ImagineerTom

I assume the single sider will be easier/cheaper to have made so I guess that's my preference - if it fits into the 15mm width requirement then it's perfect

It’s into a hand sculpted prop so spacing to within 1/8th is probably fine No connector at the end, ribbon wire straight to track Don’t care where the tracks run. All I care about is the positions and dimensions - how it’s implemented doesn’t really matter

There was a link by the company operating it explaining how it works. Basically they are sending a video feed of the show out to a few hundred homes, they are taking in video feeds from all those homes but pick the ones with the best connection/image and choose something like 40 of those to randomise and tile across the video wall. So whilst it's "faked" it is also real at the same time. They are over-dubbing / laugh track all the audience "noise" though in post; contestants in the studio do get the option of the live audience sound but home viewers only get the faked sound. BBC radio have been testing a system for 2 months now to allow audiences to "dial in" for recordings; a few select shows have been using it and they have already said it's being rolled out across all their live-audience recordings for the rest of this year.

I tried easyeda and got nowhere. The online ordering of jlcpcb asks a whole series of questions I don't even understand let alone have an answer for. This is the first time I've ever needed a custom board making; I doubt I'll ever need another one and since after 2 weeks of trying I still don't understand the basics of how it is all done I don't relish spending several more weeks learning a skill and industry I will probably never use again.

After 2 weeks of tearing my (already thinning) hair out with various circuit board companies I'm looking for suggestions for a company who can design and manufacture an (incredibly simple) board for us. I've tried to get my head around PCB cad programs and failed, the various companies I've spoken to want answers to 200 questions about metal grades and compliance standards I don't even understand and also want an arm and a leg for the finished boards. I've got a "napkin cad" doodle of what we need, it has to be a very specific dimension to fit inside something but the circuit itself is basically 5 led's - we've made a prototype on vero board (it really is stupidly basic) but for durability I would like about 25 of them made properly. Any pointers for someone/somewhere that can deal with an electronic idiot like me and make me the boards without having to remortgage the house?

Before shipping I did independently verify - the OP is a staff member and definitely not a student.

Anyone got a cad plan or key dimensions data for city varieties - no one answering on the tech emails at the moment and just need to check some key dimensions.

We do actually have some flex left over from another show, I don't have much experience in making practical lighting, would I able to use 16amp plugs on the other end? Thanks If you send me a shipping address by private message I'll send you a pile of proper t-junction wire boxes I have. With those and the flex you've already got you'll only need to buy the lampholders, bulbs and a 16amp plug to go on the end of it all.

The House's loss is education's gain

Yes but the problem is neither the industry experts nor the government have, in 6 months, managed to come up with a practical definition of what defines what a business / person who works in the theatre / festival / arts sector actually is (see; all the funding schemes they've launched which miss out huge swaths of the industry) so the idea that they can now suddenly come up with a precise, nuanced criteria that defines an eligible person / business is incredibly optimistic. Add in to this the fact that the gov's #1 priority with just about every policy is to make sure it doesn't look like they're letting anyone cheat the system and you've got a perfect storm of people who can't come up with a realistic definition trying to negotiate with people who aren't interested in anything but ass-covering absolutes. I /wish/ this wasn't the case, I wish there were better support schemes in place (several of us who've applied to the arts council grant scheme spent a lot of time, money and legal advice trying to come up with a way we could carry as many freelancers as possible with us through the scheme and were blocked at every turn by the regularly updated "rules") but this is the reality of the situation we are in and I don't see how lobbying for something that is effectively impossible is a better use of people's time than looking for other solutions which are less impossible.

