking about an industry where cash for capex is a rare and usually spoken for thing, there are PLENTY of places with 1970s control gear (and lanterns) where the only major work done was fitting a new lamp socket on a spacer when the world moved from tungsten filament to tungsten halogen (And I know one or two where tungsten filament still gets used).

Regards, Dan.

[janoc]

Not regulation, but around 2010 Greenpeace forced Apple to get rid of PVC in their products (world's third-most widely produced synthetic plastic polymer). As a result, Apple cables are going to landfill after 3-6 months of use unlike any other cheapest crap which lasts much longer. Well done, environment saved, my ass.

Which is just so convenient excuse for their crappy and very expensive cables. And complete BS as well too - the cables are simply poorly made, with insufficient strain relief, so they regularly fray and break at the connectors.

No other major manufacturer has these issues, even the "low end" ones like Dell or Nokia, despite also reducing/eliminating their PVC use. Apple's "disposable" cables are completely in line with their other design decisions towards unrepairable, straight-into-landfill hardware that breaks at the slightest disturbance.

Greenpeace was hounding them for the use of toxic chemicals by their suppliers and poor recycling policies, not because of PVC use in cables (which Apple has been phasing out since the 90s anyway, way before this issue with Greenpeace).

It is well documented here:
https://www.cnet.com/news/how-apple-and-greenpeace-made-peace/

That was Jobs's own decision at the time because they wanted to be seen as a green company, not something Greenpeace has forced them to do (as if they could even if they wanted).

Don't blame the treehuggers for Apple's incompetence (or intentional planned obsolescence) here.