Heat, condensation and a generator that dips. Three fixtures we stopped stocking, and what replaced them.
A marquee in July is a harder environment than most fixtures are rated for. The air under the canvas sits ten degrees above outside by mid-afternoon, and when it cools after dark the condensation finds every seam. Sealed units are not a luxury here; they are the difference between a working rig and a dark one at nine o’clock.
The generator is the part people forget. A dip that a domestic circuit would shrug off will drop cheap drivers out entirely, and they do not always come back on their own. We now stock only fixtures that ride out a brownout, which ruled out two of the three lines we used to carry.
Festoon is the exception that keeps earning its place. It is forgiving about voltage, it reads well in photographs, and a failed lamp in a run of forty is invisible. Everything else in the marquee we now specify sealed and over-rated.