PAR fixture

PAR stands for parabolic aluminised reflector, and the name describes where the optics live. In the original tungsten version the reflector and lens are part of the sealed lamp, so beam spread is a property of the lamp fitted, not something an operator focuses. Change the beam and you change the bulb.

It produces a distinctly oval pool rather than a round one, and the oval is aimed by rotating the lamp in its housing. That rotation is a real part of focusing a PAR rig and it is the step most often skipped, which is why a row of them can look misaligned when every fixture is pointing in the right direction.

Its merits are output, ruggedness and simplicity, which is why it has been the workhorse of concert rigs for decades and why LED versions now dominate corporate work. An LED PAR mixes its own colour, draws a fraction of the power, produces far less heat in a ballroom, and needs no dimmer rack behind it.

What a PAR cannot do is define an edge or project a pattern. It is a source of light, not a source of shape. Rigs are built from a mixture for that reason: PARs for coverage and colour, profiles where the light has to be cut or carry an image.

Event lighting — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Fresnel A soft-edged wash fixture with a stepped lens, adjustable from spot to flood by moving the lamp — and controlled at the edges with barn doors, because it has no shutters.
• Ellipsoidal (profile) The fixture that can be cut to a shape, hold a hard edge and project a pattern — optically a slide projector, and the only conventional fixture that can stop light exactly where you want it to.
• Uplighting Small fixtures set on the floor and aimed up a wall or a column to put colour into a room — the cheapest thing that changes how a ballroom feels, and the easiest to space badly.