Radios, or cans?

[robloxley]

For such a expensive product how could they be so foolish as to not sort the buttons out- it's not like its an expensive conponant for them to manufacture.

But you have to remember that most of the price of the product is going to pay back the R&D costs rather than the manufacture cost, and in order to do this as fast as possible (and to an extent to keep the sale price down) products are very much 'cost-engineered' as far as components go. Though that's not to excuse poor build quality...

[Grahame]

I've just done a tour where the onstage LX and stage crew

LX Crew Onstage????

Yes, two LX crew. It's common in large shows, and this was a large production (Scottish Ballet's new Nutcracker).

There are lighting towers to move out of the way for scene changes, dips, practicals and groundrows to set, plug up and later strike, pyros and dry ice to deal with and so on. It was a busy little show! :D

 

Grahame

[Shaun Foster]

There are lighting towers to move out of the way for scene changes, dips, practicals and groundrows to set, plug up and later strike, pyros and dry ice to deal with and so on. It was a busy little show!  :D

 

Grahame

What are practicals, as I keep seing them mentioned but I have no idea what they are?

[sam.henderson]

There are lighting towers to move out of the way for scene changes, dips, practicals and groundrows to set, plug up and later strike, pyros and dry ice to deal with and so on. It was a busy little show!  :D

 

Grahame

What are practicals, as I keep seing them mentioned but I have no idea what they are?

Practicals (as I understand it) are working props

 

This could range from a real Lamp that lights up when tunend on to a telephone that rings to a Street Lamp or Radio that actualy works

 

Hope this helps

 

Sam

[Bryson]

Practicals are basically lighting that is also part of the set - for example a desklamp or a domestic-style lightbulb mounted or sat on the set.

[computer]

When I did work experience in Marlow theatre (kent) we used wired cans. The chief LX guy and riggy sparky also had radios, and I was working with them both during my two weeks there a few years back...

[Ellis]

During the ABTT visit to the Birmingham Hippodrome/BRB on friday I asked one of the BRB techs (they all had radios) what they did.

 

They call the show on the theatre's cans but use radios for just about everything else - they even have radios at the ready to call the show just in case the cans go down.

[John]

Radio for mobility. I say give them to LX techs especially, in order to find the elusive little buggers when there is a problem.

 

Wired if you want to anchor your ASM's to their wing, thus making it impossible for them to disappear for a sneaky fag during a long tech.

 

We use both in the venues that I Stage Manage. Radio's are especially useful for Opera SM's and theatres have more than one venue, hough the range isn't that great.

 

Technicals have become a lot quieter since we got Radios in. Im used to the SM & DSM shouting instructions to the actors/crew/flies etc... now everyone mutters quietly into their headsets, leaving the actors out of the loop somewhat. Its easy to forget that some department members aren't on cans e.g. Dressers half way through quick changes etc.... Of course....a good quality SM would be alert to this.