Stuart91

If Excel is a bit limiting then Filemaker might be worth a look. It has its own limitations, but generating reports etc. can be done quite easily. There's probably an existing template that you could modify to suit your requirements. Are you the only user of the asset management solution, or are you needing multiple networked users who can all test equipment or check it in/out?

You could just reproduce an out-of-phase version of the spill from the gig. Instant silence! :P

Since the thread has been resurrected, I may as well update everyone. We ran the stage at the festival for 2017 and 2018. The council relented a little, and allowed us 10dB over ambient noise at the nearest properties, which was still tricky but allowed us a little headroom. The complainer-in-chief wasn't nearly as vocal as he had been the first year. I suspect that someone from the local community may have had a quiet word with him, but I'm not sure. Either way, it was a big improvement on the first year when he complained vociferously and nearly started a fist fight with the stage manager. The cardioid subs that I used helped considerably. Measured roughly 20dB less bass behind the stage. One drawback is that it was a bit more dead on stage, so performers had to be persuaded to keep amps and monitor levels down. We noticed that the complaints we did get were closely linked to the style of music. The brass ensemble that I'd been worrying about were predictably loud (and brought their own engineer, so I had less control than usual) but got no complaints at all. A young guitar band (think Arctic Monkeys) were a good 6dB quieter, but got many more complaints. People just don't like the sound of a distorted electric guitar...

Many lower-end LED fixtures will automatically transmit DMX as soon as they are turned on (and will only stop once they start receiving DMX). So with the wireless receivers, what you need to do it turn it on and wait for the indicator LED to start flashing green, before plugging it into the XLR socket on the first light in the chain.

Another amateur welder here. A few years ago I bought a Kempi MIG unit - roughly similar to this. First project was some fencing and it's been used for quite a few things since. You do start finding uses for a machine once you have it on hand! With no training (just some quick instruction from a friend) I've been able to get welds that are functional, but messy. I don't think I'd use it for anything customer-facing or particularly safety-critical. I suspect with a bit more practice and/or training I'd be able to get a bit better at it but it's hard to justify the time.

One problem that churches have is that typically a purchasing decision is made by a committee, none of whom have any of the knowledge required. It's often an "apples vs oranges" decision where one bidder is proposing the cheapest 100v line columns and someone else is pitching a concert-level PA. I suspect that more often than not they will seek three quotes and go for the middle-priced option with their fingers crossed. Consultancy is a common model in the USA, not so much over here although it is gaining ground. One church brought a consultant in to help decide between their two preferred bidders, they basically couldn't work out why we were coming in £50k under the competition, who had specified l'Acoustic and Christie thoughout. There's obviously a place for that level of kit, the consultant helped them work out whether it was worth the extra spend for them. Of course, politics comes into play too. Budget could get cut so that funds are available for someone else's pet project. One church I know spent massively on sound kit because their organist recommended it. They were terrified that if they didn't keep him happy, he would leave and they would struggle to recruit a replacement.

We have two of the Pulse units. Like the others above me, no problems to report. We're given the usual lamentable assortment of cheap, badly burnt CDRs, and I can't recall any failing. It also seems relatively resistant to skipping. We had one side by side with a much more expensive Sony player, and the Sony was skipping far more easily.

Joe's customer newsletters were fantastic - my particular favourite was one which had a photo of a full trolley of dancefloor panels, embedded in the bonnet of a customer's Audi. There's something very endearing about the lack of corporate spin.

The tricky bit, irrespective of the legislation, is how it would be policed. A worker could easily clock off one job and go straight onto another shift. We'd almost need some personal equivalent of a tachograph to keep track of work and non-work activity. Even that wouldn't go far enough - the guy responsible for the Selby rail crash had been up most of the night before chatting with someone on the phone. Is there any way (short of gross violation of privacy) that we can actually prove that someone is adequately rested when they turn up for work?

That's it in a nutshell. Hopefully someone on the forum will have specific experience with them, but from what I can see of them online they're going to be very similar to most of the other offerings. So warranty / service backup becomes key. Also do you have any local sources to hire in more if required?

If it's just being flown in from a bar, perhaps rig it using thin line (out of sight) so that if someone were to actually hang from the noose, it will come away rather than hold their weight.

The Chris Higgs book is a good starting point if you're coming at this as a novice. Also if you can get yourself subscribed to LSI magazine (or read it online) the regular rigging column is a useful read. There's also details of courses etc. as they come up.

Also, how often are you covering a venue of this size? There's no point buying a bigger system for the sake of a couple of times per year. Factor in storage and maintenance and you'll never make the money back.

