How does the fringe work - e.g. tec set up . quick turnaround for each

[louis]

How does the fringe work with all the diffrent shows in the same venue - the quick turnaround with the venue ect.... sets,props &costumes and drssing rooms.Im invloved with a production this yr Back to the 80's the company went last year Fame - How does it work ??????

 

 

All Comment would be great !

Louis

[richard]

Depends really which venue you are in. Most tend to have a 'basic' lighting rig, usually a warm and cold general cover and some backlight, some venues have slightly more while some have less. Some big venues have moving ights.

 

Often you are able to rig some of your own lanterns in the rig to supplement the provided lanterns, however some venues insist that any extra lanterns are hired from them at a cost.

 

You then usually have 5 or 10 minutes to put your show in, and usually a little less to get it out. Most shows tend to have pretty simple sets as storage tends to be limited.

[Ben Langfeld]

And then there's things like the National Theatre Connections project, where we get a 3 hour technical in the morning, an hour get-in before the show, and 10 mins strike. Roll on Friday!! *tries to find coffee*

[beware]

I do believe you're at greenside, my venue.

 

The idea is to use set and props that are easy for a quick get in. Fame took around 10 mins to set up and getin. these are the things we will practise on your tech rehersal. Jenny is very good at organising such things.

[mac.calder]

A friend of mine summed up festival/fringe shows best, I think, when he told me "It's like the eco-rubbish ads: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle"

 

Reduce your set to a minimum, and make things as movable and discreet as possible. Reduce the number of specials, obscure colours and odd angles.

 

Reuse the lighting already there. Reuse the set as much as you can.

 

Recycle the space and set, things like painting the rear of any flats used or false pieces you can change, recycle the effects the company used.

 

There are a few things I tend to do differently when in a 'fast turn arround' venue. A lot involves things like talking to the other show designers - ie if they are putting a table in there and you think you will need a table, can you arrange to have a style that suits both of you? Talk about the specials they want and compromise - for example, a down stage center spot is often extreamly useful. Try to avoid taping things down in the space if they will need to be moved - for example, foot lights are easy to place quickly (great for special coloured washes). Instead of actually gaffing down the leads, if it is really necessary to secure the leads (often it isn't) use sandbags.

 

Hopefully you will have trees - they are damn easy to re-gel in a matter of seconds. As a general rule, in fast turnover, I try and have four fresnells on each side on a tree. 30 seconds a side to completely regel.

[pumphouse]

I have done a couple of shows at the fringe. The venues generally sell time in slots, and you buy a slot. This includes your daily get-in/set up and get-out time, as well as the performance time. The amount of in/out time therefore depends on the run length of your show against the slot length. Venue slots usually run to a rigid timetable so you need to plan accordingly.

 

You can usually get information on the rig that is there, and what you are and aren't allowed to do with it for your show. This helps shape your thinking for LX and set etc. I have usually had a comprehensive exchange of information prior to getting there to make sure we know what we are allowed to do, and what the rules are. Most venues are fairly helpful, but will kick back if you try to push your luck and break the rules, or spring surprises on them. Go well prepared with your requirements and a cue list etc. The more information you can provide to the venue in advance the more they can help you.

 

The KISS principle is very useful. Storage space and specials are usually very limited.

 

You also need to be very organised for your tech rehearsal, plotting and changeover times. We have involved the cast with these in the past, and they have had a simple job to do each - like 'get that bench out of the store and put it there'. If it's well organised it runs like clockwork and you can easily do your 'in' in 10 minutes and the 'out' in 5.

 

HTH

 

Jason

[jimllfixit]

I have worked at edinburgh for 6 years and the key is preparation. Everyone should know what they are doing in the ten minutes of get in. Use your tech time wisely, and make sure there is one person co ordinating it all.

[Jamtastic3]

I would say you should know your venue space and specs as well. We are a fringe venue in a nightclub so the shows have their boundaries. This means that they will expect a dancefloor space, a stage (ours is a corner one) with a coloured parcan rig (for bands), some moving lights, a sound system and realising that creativity with the lights and space is fairly minimal (considering that after the shows at night, there will be clubnights and band nights on!). Also, there isn't a full on behind the scenes crew going on - most probably an engineer, FOH person, a box office person and barstaff to help with seats and bar.

Hopefully this year though I'll get my ass in gear to make our lighting rig more flexible FOH, just got to find the dosh!

[djpeanut]

Don't do what the company I was with did the first time I went up there (although having said that, we pulled it off spectacularly)...

 

Our production was Stoppard's "The Real Thing". Our venue (Sweet on the Grassmarket) was a hotel 'conference room', and a small one at that. The acting space was a 4 metre square of temporary dancefloor. For lighting, we had 4 fresnels on each side, hung from t-bars at just above head height (i.e. lighting was hideous). The room was about 5 metres wide and 15 metres long - cramming in ~60 seats, the stage, a small area of backstage, and (somehow) the tech desk.

 

So our tech team decided to take a full-on living-room set. This consisted of three 8'x4' flats - two doors, one blank - with proper doorframes, skirting board, mouldings etc etc. During our 10-minute get-in, this would all go together with bolts & wingnuts (hinge pins had not been discovered) and braces. We had a sofa and an armchair on stage as well.

