Stuart91

Lots of good suggestions here. We've done that for some boxes, e.g. plastic crates that don't have enough space to hold a full tour label. However I suspect that, on the sides, there'd be more change of a thicker tour label getting scraped off. Plus we don't need to re-write anything, this is for briefcases and small flight cases where the contents are permanent. (A tour label on the top face is used for job/venue etc.) Looks like a very capable machine. At 4 inches wide, it's bigger than I think we'd need. (Current 50mm gaffa solution is ~2 inches) Unfortunately for me (but understandably) most online resellers etc. concentrate on paper shipping labels etc. Makes sense as this is a far larger market than the sort of thing I'm looking to do. I think you're right, I'd need to call and discuss with them as they do such a huge range. Definitely worth following up though - thanks. I've got a colour laser on hand, this might be a good way to test the concept before dropping the money on a proper printer.

I'm in the process of reorganising some of our stock, and I would like to move away from the "Sharpie scrawled on white gaffa" method of labelling things like briefcases. We already have a couple of Rhino label printers, which are fine but a bit on the small side for this kind of task. Ideally I'd go for something close to the same width as gaffa, so ideally 50mm but a little smaller would be OK. The labels would have to have quite aggressive adhesive, and it doesn't really matter whether the labeller itself is a handheld unit or a desktop design that hooks up to a computer. Does anyone have any models etc. that they could recommend? (P.S. we are already using tour labels on top of cases, this labelling is more for the ends etc. so smaller cases can be easily identified on shelves)

Thanks, everyone. I'm in conversation with Alistage at the moment, what we'd be looking for probably wouldn't fit one of their standard product lines but I'll be interested to see if a custom job is possible. The Prolyte and Total systems are all a little too high - we're aiming for around the 50cm mark. Again, though a custom option might be a possibility.

Another option might be unistrut.

That's a nice bit of lateral thinking, but I'm not sure it would work. The challenge with conventional "leg savers" is that the deck needs to be lifted straight up, at least until the sockets clear the pegs. This is fine at the edges, but more difficult where decks butt up against their neighbours. A T-handle of some kind might be a possibility, the main objection from the end users is that stretching over to lift isn't ideal. When I deal with it myself I just crawl underneath and lift straight up, but they'e not up for that kind of manoeuvre. The attraction of the framed design is that the decks are just sitting inside a lip, and are lighter in general since the edging and support structure is separate.

I've got a minor conundrum with a particular client. They are looking for a modular stage that they can build on uneven ground, but are very strict on manual handling. For one event, we supplied some Topdeck with leg-saver adaptors and staff jacks. This ticked the box for being adjustable enough to cope with the ground, but failed the manual handling test. One critical part of the operation is lifting the decks clear at the end, the only easy way with the leg savers is to crawl underneath and lift the deck straight up. None of them are up for doing that on a regular basis, so we need to find another solution. I'm aware of some staging designs that use a separate frame round the edges, with lighter decks that drop in the top. This looks like a concept that would work for these folks, but I'm struggling to find anything. The name that I see around is Layher, but they seem to focus on far larger structures. (This is going to be something like 6m x 4m). I've attached a few images below that I found from a random Chinese seller. I'm extremely wary of buying anything like that, but it's a good illustration of the general design. Does anyone know of manufacturers / importers that could supply something similar within the UK?

When I did something similar, I used adhesive-lined heat shrink on the ends, in two layers. One over the cables themselves, and then another on top with the sleeving sandwiched in between. Seemed to work quite well. As Dave says, the tricky bit is applying enough heat to get shrinkage happening, without melting the sleeving. Do this part of the operation before re-terminating the cables...

Direct burial? Less common but might make sense on some greenfield sites.

That was pretty much the conclusion we came to. It doesn't help that the nearest suppliers are a bit of a distance away, if we could buy it around the corner I'd be more likely. The digger is on a two day hire, and I doubt we'd get through 40 litres anyway. We do have proper metal Jerry cans though.

Steering gently back towards the original topic, I hired a mini digger today. They're charging £1.70 per litre for (clear) diesel used and not replaced. Needless to say, we shall be brimming the tank with finest supermarket diesel before returning it.

More ballrooms / venues need an arrangement like that, far too many have high capacity outlets that are next to useless because they're on a single 30mA RCD.

I love the idea of someone triumphantly opening the outer door to let their mates in, only to turn around and see the first door shutting behind them all. The dual doors would also help with noise attenuation too.

