! Unfortunately, due to the current situation, we haven’t been able to test them ‘on the road’ but instead we put them through their paces at one of our own team BBQs at home! 70 70 sponsored by The CHAUVET DJ Festoon 2 RGB is essentially a set of LED lamps mounted on a ‘string’. Each string has 20 lamps (or bulbs as CHAUVET DJ calls them) and are 15m long.

They are also IP54-rated, so are suitable for temporary outdoor use which is where their effect really comes alive! Each bulb is permanently mounted on the string, so you can’t change the actual bulb itself, but you can change an individual section of string that contains the bulb. Each section is around 75cm long and has a waterproof connector to attach to the next section, and of course 20 of these make up the 15m long string of festoon. You can connect up to three strings (60 bulbs) to one control unit.

The bulbs are pixel mappable, meaning that each individual bulb can be independently controlled so if you want to do rainbows or chases up and down the string of lights you can and, let me tell you, this looks amazing! The string of lights connects to the Festoon 2 RGB controller, which is included as part of the package. It is a simple, compact unit that features DMX control, in-built automatic programs, soundto-light programs and static colour pre-sets as well as a manual mode which allows you to select your own RGB colour mix (this mixes the whole string, not an individual bulb).

The control unit is fairly simple; it has DMX input and output sockets, the dedicated connector output for the strings of festoon and an IEC connector for power. On top, you have the menu system with the standard arrangement of ‘MENU’, ‘UP’, ‘DOWN’ and ‘ENTER’ buttons accompanied by the small 4-character LED display. The automatic programs and sound active modes have adjustable parameters so you can easily customise the look. There are 38 in-built auto programs that are selectable, each can be set to a chosen speed too!

The sound active mode has adjustable sensitivity, as you’d expect! CHAUVET DJ FESTOON 2 RGB When it comes to DMX control, three different modes make for plenty of flexibility. The 3-channel mode is simply RGB – basically you can control the red, green and blue of all the bulbs at once and mix them to get whatever colour you like. The 9-channel mode is similar, but it also adds other functions like a master dimmer, colour macros, strobing and the ability to trigger the in-built automatic and sound active programs and their speed / sensitivity, there is a dimmer speed control too.

There are two pixel mode options, pixel and pixel+, which allow for custom chasing and other pattern effects to be created using a DMX controller or software package. Pixel is exactly what it says on the box, the ability to control each bulb as if it were a single RGB pixel. Each bulb takes up three DMX channels that control the red, green and blue of each bulb, again these can be mixed to create almost any colour. The pixel+ mode expands on the pixel mode by adding in the abilities of the 9-channel mode where you can trigger the in-built programs and sound active modes and apply other functions such as the master dimmer.

STAYING CHAUVET MOBILE DJ FESTOON 2 RGB The control unit has multiple mounting points, which provides flexibility for setting up the system. To the rear there are keyholes, in case you want to permanently mount the unit, but there is also an M12 mounting point if you wish to mount hardware to the controller to hang it from a lighting bar or truss. There are also two circular cut outs in the body to allow a safety cable to be hooked around the unit… you can never be too careful!

In the box, the Festoon 2 RGB also comes with a 5m long cable to connect between the control unit and the first string of festoon. The controller itself isn’t waterproof, so it makes sense why they’d provide this… And, of course, you won’t want to have the controller unit right next to the first bulb, you’ll want to attempt to hide it away somewhere. It’s worth mentioning that you can also control the Festoon 2 RGB with CHAUVET DJ’s IRC-6 remote control, which they use for a range of other devices too.

This provides simple control over things like preset colour selection and blackout. We didn’t really do much testing with the in-built settings as we were eager to DMX this baby up and see what we could do with DMX control - our lighting guru Lofty wanted to get his pixel map on! We were really pleased that CHAUVET DJ also sent us the Festoon 2 RGB EXT, which is essentially a second 15m long string of bulbs without the controller, so we had 40 bulbs and 30m of controllable festoon to play with… I mean test!

On a lovely Sunday afternoon, Neal, Lofty and I set about turning my back garden into a temporary lighting rig, setting up the festoon by attaching it to the fence and the house. The rigging was pretty easy, as each bulb has a little loop on the top so you can pass a cable tie through for mounting and hanging. In about 45 minutes we had it all up and ready to go, we just needed to wait for the sun to disappear before we could play! THE EARLY DAYS To be honest, the setup could have the white was been even quicker, but I wanted and quite a cool to make sure the bulbs were high However, we played enough in the air so they were out the mix a bit and of the way.

