a main distinguishing feature is whether or not you want to be the guy with lasers. if not then things become much cheaper. if so then getting quality lasers with good preset effects is abit more pricey things like moving heads and stuff are going to be out of your budget i would think if i had to do it again ide have 4 parcans, 2 effects lights, some form of uv and if the budget allows, some mini lasers and a smoke machine. a smoke machine is great but really a novelty until lasers are involved. a customised setup intergrates single colour schemes and thats when it gets up there. single colour lasers are hundreds of dollars each and a good multi colour is generally over 1k.