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I think as soon as you replace the portrait of the Queen with another image, you are breaching their conditions. So possibly all would not be well. From the Bank of England's guidance: "You must not produce novelty versions of our notes, for example ones that feature a celebrity. This is because some notes that have been altered in this way have been mistakenly accepted as genuine." Which begs the question how does the company I linked to earlier get away with it... Loads of celebs (real and cartoony) on there and the notes 'look' pretty much like the B of E style (don't have a twenty handy to check at the mo)...

Erm, you clearly haven't read my more recent posts on this thread...:D

Twisting the wires at the amp to where they split has apparently made a big difference, so thanks for that pointer.

Thanks - will give those ideas a punt. Infra red may be worthy going forward but at the moment this is nil cost whilst we have this loaner amp... Will maybe look at alternatives going forward. There are probably grants available for improving accessibility if I can find time to investigate... TD

It's been a long time since we've had a loop system in my venue for those with hearing aids (T-pickups) but we recently had a guy contact us who's been to a few shows and was asking why we didn't. The answer was simple - we'd not had anyone in the past 20 years say that they were having trouble hearing the action on stage, and as a medium sized amateur venue seating just 250 on a raked auditorium that isn't a massive surprise. However, he told us that when he'd been to shows lately he counted maybe 1 in 4 punters had some sort of hearing aid (that does sound a little high if I'm honest) but he said that he and his also hard of hearing friend WERE struggling at times to hear what was going on. He then brought in a rack-mounted loop amplifier he'd borrowed for us to have a trial with. From memory it is a Signet AVX PDA1000 older model. We did a very rough experiment with running a simple 1.5mm single insulated wire from the amp in the booth around the floor of the auditorium and back. This gave him actually a very good pickup on his hearing aid, so an initial success. So we discussed options for running it under the seating, where we can, but that as a short term measure was going to be a bit time consuming - and as we have a show in this week it wasn't going to happen immediately. We then tried a large loop coming out of the booth and around the back auditorium wall, so this loop was at 90 degrees to the floor - this surprisingly gave him a good pickup for about 6 or 7 rows from the back, and as that was a less intrusive and simpler way of doing a temporary job we left that in as the chap was due in for opening night on Tuesday. However, we did notice that using either of the loop paths we did pick up the signal being sent to the loop as a low inductive signal on both of the control room amps, including the one over the LX desk. Whilst not a huge surprise - after all, we'd just created a large aerial transmitting RF - I was surprised how clear it was, even in the background. So - the question is - how can we isolate that signal from being picked up? Different cable? Some sort of screening? If so how/where? Cheers

I've been saying this for years, and have spoken to several DJs I know about this increasingly risky practice - though sadly with most of them the conversation fell on deaf ears. I just make sure that wherever possible if I'm at an event where the DJ has one me and mine are sitting out of the field and my family in particular are wary of the dangers...

That's actually FAR more restrictive that I thought it would be. Might be worth taking a different approach... https://noveltybanknotes.com/download-novelty-banknotes/

Why is weight a problem? If you have fixing points on girders (which presumably have SWL on them) then 7 kilos is not really that heavy...

That's always been the problem.I have a stack of tabs, legs & borders in our stores because trying to get them cleaned/repaired to the same required standard after a few years' use for anywhere near the replacement cost has proven pretty nigh on impossible. Even if you're paying 50% or so of new cost it's probably not worth it as re-treatment will never be as good as the original.

You're all very likely correct in that the budget's never going to fit this type of event - I know it was a likely fruitless enquiry, but you never know... :)

My niece is doing a small scale show in the local co-op hall, which has a stage but no tiered seating options. She's asked me if I might be able to find any supplier who could supply within her limited budget - she's googled quite a few midlands based companies but the best she's found is around £1500 to £2000, which for a small one-nighter is well out of reach. It's not my area of experience so I thought I'd seek any input from the BR Hive. I doubt anything is likely to be viable, as it is a pretty niche market, but worth an enquiry.

I'm probably not going to get anyone else to go along with that idea. I do like some of the iPad based POS systems I've seen, but as we've not long had a new till I don't think the idea of replacing it will go down well. No - we don't use it for breaking down bar takings - I meant we have product IDs for Bar takings (that's just one option) Box Office sales for each individual show (so that's loads of options) Concessions sales (again just one option) One or two other specified sales options. When the bar staff ring in the sales on the tills using the EPOS buttons they then take that total over to the iZettle iPad and simply hit the 'Bar sales' icon and the amount and the iZettle card reader fires up - pretty simple and quick.

We use iZettle at my venue for box office and bar takings. Yes, it is tied to a tablet or phone which uses the venue's wifi but if you can spring for a second hand iPad (has to be later than iPad 2, though) it's a great little system. You can set products up easily so the web based app can then give you reports on exactly which product was purchased etc.

Edited to add a Youtube link. Vimeo works fine for me but maybe that's cos it's mine and I'm logged in. Both versions are public though so not sure why...