In similar fashion, a civic square in a town near me has a well-specced cabinet with ample supply. The council charge more for the use of this than a generator hire, so everybody just hires in a set. Also, access has been outright denied in the past for organisations and events that aren't "politically aligned" with the council.

A friend of mine was stopped by police on the way to a show. In a case of mistaken identity, they thought the van he was driving was stolen, and couldn't be convinced otherwise. He ended up spending time in the cells, missing his gig, until things were resolved. He sued the police, and won. Not sure it'd be worth legal action over a confiscated multitool though.

An employee of mine managed to walk through the metal detector archway at the local passport office, with his Leatherman in a belt pouch. I got a phone call from the police, who asked me to corroborate his explanation. He was en-route to work but had just popped in with some paperwork. It probably helped that he hadn't needed to take much of a detour to visit it, plus he was quite young and definitely didn't look like a hardened criminal. No further action was taken. Meanwhile, in one of today's local papers, there is the case of a joiner who was charged and convicted for having a retractable Stanley knife on his person. However he'd run away at the sight of a police car, reading between the lines he might have been up to something else and the knife charge was the only thing they could get him on.

Thanks, Bryson - that's very useful intel. We'll probably demo a couple at some point, just to confirm how they behave in the space before putting down money. Ian makes a good point about balance - I've that sort of issue before with longer lenses. Thankfully with the LED source scrollers won't be required, but I'll pay close attention to the yoke arrangement.

Optical HDMI is another potentially useful option. They're a bit more "plug and play", in that you don't have any adaptors required. Some of the cheaper cables can be a bit fragile though.

I'm not an accountant but it looks like a legitimate expense to me. Your business is allowed to evolve and transition, and this training is a valid part of that process. Also, HMRC are chronically understaffed at the moment, I would imagine the chances of them picking a fight over this kind of thing are quite low.

Yep, that looks far better than SixTrack. At least if I drop an M8 nut, I've got half a chance of finding it on the carpet. That's tempting, but judging from the price I've just been quoted for Unitrack, UniBeam would be a bit too much of a stretch for us. I'd agree that for larger-scale touring it looks like an ideal solution.

One of the problems affecting the venue I mentioned earlier is that the council issued a decree banning wheelie bins from sitting in the street, apart from immediately before collection. So now the bins are all cluttering the fire exit route. I had to pull them out into the street to clear enough space to load my kit in.

Triple E have been quite responsive to my enquiry, looks like a solid option. (They have already reassured me that they don't use any of the fiddly nuts and bolts) Sunray makes a useful point about the Six-track. Unfortunately it probably wouldn't fit in vehicles (and we'd struggle to get it into storage) in two halves. Chucking the complete halves into a truck would be excellent if that were possible.

I've got a couple of customers who are going to need curtain track installed for shows over the coming year. For one recent run, I sub-hired some Doughty Six-Track which did the job just fine, but was quite fiddly to set up with multiple small nuts and bolts etc. Fine for a permanent installation, but a bit of an annoyance when the track is going in for a week or two and coming back out again. I'd also worry about so many small, yet vital parts just waiting to get lost. The actual curtain arrangement is fairly straightforward, just a pair of front tabs for a stage roughly 10m wide. We own nothing ourselves, and I'm not worried about cross-hire compatibility. I was wondering if there were any better choices available? The basic six-track design doesn't seem to have changed in 20+years. Wentex Eurotrack looks interesting, and a google search turns up loads of other brands. Does anyone have practical experience with other products that would be good for this sort of application?

I was in a relatively upscale hotel a couple of weeks before Christmas, running sound for a function band. The dance floor and stage area was at a dead end of the building, with two fire exits leading off. One remained locked for the duration of the event (the reason given, when I discovered it, was "people get in through it"). The other exit was almost entirely blocked by wheelie bins.

I'm a dealer for both Equinox and ADJ, so inherently biased. 😉 I only have direct experience with the Fusion 100, which seem like they'd hit the mark for you. I expect any of the others would too, so the decision is perhaps down to pricing, availability, local support, etc. (The Chauvet 260 and ADJ Focus seem brighter and more capable, but with a price tag to match, I'm not sure you'd need that level of performance) Do you have any hire companies near you that carry any of these models? It might be worth hiring first to try out, and potentially picking a model that you can hire more of in future if need be.

Roland M200 is a little newer than the M300 but VERY iPad-centric. It has an AES/EBU output on board, but as Cedd mentions above getting Dante integrated with REAC would be quite a task. Not sure if Roland are still selling any audio consoles, if they have dropped the entire range it'll be a great shame.