andy_s

Of course if they don't need to be transparent, making some might be feasible - get the underlay felt from Joels or Whaleys or McDougals, make screens out of cheap 12mm or maybe 18mm ply, cover them with underlay felt overlaid with something prettier / black depending on your aesthetic. would probably help tame a lively acoustic environment and might not be too expensive.

Something like a Brother label maker might be suitable, you get different tapes for choice of letters and background colour (including transparent) and you can change the font size. I've found the tape sticks fine in non-greasy surfaces, metal, plastic etc.

I've hired screens from Terminal Studios in London in the past, I imagine places like John Henry would also do them, but they re all London based, so thought they might not be of any interest to you... Terminal John Henry's I would guess Hawthornes and similar companies might have them. probably not very budget -friendly! I would probably look up any local music recording studios to see if they have them or where they get them from if they need them.

also look for Mic Poole's QLab Cook Book on line for interesting information. Whether it answers this specific question I don't know... Cook Book

I think it's worth pointing out that the system described as 'British' is by no means universal, there are certainly places where you find 16A used for dimmers so you shouldn't go into a theatre and assume 16A equals hard power,always check with the locals. There have been many conversations about getting rid of 15A connectors, though personally I prefer them...

Stage Electrics make nice neat facilities panels. Don't know how they would compare for price.

Its possible to find recipes to make your own breakaway bottles from sugarglass, but I believe it takes practice. If you have the patience and the time and the interest... You could do a bit of googling... I don't know if it would be cheaper in the long run

I've just bought two matchbox-sized black magic micro converters hdmi-sdi and sdi-hdmi, at £40 each inc VAT. They run 1080p happily, so I can have my long run of cable.. very halt with them.now all I have to do is work out how to get enough airflow through the projector - it is secreted in a scenic column on stage and we had overheating issues last night. I wil be drilling some vent holes in the scenery and possibly buying a small fan tomorrow. (30m SDI run)

Many thanks, that's great. I think I knew that, but a combination of the minimal instructions with the power adaptor and the dire warnings / disclaimer in the Alesis manual confused me ....

I've been loaned an Alesis Microverb 4 to use on a small scale tour, but the lender has lost the power supply. I've bought a voltage adapter which will give me 9VAC, but the interchangeable 'nozzle' that goes into the unit can be attached either pin positive or pin negative, and I can't find any indication of the correct way for this device - I've looked at the user manual online and (obviously) on the back of the unit itself. Does anyone know the answer?

The source four PAR is a perfectly nice light in its own right, but in my experience it doesn't offer the same 'benefits' as a traditional PAR64, and isn't really a direct substitute.(benefits being the option to use a parcan as a paintstripper, and (apocryphally) to fry an egg).

Assuming it's a 'performance' or 'dance' floor, and you can identify the maker/supplier, (for example le Mark? Harlequin? Rosco?) it's probably worth calling them for advice.

posting on behalf of colleagues: I'm not involved in interviews or appointment for this.... Half Moon Theatre is looking for a Technical Stage Manager for the forthcoming tour of Crowded (21 October - 24 November 2019). Crowded is an immersive spoken-word / poetry based new play for audiences of 13+ and adult audiences. The production is a Half Moon and Apples and Snakes co-production: an exciting collaboration by the UK's leading small-scale young people's venue with an extensive national touring profile on the small-scale (2018 finalist and 2017 Off West End Award winner for Best Production for Young People aged 13+), and England's leading spoken word and poetry organisation. The show rehearses and opens at Half Moon (Limehouse in London) The Technical Stage Manager will be responsible for all technical aspects of this production (fitting up the set, props, lighting and sound, and then operating the performances). They will also lead on the driving of the company's vehicle whilst on tour. £550 per week, ITC/Equity contract. Closing date: as soon as possible. Please visit the website for more info and how to apply: https://www.halfmoon.org.uk/about-us/jobs/

and don't forget about the recent changes to the fume management expectations when welding mild steel.

few typos or misprints in there. studio grid at 13.5m? access for focussing via 1.8m platform steps (and anti gravity boots?) :o

am I being particularly dense? I can't see where the OP suggests inhaling the contents of an air duster. Undoubtedly good advice to avoid it, but I don't think that was the proposal.

