gareth

Amazed that almost a week has passed and there haven't been any replies to this post. Richard was very much one of the 'founding fathers' of theatre lighting as an industry in its own right, and is one of the very few practitioners of the art whose written works have influenced and informed such a huge number of people over the years. I wonder if it's something to do with the younger generation coming up through the business at the moment being sufficiently removed from that generation chronologically-speaking as to not have quite such an appreciation of the man and his legacy?

I think you answered your own question!

Used to be the standard way of doing it for many years on pretty much any console with illuminated buttons.

Ah, thanks - I'd completely forgotten that this had been discussed before.

Maybe one day there'll be enough of a system together in one place to enable it to be powered up. MMS was the very first memory console I ever got my teenage hands on - that particular system was ripped out of Theatr Clwyd in 1986 to be replaced by a Galaxy, but I encountered bits of it many years later in slightly unexpected circumstances... I was relighting a show at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend in October 1999, and one of the guys on the local crew mentioned that he was involved in a local amateur venue, the New Empire Theatre, which had two interesting lighting desks - an MMS, and another pretty impressive 'homebrew' desk which one of their members had built using, if I recall correctly, all manner of bits from other consoles (MMS and others) plus some of his own bespoke hardware. An invitation to pop across to have a look the next day was duly accepted. The MMS in their upstairs studio venue had come, in the main (desk furniture, crate and some modules) from one of the West End theatres, I believe - can't remember which one. But some modules had come from a variety of other sources - including one (maybe two) which were labelled "Mold Arts Centre" on the side of the frame (which would've been what Theatr Clwyd was referred to before they'd decided on a proper name for it!). That, at least, explained why a couple of the modules in the Clwyd desk when it was decommissioned were marked as "Rank Strand Service Department" - they must've been swapped out at some point, and rather than being swapped back the repaired mods were redeployed elsewhere with the service spares being left up in North Wales. A quick Google reveals that the amateur company were booted out of the venue in 2008, the building suffered very badly due to an arson attack in 2015 and was demolished completely in 2017. I wonder if any of the MMS bits from their venue survive? Maybe you even have some of them in your collection...

I can't remember his BR username, but Andy Syposz is a member of this forum - he's a bit of a guru when it comes to Strand consoles, he may well be able to help.

MMS! I remember you had some of the modules, and possibly even an electronics crate, at the event in the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley a few years back - is this now a working system?

There isn't much that could tempt me to the PLASA show these days - but if I wasn't stuck behind a production desk I'd definitely come and have a nosey at this little lot!

Buy cheap chairs, repent later! A control room is a place of work, in exactly the same way as an office space or a meeting room. If a theatre's marketing or admin staff were made to sit on sub-standard chairs for the duration of their working day just because management didn't want to spend enough money on ergonomically-appropriate furniture for them, there'd be uproar - the same consideration should be applied to any other working area where staff spend long periods of time sitting at a workstation. Exactly which chair is right depends on the layout of your room, consoles, etc. - but it's important to get the best one for the job. Spending a bit more money at the purchase stage will pay off over time when staff who spend hours each week in the control room don't have to call in sick because of bad backs, etc.!

I took a tour out for a theatre company a couple of years ago. Mainly rental kit, but supplemented with some stock from the company's own inventory, including some freshly-tested (by a contractor) 15A extensions. Found one that didn't work, opened up to investigate, the live conductor in the socket wasn't even connected - just floating about in space, and the screw was only hanging on in the terminal by about half a turn. The cable had a 'passed' sticker on it from a few weeks before and had been sitting on a shelf in the store in the meantime. Reported it back to the company's production office - don't think they did anything about it, I wouldn't be surprised if the same cowboy outfit still do their testing for them.

As per David's post - you can chain as many splitters as you want, as long as you're chaining from an isolated buffered output and not a DMX Thru. An opto-splitter regenerates the DMX signal, so your device count limit is effectively reset. Lots of cheaper kit uses 3-pin only, and dual 3- and 5-pin connectors are quite common - it works, but strictly speaking it's not compliant with the DMX standard. And the caveat about using the right kind of cable is important.

The website also states that the Ultrasplit "(costs) significantly less than 8 x budget 1u buffers" at £899+VAT. It's perfectly possible to find a budget 8-way isolated buffer for under £100 inc VAT these days. It doesn't say whether it's RDM compatible. Also, there's nowhere to stick some labels on the front panel to mark up what each output is feeding - I like everything clearly labelled. Can anyone enlighten me as to what makes eight 8-output buffers in a big box "The worlds most advanced DMX distribution system"?

I'll answer your question with another very simple question - has it got a plug on it, or is it hardwired? This one simple distinction will go a long way to determining the outcome.

You should at least be giving them a clean once every year or so - why not PAT-test them then? You say they never get touched - but what about replacing the lamps? They don't last forever...

I've just heard this awful news on the pyro grapevine. Gutted. What an enormous loss to the industry, and to the human race. Those of you who work in pyro/fireworks, or who've attended Linc's courses in the past, will no doubt be reflecting tonight that within a year JustFX, and FTF/Fully Fused Fireworks, have lost two of the best pyro techs, not to mention the loveliest people, one could ever hope to work alongside. Brian and Keith - see you on the other side, chaps.

Where exactly is the school? You might find that there's a local friendly BR member who might be able to pop in for an hour or two and give you a bit of advice - or we could maybe point you in the direction of local sources of potential assistance.

Quite - there was so much fuss about this, and I fail to understand why. I was sitting on a railway station waiting for a train at the scheduled test time. There were three distinct 'batches' of tests that I could hear. A bunch of phones did their thing just before 3pm, mine and a few others at just after 3pm, and a few more a couple of minutes after that. People just got their phones out, acknowledged the alerts, and put them away again - job done, no dramas. However, given the amount of conspiracy theorists peddling their utter b0ll0cks on the web and social media these days, it's no wonder a minority of the more intellectually-challenged members of society decided to jump on the bandwagon of believing that there was far more to it than there actually was.

