paulears

We've just decided to cancel one theatre show our band had in June - the venue got in touch and asked if we wanted to still do it with 50%, and frankly, we don't. 70% of 50% won't cover two cars and a van, 5 people and three hotel rooms. And that is assuming a full house - this venue usually runs at around 90% capacity for shows like ours.

So it's a screen hurried in the floor - I probably needed to know that before the final questions. My venue has ALL of those flooring types, not just one, but the expense of putting a new 13A outlet in is considerable, so unless it's a new build, I fail to see how it could be retrofitted. Concrete floors would be a killer, and the cabling for all of them a real problem, unless they charge from available light and are wifi. You gave no technical info at all - and I fail to see how a supervisor let this questionnaire past the quality checking stage. It won't produce any sensible data at all.

Not been to a decent exhibition for years!

Fred joined, asked a question and then apart from a visit a few days back - never even posted a response - I suspect we've all rather wasted our time.

3 years but how much at home on the end of a zoom call? There are lots of skilled theatre people out of work now, when things get going again - these people are going to be in demand. Lots of venues don't exist any more and it will take a long time for this industry to recover. I know that if it was me starting out now - seeing how this industry was simply abandonned, I think an aprenticeship in a non-entertainment trade is worth far, far more. These trades are always in demand, but with hand on heart, if I had kids to guide, I'd be 100% against them going into this business, and the reputation of even the best universities is suspect now - we will have people graduating never having worked on real shows, never being attached to a busy working venue, and probably never actually touching some equipment. Given the choice of a graduate or somebody with experience of work - the graduates don't, sadly, stand much of a chance. If by some miracle my own theatre ever opens again, I can get a crew and spares so easily - I've had speculative CVs from some really good people. Normally where I live, it's think on these people, but not now. Being a plumber, electrician, painter - all mean you can work in theatre if you are keen - the venues when they start taking on people will take the most experienced and useful people. Those with just one skill area will not be very attractive.

You had to carefully how you would do things - and it was often very tricky to do somethings Directors asked for. Strand would often custom build controls so they fitted a room's dimensions - but you'd end up with ergonomic problems - so maybe with a preset desk you'd need to always do some cues manually on a live preset to keep one of the others safe for a cue many numbers away that was too difficult. You'd even have trouble with a very simple cue that required ch1 to go up with channel 60 but ch 30 to go down. I can't speak for others but I'd sometimes tweak cues away from the LD or Director's spec to be able to do it - and even run huge long cables to swap (in my example) ch 60's socket to ch 2's socket, so could actually do the cue. Daft things really. I always wanted a pin patch.

There is a history element to this evolution too. To view them as things that did so little, reveals a little misunderstanding of how controls evolved - especially in the bigger theatres. The two preset desk was a huge problem solver. remember that before they appeared going from cue to cue was far from simple - even with the lowliest wall full of slider resistance dimmers. Let's say you had a wonderful installation of 12 resistance dimmers, and wanted to go from odd numbers on to even numbers on - impossible - so a patch could be done to put even numbers to one side, odd numbers to the other - so two bits of wood could do that cue - so real planning was needed. The thyristor dimmers and two presets was a HUGE jump forwards. The bigger theatres saw the advantages and upped the dimmer count. This came with a new problem - two presets became the limiter, so they tried 3 presets which worked for a while, and then as lighting possibilities altered the designs, even three became a bottleneck. Then each preset could have an A or B fader so channels were split further. The new problem was simply time. Your cue sheet as an operator had grids - 1@3, 3@F, 4@2, 5 thru10 @F etc etc. The snag was time to set them up. With 24, maybe 36 faders, on three presets, it was doable, but 4 cues in quick succession meant sub cues - I remember a friend cutting little templates out of thick cardboard and then you could snap off the fingers of channels that didn't have to move and poke the rest with the cardboard. However, on 60 channels and above, even with three presets and subdividing these, setting up the next cue became a problem - sometimes an extra crew member was needed to help preset a series of complex cues. The ability to press record was a massive step forward. Being able to record a state by simply pressing a button saved such a lot of time. Controls had a new feature - the ability to run complex cues quickly. Nowadays we have massive ability to tweak and modify the cues, but it was, in theatre, for many years to build up lighting states from scratch, or to simply modify one cue into a new one. Even adding record cue 22 at 5 seconds was hugely welcomed. Most people who grew up on memory controls that can do so much forget the early radical evolution, and dismiss many of the early features as 'quaint' and unimportant. These, by moderns standards, very basic memory controls were a game changer for the British larger receiving houses. The price - though maybe outrageous to us now, was simply good value back then. Maybe comparing out to wages is a bad move. After all, a Philips 550 22" TV was £269 in the late 70s/early 80s - at that time I earned £20 a week. A walkie talkie cost £169 for the cheapest one with 2 channels.

