ImagineerTom

Lasers ONLY look like lasers and nothing else (despite what 90’s panto producers think) so shooting beams of laser light over the audience won’t provide any visual clues to the audience that this is an arrow flying overhead and would frankly be confusing rather than supporting of the narrative.

Professional hat on here- You /could/ do it with stunt props around the auditorium that the arrow hits and which react (a saucepan, a bottle, etc) but they come with a cost both to make but also to install and maintain show-to-show. I'd be leaning right into the comedy here as others have suggested having the cast act (or rather over-act) to the path of the arrow and instead of someone with an arrow on a stick instead have the arrow dangling from the end of an extra long fishing pole (you can buy surprisingly cheap telescopic ones online) so that one "stage hand" can make it swoop around the auditorium but it wobbles and is slightly uncontrollable in the process; much funnier that way.

We do this will all our RA's and it never gets mentioned- at christmas there's always things like "this event proves so amazingly Christmassy it confuses santa into delivering all presents early" and "zombie snowman invasion" with appropriate recommended preventative measures.

You can also bet with the relatively high unit cost of diesel generated electricity (both to make but also to source the fuel in what would be a fuel crisis) the hospital management are going to be making sure things that don't /need/ to be switched on won't be so the paradox would largely resolve itself.

TBH I'm annoyed I hadn't thought of this - some addressable RGB tape in a Z shape (possibly even mounted behind some black fabric so it's invisible until turned on) could do a really nice zig-zag of fire with a prolonged glow afterwards that fades away.

Step one - have you got insurance for live fire on stage and venue permission (including with reference to premises license) as whilst you might get away without these things for a candle on a birthday cake an effect of this scale definitely requires explicit permissions and wavers. You will also need the appropriate fire extinguishers and rated storage facilities backstage. The following advice is for entertainment purposes only... Flash paper won't behave like you want it to; even rolled up in a tube one element would only light after the piece next to it has fully burned away; flash paper burns surprisingly slowly and you'd create something that looks more like a slow burning "mission impossible" fuse. A slightly better effect could be had with (fast) flash string; the whole thing wouldn't ignite at once but you'd get a zip-zap-zig-zag of flame in the right sort of shape that would certainly feel like a flaming Z Paste probably wouldn't be appropriate (certainly it would be no safer than any other fuel source) as it produces a relatively wimpy flame and your only way to extinguish it (other than blasting it with a noisy CO2 cylinder) would be to wait for it to naturally burn out and thus dramatically over-heating the frame it was attached to and generally not being "controlled" in any safety sense. The original prop was done with gas but the very fact you're asking about this on a public forum means by definition you don't have the skills or experience to make something using this method that is even close to being safe or practical so do not waste a second of your life going down that path. Remember that any flown fire prop has to have rigging and connections appropriately rated for the high temperatures that occur, plus any item within 2m in any direction and up to 4m above the prop will need to be specifically fire proofed / rated for direct flame and prolonged heat exposure as flash products are effectively real fire. TLDR; with some experimentation a reasonable approximation could be created with flash string, but you are much more likely to get something practical, affordable and achievable by projection.

If you're only operating one or two of any type of plant machinery it always works out cheaper to sub in than to own it yourself; all the compliance paperwork, testing & ongoing maintenance is all only viable if you can operate at scale. Speak to your hire co (and whilst you're at it a couple of others) as the fees for long term rental are often significantly lower than occasional hires as most hire co's are working to a financed asset model; they'd happily take 52 weeks hire at 5% profit over an unknown number of weeks hire which is why they have to rent out at 50% profit to allow for the downtime.

I can't help thinking (quite aside from fuzzed up fans and being exposed to energy spikes) leaving the kit on 24/7 is probably contributing to the failures as theatre kit just isn't designed for that sort of use. Even lights in heavy duty use situations (theme park rides, cruise ships, architectural) have power cycling and inspection procedures scheduled precisely because they are being pushed to the limit of their design.

I’m not sure “look, it uses one of those new fangled fancy “computers” to operate” is going to be the attraction that tips people over into wanting to work in the industry your colleague thinks it is. To anyone under the age of 30 computers already run everything and if “getting to use one to move a light” is the only thing that inspires them to get into theatre work they are going to leave the moment they find out most of the work actually has nothing at all to do with computers.

My instinct says no. The model at the moment is based around using venue operators who can be taught the queues quickly in a tech and if necessary called completely live by a competent SM. If you switch to an automated system then visiting companies would have to schedule specific tech time for the programming of your system and would have to run at least a couple of shows to find and correct any programming errors.

Hot melt glue them back together after each show. The glue debris will also double up and "innards" that can be dug out as part of the process.

[quote]What currency are you quoting in here? You started off talking $$, so renting any sort of kit at $11,000 is pretty astounding!![/quote] OP is in Japan and flipping between USD & Yen, there's roughly 60 yen = £1 so Y11,000 is about a £70 rental. OP is also a student at a school so doesn't have the experience of venues most on this board have hence my recommendation that SPECIFIC questions be asked & actual specifications given since the performance space is almost certainly nothing like anything any of us are imagining it to be and huge confusion and complications will arise because of assumptions and guesses.

There are definitely more than 3 equipment rental companies serving Tokyo. A quick google suggests there’s lots more. No there are no decent low fog machines to purchase for less than $500. you have two choices here- 1) have someone who doesn’t understand the technology abilities or requirements keep blindly googling machines and asking a website full of strangers to tell them if these machines are suitable for a show no-one on the board knows the production criteria and expectations for. Or 2) follow the advice already given and work uut precisely what effects are required, how often and when, work out what the technical facilities available are and then ask for advice about how to solve those specific scenarios. Theatre effects equipment, as used by professionals is reliable and capable of producing precise effects & is really expensive to buy because of the high standards it has to be manufactured to. A $100 consumer smoke or effects machine isn’t going to be comparable or flexible as a $10,000 smoke or effects machine so you may well find that what you want to achieve might not be possible at all in the budget you have available if you insist on buying.