That's the thing, though - it's not a cost to the venue, the get-out enhancements are charged back to the visiting company. It's a historical thing. That's why the small number of venues which contra the visiting company for a full TMA get-out and only pass a percentage of that on to the house crew really grind my gears. On the whole, Paul, I'd imagine that your venue does a lot of one-nighters - which wouldn't, in the general scheme of things, 'qualify' for a TMA get-out. At the venue I spent many years working in, we had a set of questions which determined whether or not a get-out was payable (and therefore chargeable to the company) at full TMA rates (or half-rates if it was in the studio venue, because the capacity was less than 500 seats). Is it a professional production? Did it play here for more than one night? Did it arrive in something bigger than a 3.5t Transit? Would it take the visiting company more than an hour to get it out unaided by venue staff? Has it come from, or is it going to, another venue besides ours? There were a couple of occasional caveats, but on the whole a majority 'yes' meant that the get-out attracted BECTU/TMA rates, which would be charged on to the company. The get-out 'clock' started ticking from the moment that FOH called house clear, and stopped when the back door of the last wagon was closed. If the get-out exceeded three hours, an additional half-hour was added on in lieu of a break. When you're looking at a mid-scale play or smaller musical doing weekly touring in no.2 venues, you might be looking at a call of at least 4 stage, 2 LX and 1 sound for the get-in (or the first part of it, at least... it might drop to fewer crew later in the day) - and therefore also for the get-out. Bottom line is that a majority of these may well be casual staff - and it's really not fair to expect a casual to knacker their weekend by coming into work by 10pm on a Saturday to do two or three hours at barely more than minimum wage (well, OK, it would be paid as a 4-hour call because that's the minimum - but that's not the point!).

Far fewer than I suspect you think. Quite a few theatre venues, especially in the small/mid scale end of touring, never had BECTU/TMA or equivalent agreements - and more still are now moving away from them and placing staff under house agreements which, if they're lucky are partly based on the old TMA agreements but without the bits that really cost the management money. How many venues around the UK still have 'old-school' T&Cs for their staff which provide enhanced payments for sixth day working, Sunday working, the very lucrative "time extra plus a day off in lieu" for bank holidays, TV payments, proper get-outs, and all the other enhancements which used to be enjoyed by those working for the meagre basic salary of a technician? Far too many buy-out agreements these days.

Part of the issue is that fewer and fewer venues these days are agreeing contracts with visiting companies which include a properly-paid get-out. The touring production don't want to pay it, and the venue management don't care whether the crew get it or not (they just contra the cost on to the company if it's paid, which is a bit of extra work that they'd probably prefer to avoid). The worst examples, of course, are the venues which contra the full get-out cost on to the visiting company, but don't pay that onwards in full to the crew.

Standard practice is that the house crew for the get-out is the same as that called for the get-in. If a touring show calls 4 stage and 2 LX for the in, that's what they should be paying for for the out (and the people who worked the in should get first refusal on the out). If you come across a company who refuse to pay for crew for a get-out, my inclination would be to make it clear that only your venue staff are permitted to operate any powered hoists, counterweight flying, etc. and ask if they still want to stick to their position 😉 . Of course, you'll need a duty house tech to be there for building cover - but if they're not getting a proper get-out rate (if the show is a 'qualifying' one) they should do no more than simply 'be in the building' - touch nothing, move nothing, white gloves resolutely on. I guess touring companies arguing the toss more and more these days about paying a proper BECTU/TMA get-out is par for the course given the way the theatre business seems to be heading. "Fings ain't wot they used t'be"...

A quick 'stalk' around that particular FB page suggests that this particular SP Fireworks is just some chap who likes buying retail fireworks for his own 'back garden' displays, and has set up a FB page to pretend to be a big-shot display company 😆. He probably doesn't even realise he's picked a name which he shares with an ex-company who were best known for killing two of their employees...

If they were 'often having fires and explosions', that's surprising to say the least!

It absolutely is not "that type of industry"! Outside of theatre, I work in the firework business - as do a couple of other BR members that I know - and I can assure you that safety is taken very seriously. If this company that you speak of was "often having fires and explosions", they shouldn't have been in business as they clearly don't have a clue. (Who is/was it, by the way? If it was a proper firework company and they 'often' had explosions at their facility, I feel certain I'd have heard about them!) I can think of a very, very small number of instances of firework-related industrial accidents in the last few years aside from Le Maitre - a couple of which did involve fatalities. Festival Fireworks in East Sussex is the one that springs immediately to mind, where a couple of firefighters lost their lives (it was found that they were storing fireworks in a way which wasn't in line with their license - two of the company directors served time in prison for manslaughter). Then there was SP Fireworks in Staffordshire - which turned out to be the result of fireworks being imported and sold by an idiot who thought he knew better than the HSE and ended up killing two of the guys who were working for him. Unlike these cowboys, though, the majority of firework companies in the UK take great care and pride in how they operate their licensed storage facilities. The trouble is that the press on the whole don't know the difference between a 'firework factory' and licensed storage. There's virtually no display firework manufacturing in the UK these days - the last company which used to do this on any sort of scale (Kimbolton) went bust a while ago.

Not necessarily. A company director or secretary is an office holder, not an employee. They can become an employee in addition, if a contract of employment or some other service agreement is in place which requires them to provide specified services or duties in a certain way (and that's where a lot of the IR35-type criteria start to become relevant) - but just being a director of a company does not necessarily make one an employee by default.