I only remember using one Berkey control - the Channel Track (I think) that had been installed at the Theatre Royal in Norwich. It had a horrible crossfader - which was like visible PCB pads you moved your finger along - and I think my fingers must have been greasy, but every fade was stuttery and horrible. Mind you - while we're talking about the price for the old Strand equipment. My summer theatre still has the original 3 STM dimmer racks powered up and left on 24/7 and they've been on to my knowledge for at least 9 years, keeping them warm through the long damp salty closed season. Still 40+ channels still working out of the 60 that were originally put in for the SP60, that's in the 1969 catalogue. They may well have cost a fortune - but if you divide it by the lifespan, that's probably very good value!

Alan - the thing to remember is that there never were in those days off-the-shelf prices, not even guide prices for the top end controls because while the smaller venues would buy a new brand new semi-mass produced control desk, many of the larger ones were individually priced, and individually made. The most expensive had perhaps dozens of sales. The resource mentioned has the information on the controls used in many theatres I'm thinking JP, SP and LP - the LP range being the most sophisticated in the late 60s early 70s. Above that, made to measure. An LP80 channel was over seven grand in 1969. The average skilled theatre worker earned about £25 per week based on the average of different skill job roles I found on Government sites - so if you do the maths this equates to over a hundred grand now, for an 80 channel, manual control - seven grand was a lot of money, and look back to average ticket price and it's shock. what I find more interesting is the difference between manual controls and the new thyristor dimmer ones - a Junior Sunset - a massive and majorly heavy beast was 'only' £500. Technology is now ridiculously cheap. A 1K flood was a week's wages. Wow!

Your googling needs some work. Start here. Info price lists and other info. http://www.theatrecrafts.com/pages/home/archive/manufacturers/detail/?id=1

The snag with buildings is that noise leakage always comes from the weak links, so you look at big chunky solid walls, then see the windows and they get the blame - but often the roof is totally forgotten about. You get the outer layer made of waterproof materials, then you get the decorative ceiling you see from inside. Separating the two is often a totally uninsulated void. So the bass, which is what people usually complain about has to pass through plasterboard, or even lighter weight products, and then whatever keeps the water out. In the roof space of my venue, made of asbestos panels, when a band is on, it's loud up there - loud enough to make speaking difficult, and it isn't even just bass - I'd guess plenty at 10-12K, that's managed to get through the ceiling. It then has a 6mm roof panel made of asbestos before lurching into the outside world. Churches have the same issues. Air Lyndhurst is a good example of what can be done with a studio with lots and lots of windows. Layers of double glazing can be made to work very well, once you find and solve the weak links. Glass can be perfectly usable, but you do need experts. I've turned down a studio build when it was clear to me that there were too many compromises to guarantee the performance. I'm no expert on acoustics, but I can read the specs and I can build - but the six studios I have built all had acoustic leakage. Most were 'curable', but a few I dropped a real clanger - I assumed that double glazing temperature isolation linked to sound isolation, and they don't. Excellent insulation values, but the damn frames were as leaky as hell - They were not solid timber but rigid foam PVC with wood look on the outer. Loads of bubbles inside why worked great for temperature control, but let sound through. The sliding patio doors were great and surprisingly good on isolation, but the frames spoiled the entire thing. Even real acoustic firms can be a let down - if they specialise in say hotel meeting room isolation - then they are looking at speech isolation - limited bandwidth stuff. A pile of subs may well be totally outside their experience - so always worth checking.

The realistic viewpoint, Fred, is that most venues do now have systems to keep the places safe (or safer) than they were, but of course many venues are still terrible. Health and Safety is a two things - a system to keep people's health good, and make sure everyone is safe, but sadly, it's also the dreaded Health and Safety tag stuck on everything nowadays and frequently blamed for everything, and often run by idiots. In your College, Fred, you will have all kinds of rules - and many of them will be stupid. Put in place by people who really don't understand the purpose of the legislation. So in Colleges in the 90's when I started teaching, the students could do what people did in work - quite safely in most places I'm aware of, then these perfectly sensible things were decreed as unsafe - ladders got removed, lights couldn't be hung, sockets were not able to be used - even putting plugs on was banned in one college I know of. Theatres simply put in rules and systems that enabled them to carry on doing what they did before. Some venues still don't understand the way things should be done. Some had rules put in place, but then the staff had to break them as a matter of course. I know one that decided anything over 25Kg weight was a two-man(person) lift, yet they rostered single people, who had to lift stuff on their own, because the jobs needed doing. I'm guessing this is for some kind of assignment? What is for certain is that pre-2000, theatres were not dangerous places that are now safe. Most were safe anyway, and all that has happened is that people record, and assess, and re-assess and monitor. If things were dangerous, even before the paperwork became God, reputable venues sorted these thing out. If you have specific questions ask away.

A huge shame - Elaine left a while back and we got on very well, even being interviewed by the Police for our unlicensed importation of pyro into Northern Ireland!

My sister lives in France and she's always one to follow rules - so her car, the motor home and the motorbike all have French registrations and French insurance. They have a French medical card - all sorted before we even left the EU. Their friends who did the same, still have the UK reg number, the UK insurance and their NHS EU medical card. They're stuffed! They cannot get the car insured because it's British and they will have to import it into France legally to insure and licence it. They missed the boat and have to pay for medical treatment. They're also not officially resident, so the same status as the folk who come into the UK on the boats. They're squatting in a foreign country. Quite scary really!