If everyone permits me to sidetrack this thread slightly, has anyone any recommendations for a good, small, low fogger? The sort of thing that could fit in a car boot and might be used in a small room or on the corner of a stage for an entrance effect. There's one popular design that ADJ brand "Mr Kool" which is fine in terms of output but reliability hasn't been great. (Due in part, at least, to customer abuse) However I'd be happy to pay more for something more reliable but can't quite justify something Cumulus-sized for small dry hires.

They're for some compartments that are sunk into the floors of our mobile stages. (They're manufactured abroad, so getting international shipping on something as small as this seemed a little silly, and of course the continentals have a completely different name for them)

The Amazon purchases arrived this morning, and look like they'll fit perfectly. Thanks, everyone.

Wow - thanks for the quick responses. That Amazon link looks like it should work - certainly the measurements of the taper line up with the one I have now. Also, in the related items from that Amazon listing is this four way key which looks like it could be quite a useful option.

I'm needing to buy some more of these tools. I don't know the name of them, they are used as keys for a recessed lock. I suspect they might be used on flightcase doors or possibly some scenery, but without a name google isn't any good to me. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Does anything improve if you turn Pilot Tone off?

+1 for Alister's recommendation of the Unique. We've had two for some years, I think all that's needed done is a pump replaced on one of them at some point. I've also been quite impressed by the Chauvet AmHaze. They're very quiet and minimum output is very low - ideal when you need just a touch of haze in the air, or in a small venue. It's quite convenient for us to have the hazer packaged inside a flightcase rather than having to buy a separate case.

I had a similar episode last summer where a gig was pulled on the basis of some distant thunder. There wasn't anything authoritative to refer to - googling on the day was turning up mainly American sources that aren't very relevant to our weather patterns. So it's very welcome to have this guidance in place.

I've got a customer who is hiring a cinema to put on events. They have an enormous screen, the width of the room, which isn't really needed for any actual visual content. Meanwhile they are trying to put on something not unlike a typical rock show. The usual concert lighting approach is drastically curtailed by the complete ban on any smoke or haze. They are really keen on the look of beams behind the performers, which of course isn't going to be possible. It would make sense to use the cinema screen as a video backdrop, and if it matches the look that they are aiming for, then so much the better. What I'm wondering is if, rather than just using stock footage, they could use a visualiser program to essentially have a "virtual lightshow" on the screen. The main advantage that I can see is that it could be triggered from the same console as their regular lighting, so everything matches. Of course, this will only work if the visualiser can render quickly enough to keep up with the lighting op stabbing flash buttons etc. I've only really dabbled with visualisers in the past, and am quite out of touch with what current offerings are capable of. Does this sound like a feasible idea, or would we be better to look at something else?

There has been some work on this, it used to be that 100+hr weeks were common for Junior Doctors, but most posts now follow the european working time directive. It involved some cultural change too - the long shifts were seen as a rite of passage by senior staff. I suspect that our industry has a particular problem because of the perceived glamour and excitement. You don't catch many in, for example, the building trade pulling those kind of hours - they all clock off at 4pm on the dot in my experience. However if a young engineer has got his (or her) first touring gig, and objects to the hours, you can bet they'd be instantly replaced with another bright-eyed hopeful. The problem isn't just related to rock'n'roll, small self-driving theatre tours can be equally demanding. I have a friend who has been put off getting a driving licence because he knows that the minute he passes his test he'll be handed the keys to a splitter van and sent off on tour. The lack of licence has meant that the promoters have had to hire a separate person to do the driving which has suited him just fine.

<Devil's Advocate> Let's say there's an accident in someone's venue. The direct cause is a mistake by touring crew, but questions are asked of the venue staff and management. If fatigue is a factor, then how does the "responsible person" prove that they checked everyone was fit to work? There's no empirical test for tiredness, and if you quiz them about their schedule, they will learn to lie about it. There'd need to be an industry-wide clocking in system, an equivalent of tachographs, and without legal enforcement it just wouldn't work. You could make the argument that a tired rigger has similar capacity for catastrophe as a tired truck driver so it's probably not horribly disproportionate. </Devil's Advocate>

Those look identical to this: https://cpc.farnell.com/pro-signal/psg08241/stereo-headphonesmicrophone/dp/AV12752 Plus £1 or so for a cheap 4 pin XLR. I've made some up recently, was a bit of a fiddle but the wire isn't too bad - certainly easier than some of the radio mic headsets I've had to reterminate in the past.