And the genuine question has to be "how do you define who get the extended schemes" - the government have already proven themselves useless as understanding / quantifying the Theatre / Festival / Events business. How do you word the eligibility so that everyone in the sector gets support and it doesn't become a scheme that other sectors backdoor into. Like it or not that's the most important concern the government will have. "anyone who works in theatre" - what about the people who work across multiple sectors; what percentage of your income has to come from theatre to make you qualify? "actors, crew, technicians" - what about all the job titles that don't fall neatly into those categories; what do they do? Across the whole sector there's thousands of people whose job title (carpenter, electrician, plumber, network supervisor, animator, cameraman, lorry driver, warehouse manager, admin, H&R) doesn't sound in the slightest bit theatrical yet work in the theatre / events industry but could also (in theory) transfer those skills to working in another sector. How do you design the scheme so that it serves the people who need it but also keeps out people from other industries that have the same job titles so that the government don't suffer their greatest fear of 2 weeks of the tabloids running stories about all the people cheating the system?

It’s a recurring problem in ireland that fire officers “can’t read” the french fire retardant certificates of tents and insist on doing an actual burn test to several parts of a tent / bigtop hours before an event is due to open..... Amazingly they often have a relative who could translate the certificates into Gaelic just in time for the event to open at an only slightly unreasonable cost.

He’s the greatest modern panto set designer but the harsh reality is they were actually a Prop company that landed one or two set build gigs per year. It’s sad to see people being made redundant but the company was already on a knife edge and current circumstances pushed them over the edge. Ian is to be applauded for getting out in front of the problem and biting the bullet.

There isn't.... They're great (and widely used) on hotel rooms / cruise ships to stop contamination from one occupant to the next but that is the only protection they offer. As soon as a breathing human comes in shedding bacteria and virus all over the place their effectiveness ends - likewise as soon as any "fogged" surface is cleaned/wiped/condensation the protection goes and high traffic areas (door knobs for instance) again get wiped pretty quickly from usage. Above all they ONLY clear the air at the point of fogging; someone infected walking into a previously fogged room and just breathing heavily will fill the room with infection quite quickly. If they're used to isolate between one occupant and the next they have some use; as soon as more than one occupant/bubble uses the space between fogging they become expensive safety theatre. At best (if used daily) they could be used to provide insulation between an outbreak on different nights - ie if there's an outbreak in tuesdays audience then fogging a venue would probably class as a reasonable way to ensure that no-one visiting on Wednesday would be at risk from Tuesday's infection and so performances could continue but that also depends on ensuring that the people doing the fogging know how to do it properly.

I can mark out the 150 or so points for a bigtop (position of stakes, walls, guylines all to within an inch accuracy) in about an hour by myself. I agree repetitively drawing out 900 identical boxes would be a dull job but looking at the speed the thing moves and rolling in all the pre-planning time and work involved it still seems like a slower and more expensive method. Surely its only real selling point is that /you/ don't have to do the dull job and if you can choose between getting someone else to do it for you or getting bragging rights to your boss that you got a machine with GPS and lasers and satellites and radar to do it you'd be inclined to choose the latter? ETA Looking at the size of the wheels on it it really is only suitable for pitches. That thing on your average farmers field or festival site would be getting stuck constantly

I just don't see how it works financially. The machine itself is clearly a significant capital investment so part of the cost will be the rental of the kit itself, but also having to have your site officially surveyed (website says they have to do a site visit AND get accurate GPS / aerial survey of the location) and then an official CAD plan of your layout created and overlayed to the GPS survey, THEN they turn up with the robot and paint it. It seems to be adding a lot of computerisation and expense to the marking out process that produces a result that's no different to what could be achieved by a vaguely competent groundsman on £100/day? Almost by definition the companies / events that can't afford or care about proper marking out now are the ones who would need this the most but who are the least likely to want to spend £1000+ on buying in the service.

This seems like a technology looking for a use to me? Any school caretaker can mark out a football / rounders pitch with some string, I've yet to meet a festival site manager who couldn't map out a site himself; who exactly is happy to rent a multi-thousand-pounds service to do this?