Just for clarity (pun not intended), I'm going to backtrack slightly on my original statement. It's not necessarily seeing the actual fixtures that I object to, its the wibbly wobbly beams sharply defined by haze., just to make a 'pretty lighting look' (for want of a better word). but it's horses for courses. There can be a time and a place for a 'light show', I've seen some great things where seeing the beam in haze is exactly right (award-winning LD Natasha Chivers created light coming through a forest canopy with nary a gobo involved - a couple of dozen pinspots carefully focussed through haze. a similar effect by another LD to create the idea of light coming through bullet holes in the wall of a war-torn barn, using adapted birdies with a very long snout to get a very very narrow virtually parallel beam of light, a train passing created by moving light beams, and many other examples. What I don't want is to be looking at the lights rather than the actors or action... I find moving / billowing haze a bit of a distraction as well. But I don't particularly mind seeing an exposed rig, so long as it is neatly done, and light leaks are dealt with etc etc... of course the world of music lighting is a different thing altogether... and there can be some useful crossover... I do agree about FOH positions in some of the older theatres, they need to be handled with more discretion than we often see.

my suggestion is to persuade the director to relocating the play's setting to the Shetland Islands in August, as it never gets dark there and you can use all your usual daylight colours... but on a more serious note, isn't this a fascinating challenge - to make each lighting state perfectly fit the moment in the play, while giving the impression that nothing has changed? beautifully subtle lighting can be a great thing. As a self confessed old fogey, I slightly resent the new fangled lighting equipment where the main function is to draw attention to itself rather than to the thing it's pointing at... apologies for slightly derailing the thread.

I went to couple of immersive exhibitions at the Victoria and Albert not so long ago, both involving wearing wireless headphones. They both provided a great hi-fi experience, Pink Floyd with a Sennheiser system, I'm afraid I can't remember what was used for the Opera Passion Power and Politics but I thought it was a bit better.

TR Nottingham not alone in this, back in the eighties one of my jobs in the theatre I worked at then was to operate the kodak carousel with kia-ora style adverts (still images only) onto the "screen" painted on the iron. (Pretty sure it was Pearl and Deane who supplied the ads and the theatre got some money for doing it) with reference to the iron being brought in overnight, it can be a useful security thing, If a bad person breaks into the auditorium, they can't climb up onto the stage and easily access other backstage areas. (assuming pass doors are all secure) regarding the prevention of destruction, the freshly restored Victorian auditorium of the New Tyne Theatre in Newcastle was saved from destruction by fire (which broke out in the flytower) because the chief had dropped the iron overnight. So the Grade 1 listed auditorium was saved... Sadly the victorian stage machinery and panto sets on the stage side of the iron were damaged beyond repair. This was Christmas day 1985... (ps the damage to the machinery wasn't actually directly due to the action of the fire; it was actually trashed by the collapse of the stage wall a few days after the fire, which had destroyed / weakened the structure and was therefore vulnerable to the high winds which blew... the masonry burst through the stage into the substage...)

wide cans can be very useful... I was board op (early version of "programmer" except I had to sit through every performance instead of swanning off to the next gig ) in the late eighties on a Handel opera where we had scroller on 2k fresnels. Because they were focussed with lamps close to the lens, the gel strings kept falling apart from the heat. Solution was to swap them out for PAR64/CP95. worked well enough, different quality of light, but that was acceptable vs constantly losing the use of scrollers because the darker colours in the gel string had burnt out yet again. Historic note; the LD was Francis Reid, and the Gemini control desk was pre DMX, so to control the scrollers we had a Sirius 24, which did spit out a universe of DMX. This meant I had to use a finger on each hand to operate any cue which involved a scroller change, which meant putting down the book I was reading. (lovely singing, but with about 30 cues in 3 hours, I had plenty of 'downtime' during the show...) (apologies, a bit OT)

I used to use donuts on older profiles, (sils / cantatas etc), found less of a need on S4s... as I remember it is smaller = sharper, but the pay off is a loss of light output. one way of experimenting thing is to invest in some black cinefoil, cut it to colour frame size, and make your own hole. start small and make bigger until you get an acceptable balance of output / sharpness.

To which the equally reasonable reposte would be “but I’m not paying 100 quid a head to sit in my front room, I’m paying that money to see (and hear) a show” indeed, but the complaints were as much about the car park and the toilets, although the sound did get a mention. I'd also add that a fool and his / her money are soon parted, but where in my world I would not consider spending tuppence on a spice girls show, I can appreciate that they have a greater significance in some people's lives.

I read the perfectly reasonable riposte to the complaints from a venue representative ... it seems to me that some people expect attending a gig with 25000+ other people to be as simple and convenient as sitting in their front room with 2 or 3 friends to watch a DVD.

Many London Underground lines will give you well into the 90s for several minutes at a time on faster sections - loud enough to make conversation impossible. How do you factor that in? I can recommend the metropolitan line as being on the quieter end of the spectrum - I recently had to use it as a n alternative to my usual jubilee line journey when there were track issues at Bond Street.. I have taken to wearing the ear protection I use in the carpentry / metalwork workshop on my jubilee line journeys... I might look like a tw*t, but my ears don't hurt.