I have noticed this. In the old days when everyone smoked, you could rely on a smokey atmosphere that showed up the beams of lights. These days, you have to use fog or smoke generators on stage. The air is just too clean now!

BTW: I have made a couple of RGB led colour bars out of aluminium channel, red green and blue LED strips and a Chinese DMX to RGB pulse-width-output boards. All sourced from ebay sellers. Worked, but not quite bright enough.

I like how you think...

 

I like how you think...

LED intensity is related to drive current, and within some limits the intensity can be boosted by raising the drive current . UNFORTUNATELY that shortens the life quite a bit. So there is a compromise.