Well. Thought I'd update you all on this one. Show week for Chess is upon us, and after several weeks of planning, testing, re-planning, building, soldering and cursing (as well as several VERY late nights over the last week or so we opened on Tuesday with a (mostly) working chess floor. https://vimeo.com/user5829581/review/371918625/d7e92eb45c https://youtu.be/nbG7S_XkVkU It's been a long and stressful road but I have to say we have a winner. The show runs til tomorrow, and we've made tweaks/fixes every day so far until today but the impact on first night was high :) It is very much a custom creation - 16 frames of 3x2 timber on edge with 6mm MDF bases. Each frame gas 4 squares. Each 450x450mm square has 48 LEDs around the perimeter in Mengcore WS2812B tape. In the centre of each square is a section of cardboard (carpet roll) tube as centre support which then has 11 LEDs around the outer rim, 10 inside the inner. So a total of 69 LEDs per square. The flooring itself is 8mm shatterproof polycarbonate in 16 900x900mm sheets - one per 4-way box. Sandwiched between the poly and the timber is a sheet of Lee 251R diffusion gel and they sit on strips of 40mm wide carpet underlay to give the structure some cushioning. Control is via 4 Arduino Mega boxes - one per two rows of squares - with custom DMX software and LED assignments (That's not my bit, I'm not that good at programming! ) Power is from 8 x 30A 5V PSUs, with the 5v rails terminated at both ends of the tape to reduce volts drop over the 552 LEDs in the run. It has been a labour of love (and hate) and we've learned a LOT as we've gone through the process. Not cheap either - I reckon the final roundup will be around £3k - but we do have a couple of other local events that may want to hire it from us soon (I think I mentioned SNF in the OP) but we will need to make it a bit less Heath Robinson before then (June 2020). It certainly does the job we want it to do and has given us conversation starters in the bar post show.

Maybe to save confusion take a photo of what's actually plugged in to the back of the 300 processor unit?

Having just had conversations with the supplier it does appear that if we want to link into our existing wired system (which we would) then we DO have to look at buying a hub in the package...

Sounds like it's time to look for a new tech support company.Whilst the kit may now be old (you should probably investigate replacing the console at least) the dimmers may very well be servicable. And if you ring around a few companies and ask a) if they have any staff with exp on the Strand 300/500 series and b) if they'd come take a look-see you may be surprised.

You may be misunderstanding things (or I'm misunderstanding exactly what you're saying). Each DMX universe outputs ALL 512 channels of information and sends it to EVERY device that s connected to the universe output. That won't matter whether it's on the XLR5 socket on the processor or sent via Shownet (unless Shownet does something very strange, which I don't believe it does). Each device - be that dimmer rack or LED lantern - picks up the relevant data from that stream by virtue of the address set on the device. When you say 'mapped' therefore I must assume your'e referring to the CHANNEL assignment in the patch screen. So I think it may be relevant for you to differentiate between the two - DMX value being what the dimmers or LEDs are set at and CHANNEL numbers being the numbers you type into the command line to select those fixtures/dimmers once they are patched correctly. That said, I doubt your LEDs are single channel DMX, so 1 to 301 and 2 to 302 shouldn't work - so maybe there's something else amiss there. What I suggested was (after saving your existing show) creating a brand NEW show file with everything then set at default and patching the whole setup as CH1 to DMX1, 2 to 2, 3 to 3 etc. Then (after confirming what your dimmer racks' start address is set to) selecting those channels and trying again.

Hmmm... Quick lesson on DMX - each of the 2 DMX 'out' sockets will deliver a FULL universe of 512 channels, so not quite sure where your idea of a 'network DMX' being specific channels is coming from. TBH it's been years since I played with the Strand setups, butt= the principles of DMX haven't changed. It sounds as though you MAY have 2 consoles linked to the processor - one in the main house the other in the other classroom maybe? It MAY have been then that dimmer channels (ie DMX channels connected to dimmers) were assigned to the two rooms exclusively which sounds a little unusual, but I guess maybe not totally impractical in a shared facility. BUT that wouldn't stop a console in either space from accessing all 512 channels of DMX on both universes. Anyhow, the only thing that might affect how the console affects the dimmer operation is perhaps being set as a 'switch' in the patch (I think the Strand protocol allowed that). Try loading a completely new show file with 1 to 1 patching and see if that fixes it. Otherwise I'd check the settings on the dimmers themselves - I don't recognise the pic you posted but many dimmers do have the facility in setup to have some or all channels set to hard-power instead of dim. That would mean someone else will have gone in and made the change as it's highly unlikely it would happen all on its lonesome.

Fair observation.That did include the hub, so extra expense. And actually I can't envisage ever needing more than 5 sets (barring any going faulty) What I am keen to know is how robust they are, as well as actual detail of how good the range is. Another must is the audibility over the cans when you have a band in full tilt above you. Some kit I've had in just doesn't cope with that as well as a good old wired Tecpro system...

One of my guys has asked about the Nymrod wireless cans system - Eartec Ultralite - which seems to be a doable budget option to add wire free talkback on stage, but as with all things, if it looks too good to be true it may well be... :) So - does anyone on here have any actual physical experience with Nymrod gear? At around £1500 for the hub, I/f and 4 sets of cans it beats the last figure (was around £4 or £5k I recall) I looked at... Thoughts?

Just sent you the e-mail address for my Stage LX rep, Andy - give him a shout and he'll give you a price.

Really?I bought ours through my friendly neighbourhood Stage LX rep. Where are you based?

Further to my post replying to your other topic, when it became clear that we're not going to get spares any longer for the Staggs we have I looked at a number of options. And whilst not a COB fixture, we've now replaced the majority of those older lanterns with Chauvet EVE P-130 - looking very good since we added to the grid over the summer. And they come with magnetic lenses that clip nicely on the business end to give either 25 or 45 degree beams.