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Lighting bars LX1 to LX8, which is upstage?


james3mc

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So my question is, in the UK, which end of the building would you number the LX bars from? If there are 8, would you expect LX1 to be at the back of the auditorium or over the cyc (or whatever the most upstage point is)?
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In my experience, LX1 is always just upstage of the pros arch and subsequent bars are numbered going upstage. Anything in front of the pros is an advance bar, circle front, FOH, bridge (at the Oxford Playhouse) etc. In studio theatres with grids, I've generally not used bar numbers as it always feels calling the bar at the rear of the audience LX1 wrong!

 

Hello from the just up the road in Oxford.

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LX1 is furthest downstage, working upstage as the numbering increases. FOH position numbering for bridges, slots, booms, etc. likewise works away from the pros - bridge 1 closest to the stage, incrementing numbers as you move away from the pros.

 

In non-traditional spaces - studios, for example - then obviously this doesn't necessarily apply, and there will quite probably be a space-specific system of designating lighting positions which will vary according to the way the space works.

 

The fact that you've asked this suggests that you've encountered someone who's suggested that it should work the other way (low numbered bars upstage).... which I find quite astonishing, to be frank!

Edited by gareth
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In a multipurpose hall with no fixed stage I'd say do what you like. If there is a prosc or a stage the No 1 bar is always the first behind the prosc. FOH depends really on what is there and where - as long as it is shown clearly on the plan you can call it what best describes it at least in my opinion.
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I do some occasional work at a venue nearby where the install company (SLX) labelled the bars from upstage (cyc) to downstage. Thus LX5 is nearest the pros. However, everyone who works there refers to the bars the other way around, i.e. LX5 is the most upstage bar. This seems to be the standard way of doing things, as others have suggested.

 

The circuits run from SR>SL on each bar though, which I think makes sense.

 

 

Cheers,

Barney

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Numbering circuits or channels L>R or R>L is another matter entirely

Probably connected with where the lx desk was sited when the outlets were last numbered. SL>SR makes perfect sense when the desk is in the wings, but highly confusing when it's out-front.

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Numbering circuits or channels L>R or R>L is another matter entirely

Probably connected with where the lx desk was sited when the outlets were last numbered. SL>SR makes perfect sense when the desk is in the wings, but highly confusing when it's out-front.

Outlet numbering order never mattered in the many years I was in the business as everything was soft patched as a matter of course anyway.

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Numbering circuits or channels L>R or R>L is another matter entirely

Probably connected with where the lx desk was sited when the outlets were last numbered. SL>SR makes perfect sense when the desk is in the wings, but highly confusing when it's out-front.

Outlet numbering order never mattered in the many years I was in the business as everything was soft patched as a matter of course anyway.

 

 

Unless some clever cloggs makes up a bar for ONE show and never actually wrote it down (see old amdram)

 

1 3 2 5 4 6 8 7 9 11 12 - I think or something as strange as that.

 

 

 

If it is a studio / free space I would say everything is from the main door / where FoH Views from. FoH - 1 -2 -3 -4

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Outlet numbering order never mattered in the many years I was in the business as everything was soft patched as a matter of course anyway.

I remember going back for a 1-nighter to a venue I'd done dozens of shows at in the past & finding it now had a house tech, who had soft-patched everything on their Sirius - unfortunately she hadn't kept a record (& there didn't seem any way of reverting to a 1:1 patch), so finding every light was a voyage of discovery :angry:

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The worst was the money saver in small halls which saw alternate, or occasionally every three sockets paired. Often on a bar you ended up with a couple of positions you really could do with using on their own so it was temporary cable time.

 

 

That might be the config I had, it was certainly not anything I have ever seen.

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The worst was the money saver in small halls which saw alternate, or occasionally every three sockets paired. Often on a bar you ended up with a couple of positions you really could do with using on their own so it was temporary cable time.

 

Or the ever helpful mirror pairing. Great if you're doing McCandless style lighting, utterly useless for anything else.

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