I've got a new addiction: AliExpress!!!
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How much would it cost to build a full-stage setup on AliExpress?
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Lately, I’ve been really into something new. It all started when we got our hands on a 2010 Nissan Qashqai and needed some parts for our CarPlay radio. Now I can’t stop thinking about it!
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Ugh, can I just rant for a sec?
nWhy can’t car companies just use the same dang connectors for their media systems?
nNissan is the worst with their funky USB and 3.5mm jack for the radio.
nLike, seriously, aren’t these supposed to be standardized or something?
nIt’s so annoying.!
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So, I was just scrolling on the internet and found this site called AliExpress. Their prices for parts were so much cheaper than other places I’ve checked out, so I ended up buying the thing I needed. While I was on the app, I realized they have a ton of cool stuff, like gear for live shows and events. It totally gave me some ideas for my next shopping spree.
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Honestly, I can’t really say if the products are any good or not. I don’t have the cash to buy the equipment to test them out, and I don’t have the space to set it all up anyways. But hey, it was kind of fun just messing around with it all for a little while.
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So, I’m multitasking right now – shopping for products and typing up this post at the same time. My mission? To find a stage that’s super versatile and can handle all sorts of performers – bands, dancers, you name it. In the past, I’ve worked with a stage that was 16 meters wide and 12 meters deep, complete with a fancy Proscenium Arch that was 8 meters wide and a ceiling that was 12.5m high. But, the height is not really important, but I’ll use the rest as a kind of guide as I really loved that stage.
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I want to set up a stage that’s flexible and roomy, but it can get pretty pricey. I’m thinking of having a main stage that’s 8 meters wide, plus 2 meters of wings on each side for performers to do their thing. That’ll give us a total width of 12 meters. I also want an extra 2 meters at the back so performers can cross over the stage without stepping off, making the depth 10 meters. All in all, that gives us an 8×8 meter performance space. And to keep things versatile, I’d like to be able to adjust the height from 0.2 to 1 meter, so we can tweak it to fit each event.
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Okay, so when we set up the stage, we need to put the trussing on the outside and make sure it covers the top. For lighting, we’ll need at least four spots above the stage and an overhang in front. And in the back, we’ll have a truss to hold a cyc or LED wall. It’d be great if we can use square trusses, so we can hang the lights on the bottom and hide the cables with a header at the top. Based on what I’ve found, it seems like an 8-meter truss height would work well for this size stage.
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I would love it if we could have an LED Wall at the rear. The screen width should be 8 meters to cover the back of the stage, but the height should not exceed 4.5 meters to ensure a 16:9 aspect ratio and facilitate video editing.
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When it comes to lighting, I like to keep things energy-efficient, so I’m thinking of going with LED lights. I want to have a mix of Beam, Spot, and Wash Moving heads to cover all my bases. If I come across any cool LED Battens or bars, I might throw those in too, but I’m still on the fence. I gotta do some digging on Lighting Control before I make any final calls though.
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When it comes to sound, I like to use a Digital Desk and stick to Dante or AES67 to avoid too many cables. Gotta have those radio mics, of course. I think a mix of stage monitors and in-ear monitors would be best. For the speakers, it would be awesome to use Dante or AES67 and go with self-powered speakers to skip the amplifier rack. If we can, let’s get those speakers hung up in an array. Might need some in-ear monitors as well as on-stage ones. Would be nice if we could fly the speakers of the front truss.
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Alright, so we’ve got a rough plan together (but of course, things may shift as we go along). Time to dive into Ali Express! First up, I’m thinking we should focus on staging. It’ll be a good starting point for what’s to come.
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The Staging & Trussing
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Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find any staging on Ali Express, though I did find old listings for staging. Iad I went over to Thomann who happens to have some 2mx1m outdoor platforms with adjustable scissor legs. I’d need 60 of these
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I didn’t have any luck finding any trussing on AliExpress, and I’m guessing shipping costs would be high anyway. To design the trussing structure, I used Global Truss’ TrussTool3D software. The design required 10 bases, 44 4m lengths, 34 2m lengths, 42 box corners, and 1008 half cones to connect to the box corner. I ended up going back to Thomann to price these up. I still need to find a solution to covering the whole structure but I think that may be for another day.
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| Product | Price | Qty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Half Cone f34 Coner Box Connector M12 | £8.40 | 1008 | £8,467.20 |
| F34200 Truss 2M | £248 | 34 | £7,650 |
| F3440 Truss 4M | £435 | 44 | £19,140 |
| F34 Box Corner | £309 | 42 | £12,978 |
| F34 Base Plate | £61 | 10 | £610 |
| Total | £48,845.20 |
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Lighting
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I’ve been checking out some lighting options and I found this awesome LED moving head. It’s got all the bells and whistles, like shutters and gobos, plus it can mix colours and has a beam angle that goes from 5 to 55 degrees! My plan is to set up three sets of five on each rigging spot. That way, we can make some sweet light fans at three different places on each lighting position.
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I’m thinking of adding some dedicated wash lights to my setup, along with the main movers. I think they would look great on either side of the fan and could also be used for ground lighting. And you can’t forget about lasers! I found some that are DMX and ILDA compatible and can be controlled easily. They’re a must-have for any modern rig.
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After we set up the lights, we can add some smoke and haze to make them look even better. Then, we’ll need a control desk to be able to operate everything.