The next step of "the palladium test" was to have been 1m spacing which got them to 50% capacity and then the step after that full capacity and careful tracking to monitor what level of spread actually occured. Since performance has been granted again now it's highly likely those tests will be done and data collated in plenty of time for the garrick to benefit from the results. The next government announcement about venue re-opening is expected in november - at no point have they ever given an announcement to the effect "in 5 weeks time you can open" so it's a reasonably safe bet that at some point in november there will be a clearly defined next step. It's also worth noticing circus has been out the door for a month now (with social distancing & cleaning measures) and not had any issues so again, by November there's going to be a lot of proven real-world data and experience about what does and doesn't work. The secret to re-opening is having a staff and creative team that can adapt on the fly and be able to present anything from a one-man panto right up to the full spectacular with only a few weeks notice.

I'm not saying that Grantium is a badly designed system but literally the first question you have to answer is "how much are you applying for" whilst the forms, tables & equations you have to use to calculate what that figure is are 6 pages in....

Try buying a vehicle /without/ a taco or getting a carriage to remove one though....

Just out of the PSA webinar about the Arts Council Fund application criteria - We actually tick a lot of their boxes (they give weight to unique business's that take arts to new places so for once being a weird business no-one quite understands is a benefit) which is good for us but it is very very clear from the application questions they have announced so far this fund is intended to keep venues mothballed and ready to re-open and not support smaller business's or suppliers. Being a rental company with the usual stock would actually count against you because by definition you going under wouldn't result in artists being unable to rent that kit from /someone/ . There's also very specific guidance that the funds are to support your paired down business costs only through the stated period (so if you're not putting on a show, you can't claim funding for hiring kit or paying freelancers, only the cost of mothballing the venue or marketing new shows when you re open) and only to plug the gap between the revenue earned and the cost to provide. Aside from financial questions there's a lot of essay writing required where you have to prove your cultural importance, your uniqueness, how you directly support artists and the diversity and ecological benefits to your local community from your survival Finally, with all these caveats you can only apply if you're an incorporated business with solvent trading history and that even after making all the cost savings possible you still have an operating loss of £50k or more over the 6 month funding window. I'm quite sure some suppliers and subcontractors will have a go at making a submission but the funding criteria and questions have definitely been written for the basis of saving important venues and unique suppliers rather than supporting the (much more vital) broader industry.

exactly - two producers we work with had put together several different possible ways to operate this season and it is the chaos and contradiction of Friday's announcements that have made them throw in the towel. Weird but true fact - the official announcement (published late on Friday) releasing some of Leicester's lock-down specifically says that Theatre's & Cinema's CAN re open.....

It’s highly likely a lot of pantos will not be happening this year almost entirely because in 3 hours today government went from confirming venues could open to insisting venues should close which has spooked some major producers

Arts council scheme criteria released today. Vague enough terms that most rental companies should in theory qualify ("business's in support of performances") but... No funding for any cinema activity (have to apply through BFI scheme) so venues re-opening as cinemas don't qualify. Can be used by comedy clubs and music venues (provided they meet the financial criteria below) Have to provide accounts that prove you're a viable business before covid Have to show that you will be viable / self sufficient from April 2021 - very implicit that you can only apply once to any and all schemes Can ONLY get funds for day to day operational costs and restart costs october-march. No refinancing, no backdated costs, no capital purchases, nothing that falls outside this window. Minimum payment level of £50k (so if you don't have day-to-day operating costs of at least £100k/year you don't qualify) Weighted towards business's that have /not/ received any of the other covid grant schemes Applications have to be through the Grantium portal (which is a nightmare to operate) with a very small application window Results announced mid september Payments come in october. depending on the size of application and sector there's different committees and process's as to how application will be judged

It has potential - the one immediate complication is that across all the facets of the scheme (grants and loans through various industry sectors) you can only APPLY once so we are currently trying to work out whether we should apply as a theatre operator, music venue, producers, equipment rental business or international specialist / “crown jewel” And whether we want a grant or a loan. Fingers crossed but like everything in this they’ve managed to make things needlessly complicated and not fully understood the sector they are helping.