Exeter New PFI Schools

[jonhole]

All the high schools in Exeter have been rebuild over the last few years, and most people are agreed that it's been a complete muck up. I had been warned they where bad, but today I got the chance to find out for myself as I did some simple sound and lighting for a performance. How are these for just a few simple problems?

 

The XLR sockets etc for microphones etc in the hall (apart from two) are cleverly positioned at THE BACK of the hall... so all microphones had to have cables running to the back. This is also where we had to run the 15a cables from the two t-bars we used.

 

The control room is on the side of the hall, near the front in a SOUND PROOF room... Not only this, but it takes a good minute to get to it from the hall (through multiply corridors and stairs)

 

There is a wall divide in the front window of the control room (so two windows), which is directly in line of sight of the stage if you’re sat behind the lighting board.

 

The projector isn't hardwired into the control room, so has to be controlled by the remote, which can't work from the control room, but only from on the stage in the hall (if they want to swap inputs, blank, freeze etc).

 

The lights installed by Stage LX weren’t gelled, positioned or focused and just randomly put up pointing in all directions around the hall, and some weren’t even plugged in. Sounds ok, apart from the school aren’t allowed to go up to the lanterns, they have to call in the company who own the building (its a PFI project), and they have to do any work (which could take weeks, and of course the school are charged for).

 

Stage LX decided instead of the scrollers that where requested, it would be better to have a few extra par cans, so installed those instead (without telling the school). They now have too many lights then they can actually use so had to get rid of some.

 

These are just the things I found tonight, in the hall, so I would hate to work in the building. What do you guys think? Have you had similar problems?

[gareth]

The control room is on the side of the hall, near the front in a SOUND PROOF room

Not quite sure about it being on the side and near the front, but being soundproofed is a good thing. I wish more new-build venues would pay more attention to control room soundproofing.

 

There is a wall divide in the front window of the control room (so two windows), which is directly in line of sight of the stage if you’re sat behind the lighting board.

So move the LX board along a bit!

 

The projector isn't hardwired into the control room

Again, fairly standard stuff - as long as you've got video tie lines from the control room into the hall to feed it signal, you've got as much as most venues have.

 

The lights installed by Stage LX weren’t gelled, positioned or focused and just randomly put up pointing in all directions around the hall, and some weren’t even plugged in.

As expected. They're just supplying the kit, after all. If you went to buy a car, would you expect the car salesman to chauffeur you around in it after you'd bought it? ;)

 

Stage LX decided instead of the scrollers that where requested, it would be better to have a few extra par cans, so installed those instead (without telling the school).

Ah, but what does "requested" actually mean in this context? Do you mean actually specified on a purchase order? Or just discussed among the project team, but quite possibly not making it as far as being confirmed as part of the purchase order to Stage Elecs?

 

Every new build or refurb has problems - that's why they have a snagging period after hand-over. If there are problems, the client should raise them with the contractor/supplier - if there's genuinely been a ####-up, it'll usually get put right (although it might take a couple of times of asking!) ; but sometimes you'll find that what a client actually asked for isn't exactly what other people involved in the project thought they were getting, and the supplier has actually got it right according to what they were asked to do.

[J Pearce]

Soundproofed isn't so good if they expect audio to be mixed in the control room, which I think is the case in this situation. Also have they put in a monitor so that the lighting op can hear his cues?

[Simon Lewis]

Jon,

 

I can't comment on the specifics, but it's unusual for an installation company such as this to make such errors.

 

Perhaps the more likely scenario is that there were conflicts between those driving the project, the architect, etc., which resulted in the sorry state you now have to work with.

 

There's a paging system not far from here (!) that was "designed" by a committee, and the poor install company didn't so much as mess it up, but installed the best they could given a set of impossible constraints that changed each week, and a unrealistic budget.

 

Simon

 

Memo to self:

Must type faster than those insomniacs who sneaked in above....

[jonhole]

Just to clear a few things, yes the audio is mixed from the control room, at the moment they have had to plug a small pair of computer speakers into the headphone output of the desk.

 

The scrollers where requested on the phone while they went through the order. I understand it may not have been their problem to focus the lights, but the company who built/own the building should have got them into some sort of usable state if they knew they would only have to come back sometime and do it anyway.

 

The LX board can't be moved, as there is litrally no room in there after the sound board and the bull frog.

 

The projector is a pain as they want to play videos sometimes, meaning they have to get a student to be down in the hall with the remote.