I'm having to take it on the chin - I was wrong. I voted to leave. I had a choice and clearly made the wrong one. Got offered a little job and discovered the carnet I need is more than the budget can stand. It was a gamble anyway with travel restrictions, but would have been nice. The band's foreign trips will be no more too. My own MP Kerry is a fella called Peter Aldous, not the one you mentioned. Most of the negatives we now have, I don't think I was aware of - I don't know why. Maybe it's time to think about retirement? Oddly my covid swap of business focus is actually working, and it doesn't involve remotely the same effort!

Maybe - but it should be a two way street. The UK touring market will suffer if we cannot go to EU, but equally when they come here, they expect access. Are we requiring visas? It looks to me like Tui are blaming Brexit, but plenty of holiday locations are outside Europe, and visa processing is part of what holiday firms do all the time - excluding the UK is grossly unfair - and of course the recruitment is usually done by a UK company, who now find themselves excluding UK citizens. I think it's discrimination - others will disagree.

On Facebook, Tui are looking for overseas resort technicians - but UK passport holders are not acceptable. Considering a large majority of their customers are Brits, there is a double standard here.

I used to have a couple of Sanyo XPs until some scroat at the theatre 'accidentally' took them during an out and I didn;t notice for three weeks. Thanks for the suggestions - Maybe I can fond a couple of identical Sanyos or Epsons. It's finding two cheap ones that's the snag.

Can anyboady recommend a cheap, probably unbranded projector that I can buy a pair of for a project. Primary requirement is bright and wide as projectors will be fairly close - input from HDMI. Sound unimportant and manual focus and zoom would be fine - no requirement for cleverness or even long life. Something I can order from Amazon would be nice. There are some I've seen but at the cheap end, the specs are probably suspect - so if anyone has one they think OK, I'd rather take a recommendation here than from the idiots on Youtube who mostly get impressed by anything that light comes out of, and say everything is amazing.

The radio is in a Peli-style case with radio, battery pack with 4 cells inside, and the paower supply all ni separate sections of the case, so I think UN3481 applies. I wonder what has changed that it's suddenly become a problem. All my other radios have no-replaceable cells in the packs - as in soldered and sealed. This one opens up and has 4 cutouts in a rubber block where the cells pop in - not the usual touch each other, and end to end with spring and prong approach - 4 purpose made holes the batteries push into. Closing the case provides the link between them with the contact to put them in series moulded into the screw on lid.

I reordered some radios today - I buy them in either 3's or 5's and they sell for £250 - with one battery pack which is a user replaceable cell pack - it comes with 4 cells normally, but the pack can be opened up and different capacity cells put in if the owner wishes. The factory asked if I'd be willing to have empty battery packs this time and source them locally, but that's pretty expensive. It seems the courier - which I think is Fedex (not UPS) won't take radios with cells in battery packs. They will take hard wired li-ion packs but not these ones. I spent a fruitless half an hour trying to see if I could buy li-ion cells from another of my suppliers, but they've removed them from sale suddenly. I know they're risky, but the freight prices from China are getting crazy too. The price depends on volume as well as weight, and for larger and heavier stuff, I'd buy space in a container from a freight forwarder. 18 months ago - a full container was around £1600 to Felixstowe, It is now nearly £6000, so I've been getting the heavier items via land freight. There is Air freight, Sea freight and now you can do it by train! Bizarre watching packages going through Russia, eventually into Hungary, then through to us - but it's amazingly slow, but is a little cheaper. Some cheap lights now cost more for the freight than the product. 3 radios ordered today were $150 for the freight. It is getting silly. As so much, including big name products come from China, expect some hefty price rises once the new kit is in the system.

I found one LED cluster that fitted in an old Mole soft light - and it's not too bad at all, but I found another in Blond size, and it's a glow worm! The trouble really is just light levels - a real 1KW Fresnel the other day I had paired with the new 100W (IK equivalent - ha ha) LED Fresnel - waving the meter towards the Tungsten got me over 4000Lux, but the LED managed 1100 at the same distance. That's quite a big difference.

In the past few months, handling charges have been very variable - Most expensive was a Fedex one at £20, and cheapest - another Fedex one where they didn't charge anything. Most of my imported items don't attract duty - but a few are misidentified with wrong codes and then it's 4% - it can be very variable and totally unpredictable. I've had two deliveries from one courier that had paperwork on them relating to duty and VAT and have been charged nothing ....... yet. I complained in November to TNT about one shipment. Got the reply yesterday!

Thomann in Germany have this information.

Don't be so silly. No small studio will buy Skypanels for startup. It's simply ridiculous and unnecessary for lots of people's use. Like buying really expensive movers can be. The arri's are wonderful bits of kit, but We've jumped a very long way from repurposing kit in a makeshift studio to 6 grand per panel. It's great to spec expensive kit, having that budget is often not so good. Where's the photography reference come from - I didn't see that? Who's expectations, exactly? Makeshift studio and 6 grand a light seem poor partners. By the way, professional does NOT have to mean premiere kit, in a premiere space, charging premiere fees - sometimes it's about being cost effective.