 

After a few days, we could get this all in, swap out the lighting board for our own, refocus and colour, and be ready for scene one in under 10 minutes. In order to do this, our producer and tech manager pretty much redefined the term 'organization'. But the get-in was just the beginning of the total insanity of what we did on a daily basis. Half-way through the show, we had a scene change. Cue blackout & music, and the props, sofa, armchair, coffee-table, drinks cabinet etc disappeared, replaced by an 8'x8' train interior flat brought in through the fire exit, and two pairs of South-West Trains seats, taken (with permission) from a decomissioned train yard in Portsmouth. This all happened in about 40 seconds. The following scene lasted about 5 minutes, after which the entire process was reversed.

 

The stage crew often got as much applause during the scene changes as the cast did at the end of the show (and I don't mean to say that the cast were bad... quite the opposite). But take my advice and don't try anything quite so ridiculous!!!

[Ellis]

AnDram land has a similar problem with the All England Theatre Festival. All the feeder festivals have the same rules WRT get-in and get-out i.e. 10 min in 5 min out.

 

For several years, the company I worked with had very complicated sets, but the festival stage manager gave up timing us after we got in in 1 minute and out in 30 secoonds - the secret - we were the host venue and as amateurs were able to throw people (older members of the Youth Theatre) at it. That combined with excellent planning by the stage manager and almost as much rehearsal as the cast. Thankfully we never got through to the next round!

[Oddball]

Our production was Stoppard's "The Real Thing". Our venue (Sweet on the Grassmarket) was a hotel 'conference room', and a small one at that.

 

 

Don't suppose you remember the girl working on box office at the grassmarket with long blonde hair? That's my girlfriend and I spent quite a lot of time over there (was working the fringe too) so probs saw you...

 

I'm up there this year with a production of godspell but I'm in the pit band this time. I'm not sure how we're gonna be doing the setup (rehearsals haven't started yet) but it'll probs just be lots of frantic moving kit in, plugging, unplugging, moving kit out (we're using electronic drums for ease of use and everything else will be DI'd)

 

Edinburgh is so much fun during the festival though, can't wait!

[beware]

Fun? Fun?!

 

I work harder than I do during the rest of the year when I'm in Edinburgh. People have to remind me to eat and sleep. Ah the stresses of being the only tech manager for 2 medium sized venues!!

 

(No really, it is fun...)

[thelightbulb]

And then there's things like the National Theatre Connections project, where we get a 3 hour technical in the morning, an hour get-in before the show, and 10 mins strike. Roll on Friday!! *tries to find coffee*

 

Hello

I'm off to do one of the shell connections plays in Bath in the studio there. do you know how the day would normally (if there is such a thing as normal) be run and how best to use the time given to set up -other than the get in would be?

I'm the DSM on the show and I have a horrible feeling that I'm going on my own as in I'm heading up the production team.....gulp

Mark :)

[Ben Langfeld]

Mark,

 

I can't speak for Bath, but at The Lowry, we arrived by 0930 and loaded in our set from where it was left the night before, at the top of the lift (we had a removal company transport the set to the venue the day before and the venue staff stashed it for us). By 1000 we had all the set on the stage ready to build. It took us about 30 minutes to build the set, then the director spent 10 minutes placing it "perfectly". We had to rig a UV canon, re-gel some colour washes (not the right blue :)) and re-focus a couple of profiles, and by this time we'd just gone 1100. Spent 20 minutes plotting LX (was a nice simple show), did a few checks to make sure we had everything we needed, and I gave the sound and LX ops some time to get used to the environment (they're both very new, and LX had never seen a 520i before. We then did a run-through at normal pace, and by the end I was happy that everything was going to go as it should. We then struck the set and somehow managed to fit it back into the lift all built up, collected our things and left the studio clear for the other company. This was 1300 and we'd fit everything perfectly into our 3 hour slot. We had lunch and the rest of the company went to entertain themselves for the afternoon while I sat and watched the other company's tech (I'm a nosey git :P). They had from 1400-1700.

 

We then loaded our set back in, made sure everything was pefect, got sound and LX ready and waited for 1815 when I handed the house over to a lovely lady who's name escapes me. Cast calls were done by way of runner, as the cast were "warming up" in another studio.

 

After the show, we spent 15 minutes striking the set and loading it into the lift and then left the studio to the other company who didn't actually have a set, so the 1930-2000 slot before the doors opened again was quite relaxing. I even managed to get a drink from the bar! After their show (which we watched), we gathered our gear and went home, abandoning the set for the removal guys to collect again the next day.

 

So that's how our day went, and from what the venue techs told me, we were the easiest company to work with, which was nice to hear. My advice for how best to use the time available to you, from our experience and from watching the other company, is that unless your show is not technically demanding, you will have to politely remind the director that the time available is for you and your team to do whatever it is you need to do (focus, plot, build set, whatever) and not for the cast to rehearse. Also, preparing as much as you can before you get there is, as always, a great help both to yourselves and to the venue techs. If you can arrive with a list of things to do rather than doing it off the top of your head then things will go a lot quicker. Also, if you are in charge of a team of people, don't have them sat around doing nothing while you run round head-less trying to do it all yourself. Give your techs, and even the cast (:)) jobs to do.

[thelightbulb]

excellent so you say the hour or so slot in the morning is reallly there to check out and possibly prepare the grid etc for when you actually come in the afternoon