Introduction

Parcans are widely used where the requirement is for strong, bright coloured lighting over a loosely focussed area. Unlike most other generic lights Parcans have the advantage that they can be rapidly flashed without the lamp's life being reduced. Due to this Parcans can be seen quite commonly lighting bands or club dancefloors. The lights themselves consist of a glass lamp and a simple, cylindrical can. The lamps contain all the optics for the lamp within the glass envelope, having a parabolic reflector behind the filament. Hence, the par(abolic) in a can - parcan.
Parcans come in different sizes, a parcan's number indicates it's size (calculated by the number 1/8ths of an inch in diameter) the most common are Par56 and Par64. Par16 are usually referred to as birdies and are much smaller units. Par36 is also a common size

Birdies (Par 16)

Birdies come in 2 different flavours, those that backstage own and normally use are 12V and require a transformer. These have XLR plugs on them, don't attempt to extend these using microphone cable, it is not designed for this purpose and will damage the cable. The transformer can be plugged into the dimmers.
The other flavour runs off mains voltage and can be plugged directly into dimmers in the same way that any other light can be. These have the downside of shorter lamp life.
They are refered to as birdies due to it being 1 below par hence in golfing terms a birdie

Focussing

There are only very limited focussing opportunities with parcans. On top of the standard pan and tilt if the lamp is wide (see below) the shape of the beam is elliptical and the lamp can be rotated within the can to allow you to focus it.

Lamps

Things you need to look out for

Parcans can burn out heavy (deep coloured) gels quite quickly.
If a unit isn't working check that the lamp holder has not dislodged.
When replacing lamps make sure that the retaining metal wire is still intact.

Credits:
The Backstage Lighting Guide was written by Chris Dickson and is © BTS 2000. Updates made by Colin Paxton © BTS 2008
No reproduction in whole or in part in any means whatsoever is permitted without written consent.