[Bobbsy]

Not quite sure about it being on the side and near the front, but being soundproofed is a good thing. I wish more new-build venues would pay more attention to control room soundproofing.

 

Tell you what, gareth. I'll do sound in a sound-proof control room if you'll do your lighting on a black and white TV monitor instead of with a view of the stage. It can be done, but it's far from ideal! MY wish is that more new builds would get the sound mixer out of a control room and into the auditorium.

 

As for the rest, this sort of mess isn't confined to PFI work. As others have already noted there is very often a lack of knowledge of the needs of a theatre in the architects and service consultants on school jobs...and even if teachers are asked they're generally drama teachers, not technicians.

 

Bob

[GridGirl]

The LX board can't be moved, as there is litrally no room in there after the sound board and the bull frog.

 

Hang on, hang on. Why not just run all your lights off the BullFrog? Unless you're running more than 96 channels of generics (which would be a lot for a school theatre) you shouldn't have an issue doing that. I'm guessing there's a reason for NOT doing that, but it's late and I can't figure it out right now. If you ran everything off the BullFrog then you lose a desk and gain space!

[sonic]

I was going to respond but then I got an email - and although I haven't read it yet... it already seems far more interesting than this thread!

 

Go and do an installation and argue with the builders, and then work around an etrememley tight schedule (and I don't mean theatre tight - I mean job-loss tight)... and THEN and only THEN can you complain about what is achieved.

 

Tech's who do installations can only go on what they are told to do. If we do it the way we feel is best, we get told off... believe it or not, we realise sound is done best from outside the sound proof box - and that an LD is very happy if he/she can boil a kettle mid show without the audience knowing - but we can only do what we are told to do...

 

Blame the designer.

 

[/rant]

[gareth]

I should qualify my comments re. soundproofing by adding that given the OP's comment about the control room being "on the side of the hall, near the front", I made a rash assumption that, even if it was acousitcally completely open to the hall, only the worst kind of pillock would even consider doing a live mix from that position ... ;)

[Matt Riley]

Jon,

 

Do you attend this school, as a sixth form student? I can understand how you feel as a fairly competent college student when you get given a less than ideal new build, but we've all experienced it. The best advice that I can give you is don't spend too much time or energy getting annoyed about it. There is little chance of changing anything major, and it could always be a lot worse! Just get the school to make minor, inexpensive adjustments (like properly delayed nearfields taken off of the main outs and EQ's to sound roughly like the FOH system). With regards to the lampie side, I can't help but think that the bullfrog is overkill for this application, but its better than an inadequate desk, and if necessary, you could surely just swop the position of the desk with the computer or the sound desk? Getting a hard wired remote for the projector is hardly expensive either, especially if its just a minijack teminated cable which plugs into the normal remote. If all else fails, hire, hire, hire!

 

BTW SLX did my old school install in the early 90s and its actually quite flexible and effective.

 

Matt

[Tomo]

A few proper bloopers:

- The architect specified a beautiful catwalk - and forgot the bars to hang the lights from. (The consultant had fun fixing that one!)

 

- The grid was made up of wonderfully safe, fenced off catwalks - making it nearly impossible to rig or focus any lights.

 

And my personal favourite:

- The fire service insisted that there had to be an occupancy sensor to detect if someone was inside the pit lift service area, to unlock the door and let them out.

The pit lift would not move unless said door was shut and locked.

 

Both these requirements seem perfectly reasonable - except that every time the pit moved, the occupancy sensor saw it and unlocked the door.

Which slammed on the emergency brakes.

 

Thankfully there are usually a few good people who will work very hard to fix things.

It's these people who make the projects succeed, and everyone is very grateful to them.

[jonhole]

I used to attend this School, but moved on for another 6th Form. I got invited back last night to do a show there, and possibly some in the future. Hardwiring the projector sounds easy enough, but no one appart from the company who own the building are allowed up ladders or anywhere near the lighting rig (where the projector is). I'm not over sure why they needed the Bull Frog lighting desk, it's far to big for what they actually need (and the space they have!). Unfortunatly as everything has been wired in, moving the equimpent around is easier said then done!

[tokm]

After reading all the posts it sounds to me as this is just another over stretched/under budgeted school install balls up. Over spec'd kit in some ways, under spec'd in others. Not saying SLX definitely to blame for the the over spec'ing of the LX desk as PFI could have requested it and SLX would just have to comply to keep the contract.