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| Product | Price | Qty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| LED (700W) CMY Provife Moving Head (Spot Beam & Wash) | £1883.14 | 75 | £141,235.50 |
| LED (37*20) RGBW Moving Head (Wash & Beam) | £1393.39 | 30 | £41,801.70 |
| 5w RGB Moving Head Laser | £552.65 | 12 | £6,631.80 |
| 1500W RGB Smoke Machine | £409.86 | 6 | £2,459.16 |
| 1500W Hazer | £404.80 | 4 | £1,619.2 |
| Low Fog Machine | £758.90 | 2 | £1,517.8 |
| MA2 Style Lighting Controller | £8,618.40 | 1 | £8,618.40 |
| Total | £203,883.56 |
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It’s no surprise that the lighting equipment has been the most costly so far. Lighting tends to be pricier than sound or video production, especially when I’m using Blackmagic Products for video production.
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Sound
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So when I was originally checking out AliExprss I came across a ton of cool stuff related to sound. My first goal was to find a mixer since it’s such an essential part of the setup. After some poking around, I found a digital mixer from Behringer that’s got 48 channels. It doesn’t come with Dante, but you can add an expansion card to get it. Surprisingly, it was actually cheaper to buy the mixer on Thomann than on AliExpress. I couldn’t find a compatible stage box at all on AliExpress either. Whilst I was there I added a long network cable.
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Whilst looking for wireless microphones and in-ear monitors I had a bit of trouble. It looks like the wireless devices are geared towards the Chinese market and not usable in the UK, so back I go to Thomann.
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Hey there! So, I was trying to find a Dante Power amp on AliExpress, but no luck. But, I did notice that Thomann has some pretty sweet prices, not just for the amps, but even for line arrays. I also made sure to get some adapters that can convert the Dante signal to Balanced Line Level audio using XLR, so we’re all set on compatibility with the Power Amps.
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I’ve added some wired microphones along the way too as not everything needs to be wireless. Once again Thomann won on this occasion. The same goes for audio playback.
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| Product | Price | Qty | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Behringer Wing 48 Channel Digital Audio Mixer | £3,333 | 1 | £3,333 |
| Behringer Wing-Dante | £515 | 1 | £515 |
| Behringer S32 | £998 | 1 | £998 |
| 100M Cat5e Cable | £498 | 5 | £2,490 |
| 4x1000W Dante Power Amplifier | £687.15 | 6 | £4,122.9 |
| Line Array Set (6 Sub & 12 speakers) | £27,190 | 1 | £27,190 |
| Dante AVIO Analog Output Adapter 0x2 | £269 | 6 | £2,152 |
| Sennheiser ew IEM G4 GB-Band | £888 | 8 | £7,104 |
| Sennheiser EK IEM G4 GB-Band | £453 | 8 | £3,624 |
| Sennheiser ew 100 G4-ME4 GB-Band | £633 | 8 | £5,064 |
| Sennheiser SKM 100 G4 GB-Band | £253 | 8 | £2,024 |
| Sennheiser MMD 845-1 BK | £89 | 8 | £712 |
| BSS AR133 Active DI Box | £119 | 6 | £714 |
| Sennheiser E 965 Bundle (Microphone, Cable and Stand) | £409 | 8 | £3,272 |
| Sennheiser 600 Drum Set | £844 | 2 | £1,688 |
| Sennheiser MD421-II | £359 | 8 | £2,872 |
| Tascam CD-400U DAB | £489 | 2 | £978 |
| Total | £68,852.90 |
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I think we talked about the audio stuff pretty thoroughly. But, I gotta say, I’m kinda bummed about AliExpress. They have a ton of pro audio gear, but either the prices were better on Thomann or they weren’t even made for UK use. Ah well.
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The Video Wall
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I’m not really sure about the video wall stuff because I’ve never dealt with it before. Bummer that there’s no Thomann kit available this time around. But I did find a kit on AliExpress that has 4 panels that are 0.5mx1m, plus cables, 4 flying mounts, a flight case, and a sending box. I think I’m gonna use those parts to build the wall, but I’ll probably use a different sending box.
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| Product | Price | Qty | Total |
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| LED Video Wall 2M x 1M Bundle | £2547.46 | 18 | £45,854.28 |
| Vovastar MCTL4K Sending Box | £2844.81 | 2 | £5,689.62 |
| Total | £51,543.90 |
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I didn’t mention anything about video inputs because I’ll be sticking with what I know and trust when it comes to my computer setup. I don’t think I’ll find that kind of reliability on AliExpress. That’s why I’m thinking about using a rack-mounted Mac instead. For live video production, I’d probably go with one of those Blackmagic systems I talked about in earlier posts. I’m not really looking to learn a whole new system though, especially with all the work we’re doing on that video wall.
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Hey, I think we’ve covered everything we need for this rig. I took a look at the final cost, and building a brand-new rig from AliExpress seems pretty expensive. Plus, we still need to get all the cables and “digital glue” to make it all work properly.
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But overall, I think this setup is reasonable for just under half a million pounds. If it were to do this again, I might go for a slightly smaller stage and LED screen. My original stage size was a bit too big for stage roof systems when looking online if I didn’t want something custom-made. I even looked at some cool blow-up stage covers, but they were all too small for what we have here.
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| Area | Total |
|---|---|
| Staging | £77,358 |
| Trussing | £48,845.20 |
| Lighting | £203,883.56 |
| Sound | £68,852.90 |
| Video | £51,543.90 |
| Total | £450,483.56 |
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All in all, I think I’ll be sticking with Thomann for my production needs. Except for maybe the moving lights, I can’t find an equivalent on Thomann and anything else similar I’ve come across is ten grand plus.
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What do you think? Would you consider buying gear for your productions on AliExpress? Was there anything you think I missed? Would you like to fund my LED wall? Let me know in the comments below.
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