We can’t answer that question - there’s many different types of smoke machine that produce different types of smoke, different durations of smoke, in different orientations and for different purposes (from simulating a small campfire, through heavenly clouds, creating walls to hide action or an invisible haze that makes lighting look good but is invisible) so without knowing exactly what specific effects you want to achieve (and precisely what technological infrastructure you have) no one can give you meaningful advice about whether a particular machine is good as a “general” smoke machine. The original production used (from memory) 4 totally different types of smoke technology with multiples of each unit. Imagine this was a forum about pens - you’re asking the equivalent of “I want to do some writing- is this a good pen to use?” We might recommend a $1 biro but that would be completely wrong if you’re trying to do calligraphy, or if we recommended a sharpie that would be great for writing a label on a box but completely wrong if you were writing a 40,000 word essay. The way this works in professional productions is someone decides precisely what effects they want to achieve, then checks what the technical infrastructure in the theatre will be (does it have power in the right places, will the smoke be triggered by a stage hand hiding behind the prop, someone in the wings or maybe by the lighting control system?) and works out which style of smoke system will produce the specific effect needed. THEN the search begins for a machine that meets all these criteria and which is powerful enough / cheap enough / durable enough to meet the needs of the show. This is also why most producers rent smoke machines because something that’s great for one show would be completely useless for another.

There are several off-brand self contained fog chiller / low fog generator machines on the market but even the cheapest one I could find is over $1000 for a single machine and in a stage performance you need AT LEAST 2 (and personally I'd never use less than 3) of them because heavy fog is very susceptible to even slight air movement which can destroy the whole effect. Google "ultrasonic low fog machine" for your local options. Also note that whilst these machines are much easier to use in performance they do require looking after & maintenance. If they are not going to be used for a few days then you MUST completely empty and drain them otherwise they turn to rust very quickly.

The American DJ low fogger you linked to is just a regular smoke machine that has a (metal) bucket stuck on the front of it that you have to fill with Ice for it to actually work. You will need a LOT of ice and you should factor into your costings the ability and practicalities of obtaining and refilling several KG of ice potentially twice in every performance and rehearsal; it's a lot of ice and a lot of work. The effect produced is also mediocre at best.

Card payments for not present and in advance (ie tickets) can be tricky but for front of house type sales we use MyPos.com self contained terminals for £30 including data sim, adding multiple to a single account is easy, but the account can also be sub divided and individual units pointed to different accounts (ie some terminals for bar sales, others used for Merch so revenue splits easier to calculate) - their customer support can be a bit distant but 2 years in we’ve only ever had one problem.

Are you certain this is actually going to be a problem? My (very limited) experience is that modern HA's are 99% software based so come with all sorts of tunable features and integrations. It may well be possible to adjust them to work with the audio direct from the headset speaker, even if it's not and you have to Bluetooth or Loop audio in its a pretty safe bet the HA's will have some sort of software for only pumping it to one side or for incorporating ambient audio into the mix.

I've written plenty of RA's so can conceive of ways it could in theory be done but... If you start actively modifying bars to make it easy for a single person to fly them level (such as by installing spirit levels on them) then you would have to put a whole raft of other safety process's in place to ensure that this tool that should only be used in highly niche situations doesn't quickly become the normal way bars are flown thus creating the new normal of "one person can fly in a bar"

That’s far from ideal working hours (the majority of gigs are install afternoon, perform evening, strike overnight) but there is a huge shortage of crew in the industry generally at the moment so if you go to almost any company and are open and honest about your abilities and the hours your are available they will be surprisingly flexible about the jobs they offer you.

putting the boring safety hat on here..... should you be flying items in (on any technology at all) if you haven't got someone spotting the object and the stage underneath?

Though I’ve not specifically tried it the low-tac nature of masking tape means it won’t be at all durable as a surface and I’m fairly sure paint won’t stick to it in any meaningful way.

Projection in a marquee (unless it's a black-out marquee and 99% of them aren't) will be a washout, literally. With the back row of seats potentially 30+ meters from the stage then unless the screens either side of the stage are double the height of the performers they won't be providing any meaningful improvement in view for the bulk of the audience, repeater screens are a much better choice but even then consideration should be given to what they are being used for; the screen size and quantity will be very different for IMAG than for relaying a text heavy powerpoint or for simply displaying branding/graphics. Also side note - 15x36m containing a stage and backstage (that's immediately reduced the FOH space to 15x30m) is very optimistic for 1000 people seated. A proper regulation compliant grandstand system at maximum density has a rule of thumb of 1.5 people per m2 (this allows for not just the space of the people but also the required gangways and clearances) so you'd be getting a capacity of closer to 700 in a structure that size.

Since it switched to arena's there's always a thrust stage or even a surrounded stage out in the auditorium - predominantly so the hosts have a nice stage to stand on when talking to camera without having to worry about the crew in the background resetting for the next act - but that stage is also sometimes used by the competitors but it's a bold choice because (obviously) all the technical bells and whistles are on the main stage that by definition isn't clearly visible from the B stage

There was a HUGE technical problem this year which meant that whatever was planned beforehand (including most of the programming) went out the window and almost every act had to be completely restaged and whole new lighting solutions had to be found all at the same time as the first rehearsals were taking place. It's going to be very interesting read this year!