Over on the comment wall in the Lighting group, John Kimball posted an interesting question. In order to make replying a little easier, and to be able to direct people to the conversation a little more quickly, I'm moving the comment into a new discussion here. Here's John's question:

Shut down pros and cons; I'm running a show with a hybrid collection of fixtures, conventional, scrollers, movers and LEDs and am wondering if there is a definitive ansewer to daily shutdown. I shut off discharge lamps by dmx but there are still are fans and internal processors running verses cutting power and then restarting a day later with all the resetting and homing procedures of scrollers and movers. There is also the electronic issue of shutting off the console or not. My normal procedure is; turn on control (console, splitter) then power on fixtures. End of show reverse the process.

My question is; given the wear and tear of the startup conniptions does this make sense on a daily basis? When the show is dark for 2-3 days yes but daily?

So, what do you think?