J Pearce

Sports has the advantage that generally most of the fans are coming from one location (the home of the away team) and most stadia are city centre based, so charter trains work well. Most festivals are on greenfield sites in rural locations, so a train means a change to a shuttle bus, and the attendees are coming from a wide range of locations. If you're doing dedicated transport as a charter service it makes more sense for it to finish on the festival site, rather than dumping 500+ attendees off a train into a railway station to wait for shuttle buses. Thus, many festivals run buses/coaches from major city centres to their sites. However one I attended this year had to turn several of their coaches into minibuses due to low take-up. The fuss of getting into a city with camping gear etc. to get the coach meant that most folk went straight to the festival site instead. Events with a younger age profile generally do better with coaches, as parents will drop them at the coach pickup rather than take them all the way to the event. As a contrary to everything I've just said, they do bolster train services for some horse racing events, which don't have the home/away planning advantage that football/rugby has.

The wayback machine has the datasheet archived, which looks to have the data you need.

Surely the rubber bung issue would have shown up on the test fire that you undertook when first using a new product?

You'd likely do better using IEM type wireless links rather than bluetooth. Bluetooth doesn't handle one-to-many particularly well, and also has latency, which could be an issue. You could have one IEM transmitter and multiple receivers (battery or mains powered) listening to the same frequency.

Rode do headsets now. Not tried them, but their lav mics are fine. Not a DPA, but need less work than a CPC/SubZero.

Rent in a production switcher and a human who knows how to use one. While they're there get them to show you. In terms of software, QLab could do it, but with noticeable latency on the live inputs - it wouldn't be my first choice. You'd need a mac with 4k output - otherwise, as discussed above, you'll have really low resolution. We're all assuming your LED wall processor can handle a surface of this aspect ratio at a sensible resolution, is this the case? QLab also really wants to work in a linear cuestack fashion, which can be quite restrictive in a more conference type setting, which is why people usually use a production switcher. You could possibly use a matrix switch to do something a bit simpler, more restrictive, and all over a bit bodgy. Input A is Logo Left, Input B is Logo Right, (choose how you source these), Input 3 is the Atem Mini. Output A is Left, Output B is right. For preshow you'd setup a scene that had A-A and B-B, then have a show scene that was C-A and C-B. Once you've got a canvas this wide, if you've got the proper kit you can do much more interesting things. Powerpoint left/right, a logo centre behind the speaker, and a tagline or hashtag etc. across the bottom. Or have live camera left/right, and the powerpoint in the middle, with event themed background/framing. There's some good examples in the manual for the Barco PDS4K that was recommended upthread.

The proper version of this is Disguise or QLab or a-n-other media server system. Many of these will also accept a live video input (QLab could use the ATEM mini on USB on a camera cue, Disguise you'd probably take the HDMI out via a SDI adapter then SDI into the server if you've got one of the servers with SDI input) - however, you'd incur a significant latency in doing so, and you'd be much better just renting a proper presentation switch and doing it properly...

At Birmingham Rep we are seeking to recruit a Deputy Head of Sound & AV, following an unsuccessful recruitment process earlier in the year. We are looking for someone with considerable experience in producing new theatre shows, with a focus on production sound/video skills and experience. Headlines are £30, 521.40 per annum, 39hrs/wk annualised, plus some extra 'BECTU' payments as appropriate. Full details and application form at https://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/about-us/jobs-vacancies/ I am very happy to discuss on an informal basis, drop me an email on jonathan.pearce@birmingham-rep.co.uk

Bit of an odd perspective looking up at it, but hopefully shows the principle.

Adding to the info - Flightcase warehouse do an offcuts box that can be handy to have for bodging bits.

I'll try to get a photo of our scaff contraption tomorrow (not in today). Lots of great points from others!

We’ve got a nifty frame thing at work that has barbs that allow scaff poles in easily but prevents escaping poles. It’s only 20mm box, so if you’ve got a square, a grinder, a welder, and a human who can use those you could easily make something similar.

If you have the height, vertical storage works well. Always lock them in with a frame or chain etc. Stillages with dividers works well for shorter lengths. Bays per length works well for organising lengths. If you don't have the height, but have a long wall spare, then unistrut up the wall, unistrut booms out from that, and store them horizontally. Put something on the end of the boom to retain them!

Can't you just put the thread through the yoke of the floodlight then put a nut on? (Or have I missed something?). A lot of spigots work this way, as do the excellent Supaclamps. The socket then stays on the item for speedy setup.

That would make sense. The sets I bought were purchased in 2010. For basic speakers-on-sticks deployment they're a good solution. I used them for playback, speeches, vocal amplification, stage foldback, and outfills to a larger system - and had no complaints or issues with them. They're not a d&b Y10 or an EM Acoustics R8, but they also cost a lot less and have the amps onboard.

The Jands/Chroma Q Stage-CL provides an interesting control layout for folks who really just want a fader per light - per channel it has a fader, a hue dial, and a saturation dial. Effects can be accessed by a touchscreen. It can do fancier things, but for sitting in a corner and letting folk setup a scene on some non-mover LEDs it's quite a user-friendly option.

I had some at a previous job. Punchy, great vocal quality. Nicely packaged and easy to use. Wants a sub for any real sense of bass extension (we used the SBa760, but I think that's discontinued now). Not heard the equivalent iQ so can't provide a comparison.

@TeeJay - yes, sorry read this as if the OP was in the management team. Now I re-read it seems they may well be in the crew team.

From the BECTU-TMA agreement. If you're not a BECTU house then ultimately it comes down to the contract between their producer/booking agent and your booker/producer.

After checking settings and resyncing my next point of suspicion would be the antenna, but usually with a faulty antenna you see some RF coming out of the pack. I have seen packs do odd things after getting very sweat soaked, which has cleared up after a good internal clean.

The solution du-jour is probably a 30k projector with noise levels adjacent to a A380 at take-off thrust, with a server rack to feed content to it. But it's not halogen, so it's sustainable...

The best I managed on that front was many years ago on a rather dire amdram production of Sound of Music in a church, where the MD had decided to use the organ for some of the numbers. By the nature of amdram we never managed to rehearse both the organ and the lighting at the same time, and so on the first show the organist issued forth a large chord, the blower responded to demand, and the whole place blacked out. (They also used a real blindfold and the actor got lost and fell off the stage landing through the violin player’s violin - I was altogether rather happy when the show finished…)

I’d be more concerned about the risk of being dazzled and falling over something than the risk of sight damage. Video has comparable brightness to stage lighting.

Rattle guns that didn't make such a brain halting racket. I've probably lost a whole working hour today to waiting for rattle guns to stop so I can communicate and even just assemble thoughts.

Talk to Optikinetics. They have various gobo projecting solutions, many of which will probably take a laser printed acetate gobo for short term usage.