 

Like other people have said, getting normal architects to design venue's isn't always good, as they don't know how stuff should be as much as a theatre architect does. Again, an example of under-budgeting, as they most likely thought 'why pay for 2 architects when only one'll be ok'

 

All the crap with the PFI schools just sounds like H&S being over the top to me. Though it sounds great in some ways that all you have to do is call some people and they'll focus your rig for you, but I bet there's like a week wait and when they turn up they'll be the most un helping people ever.. Not exactly their faults as I'm sure doing that sort of job isn't what they signed up for.

 

Oh well, rant over. Just glad I don't ever/never have, dealt with schools like this. Worst school install Ive seen was at The Amersham School, where the installed failed to connect up a DMX out socket on the dimmer rack hehe ;)

 

Tom

[Bobbsy]

I think it's worth saying that the root causes of these problems are not in any way exclusive to schools.

 

My background is mainly TV and, over the years, I've moved the company I was working for into 3 facility locations in the UK...as well as smaller bureaux in many other cities. I've also acted as an outside consultant for a number of TV builds.

 

Typically, any major project is going to have a number of different people involved. On the company side there will probably be a person appointed to be in overall charge of the WHOLE build, not just technical areas. My involvement would tend to be specific to technical areas, though inevitably there are huge areas of overlap. Oh, by the way, the head of finance is going to have a finger in any big project too!

 

From the outside, there will be lots of extra people involved. At the top of the tree is the architect. Working with the architect will likely be various consultants: Electrical, HVAC, Structural/Engineering, perhaps acoustics and so on. There will also likely be a Quantity Surveyor keeping them all honest on the invoices. On any large technical intall, there a good chance of being an installation specialist doing that side of things for me...and this installer may, in turn, employ sub contractors.

 

The thing is, out of all these people, the only ones with a technical knowledge of TV (or theatre) would be me and my installer. My memories of these big moves are frankly mainly as series of questions like "You need WHAT?" or "Do you really need THAT?" from people who are used to nice, easy domestic or commercial jobs. Unless you really know what you need (as opposed to want) and have the ability to communicate this to people as diverse as building contractors and accountants, it's very easy to be ground down and let things go.

 

And that's the rub. It's rare in the extreme for a school to have somebody with both the knowledge and managerial clout to sit on the design team and specify what's needed. A drama teacher whose specialty is analysing Artaud won't have the skills; a sixth form student may or may not have the skills but certainly won't have the clout.

 

One possible solution is hiring an independent consultant/project manager (who will NOT work for an equipment supplier!). However, this in itself can be a hard sell to the money men (in terms of cost) and the architect (who doesn't want to admit he doesn't know it all). Since the problems of a bad design are probably not obvious to a non-technical head teacher, or whoever, even after the build, I'm afraid I don't see this changing soon.

 

Bob

[paulears]

I have been on both sides of projects like this.

 

There are two kinds of specification process for these type jobs.

1. Somebody within the school or college really knows what is needed, pust together a spec and gets some quotations (often 3)

2. Somebody within the school knows what they want the end result to do, but has no technical knowledge. Then they ask a convenient company to design it for them and produce a price. The price is always too much, so they ask them to cut a few corners, they do. Then the paired down spec is passed to others for comparative quotes. By this time, the dealer has replaced common kit with more 'budget' equipment that won't be available to the other companies, so they substitute close matches. The cabling, odd and ends that were in the original quote have now vanished, as the other companies were just given the basic kit list. The succesful dealer then supplies EXACTLY what is on the written order when it arrives. I know to my cost that verbal messages count for nothing at all. I agreed recently to doing a half day training on some kit supplied by somebody else, with me originally providing consulatancy. The supplier added my fee to the bottom of their quotation, with a note saying the training wasn't compulsory, but recommended. They school accepted the quote, kit was supplied, I travelled there during the installation, and the people on site (technician) asked if I could come back to do the training when the drama teacher could be there too. I agreed, pointing out the additional milage and accomodation costs. This would be fine, he said. To get to the end - the school refused to pay for the quoted training cost, mileage and hotel (a modest travelinn - not the hilton) They paid me half the quotation figure on the basis that it said half a day training required, and they simply halved the figure quoted. Travel and accomodation was not on the quote, so I didn't get it. In the end, I broke even - the expenses were just about covered, but made nothing at all out of the job.

 

My point is that unless things are in writing, they will get ignorred by the bigger companies who see this over and over again.

 

(and I forgot that taking two months or more to pay seems quite typical!)

 

moan mode off!