So we screwed clamps could get a very nice and single truss tubes to the fence colour that would to make them high enough, which you wanted to use ended up putting the festoon traditional way. Of around 2.5m from the decking joy of these being below. We managed to get five that you could runs of festoon back and forth white look for early horizontally between the house then instantly change and the truss tubes on the fence, changing effects enough to give us a little matrix when the party gets type grid to play with.

Of course, which could be quite it was nearly impossible to space selling proposition! them out exactly and have them in an exact grid, but we got them pretty close. Once set up, we turned on the controller and made sure to set it to Two String Mode, so it knew it had two strings attached, allowing us to control all 40 bulbs individually. We then got on with setting the DMX mode (we used pixel), addressing the control unit (which was easy), and we were ready to go!

So, as the daylight faded away, the playing began! At first, we questioned the brightness of the LEDs in the bulbs as they are only stated as 5 x 0.1W LEDs, so only 0.5W per lamp. In the daylight you could only just make out a faint colour glow but the effect really came alive after the sun began to disappear beyond the horizon. Despite the 0.5W rating, the amount of light they gave off was absolutely perfect.

For festoon, you don’t want overpowering light, you just want a nice glow, and this is exactly what the Festoon 2 RGB does, and it does it very well. Initially, we started testing with white hues, as traditionally festoon isn’t usually coloured, it’s usually white! As you’d expect with red, green and blue on full, 7722 72 slightly tinted Traditional festoon lighting is temperature. often done with filament lamps, around with which can become hot and found that we potentially unsafe if they are warm-white within reach of guests.

You also be perfect if need to leave time for them to these in a cool down before de-rigging to course, the avoid any burns. Of course recent DMX-able is developments in technology has setup a warmmeant LEDs are becoming much evening and more common, but they still to colouroften use glass lamps which could and patterns also pose a risk. The Festoon 2 in full swing, RGB eliminates these problems an attractive as the LEDs do not run hot and CHAUVET DJ FESTOON 2 RGB use a plastic rugged housing so were able to map they can be put up, run and taken waves and twisting down without any delay or worry the grid of lamps. of breakages. a random strobe a really dim white Let’s also not forget that, thanks looked amazing!

We’ll to being LED, the power draw of these effects on is very little, just under 110W channel soon and with three strings attached to watching it to see the control unit! And another they can do. advantage of LED is that they are rated at 50,000 hours use, so you In conclusion, shouldn’t ever need to change CHAUVET DJ them. Of course, if you ever did very much; it’ll need to, you can simply swap out place in the wedding one of the little sections in the industry, as it has string! and potential effects. used for garden or So what did we think to them? as a pixel grid on Well, let’s just say we started as standard really testing when the sun went or as a pixel-mapped down and it was the next day an example, imagine before we packed up and went entrance to a venue to bed… oops!

We loved the using them to create pixel mapping capabilities, we type effect where 74 74 lovely rainbows, down towards the entrance, now patterns into that would look awesome! We also tried over the top of The only change we’d like to see and the effect would be the connector from have a video the control unit: I would prefer our YouTube a port rather than the cable I’d recommend that comes out of the unit. We exactly what also weren’t too keen on the connectors between the strings, but they’re a welcome feature as we like the each section is replaceable if there Festoon 2 RGB ever were an issue.

Of course, the certainly have its connectors are weatherproof, and events which is essential, and we didn’t so many uses try it, but we assume you would It could be also be able to put an extension path lighting, cable between two strings if you a backdrop, needed to. Well done to CHAUVET glowing festoon DJ for creating a great product, effect. As I’m sure we’ll start to see them lining the popping up at weddings and or room and events very soon! a runwaythe lights run CHAUVET DJ FESTOON 2 RGB OFFICIAL DENON DJ PRIME DEALER £1259.

10.1-inch Touchscreen and WiFi Connection DJ EQUIPMENT | PA SPEAKERS ONLINE AND IN-STORE (WE’RE NOW RETAILER OF THE YEAR /PHASE1DJSTORE , DARLINGTON, MON-FRI 9AM-5PM; 0% FINANCE AVAILABLE £1429. 8.5-inch Motorised Platter | LIGHTING | ACCESSORIES OPEN AGAIN! - CHECK ONLINE FOR HOURS) 2018 & NOW 2020! HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO VOTED FOR US! /PHASE1DJSTORE /PHASE1DJSTORE COUNTY DURHAM, DL1 2RZ SAT 10AM-4PM