estimating hire equipment needed

[brownie]

evening everyone, A little help required from you all please!

I am specing a lighting rig for a festival big-top next may, early planning I know but I have the time to do it ATM! I have planned my rig as far as fixtures and accessories are required, but any advice on estimating figures of things such as DMX and power cables for when I go to the hire company? (not saying which one, you might be watching, so I'm going to keep you guessing!) The main issues being that the big-top and stage sizes are flexible from year to year, so cable runs, and truss lengths required always vary and may not be accurately known until arrival on site. For your information, the big-top generally seats 1000- 1500 people, planned rig consists of main truss on motors, 24x 64's, 12x scrollered on 4 PSU's, 6 floor cans, 4x 1.2k Fresnel's, 8x mac 550, 4x mac 600, Plus dimmer for house lights and emergency lighting

any help appreciated!

 

"chocco" brownie

[ceecrb1]

how longs a piece of string?

 

do you have any estimates of truss size, height in the air... any dimensions for the lengths of cable runs etc would be more helpfull..

[dunk_1984]

Surely if you don't know the length of the run you go for the amount of cable required to do the longest run you could be required to provide, plus obviously the usual couple of meters of leeway.

[brownie]

trim height of the truss is usually around 8-10m, truss span 8-10m depending on what size/ make the big-top is, truss usually ends up around 2m away from the fron edge of stage, dimmers located at the back of the stage to get out of the way of the noise boys, stage is normally 24' deep X 32' wide + PA wings, rig has 12 pars+ 8 scrollers + 4 fresnels + 4macs on truss, rest of the movers on the deck, floor cans scattered around stage, last 12 cans + 4 scrollers on stands at the back of stage

[Ynot]

I'm going to stick my neck out here (no surprise!) and say this:

 

It is going to be extremely difficult for anyone on a remote forum to even start to help you on this project because not only will none of us know the space you're installing into, but even you don't know exactly what the space will be for just the reasons you've stated in the OP....

 

Sorry if that sounds a little harsh, but any advice on cable runs given here is going to be worth very little in real terms, surely.....?

[zonino]

the only way you will be able to work it out is drawing out your rig plan and calculating it, we don't know how the cables come off the truss and down to the dimmers (or are you using distributed dimming?) etc, etc

[brownie]

I think people have started to get the wrong idea of why I started this topic, im not looking for specific solutions to my problem, im looking for general techniques people use to get round this fairly common problem, this sort of situation happens all the time. If I needed really in-depth help I dont think I would be looking at putting in a rig this big do you? (bearing in mind that I am designing, helping to install and op the rig for the whole weekend),

In answer to your last question tho, im employing a dimmer world technique, with the runs done on soca.

[Tom Baldwin]

Some techniques I use, offered up for discussion

- plan each major run of each cable type, being liberal with your estimates of distance

- increase the order count of each cable identified above by 10-20%, i.e. you estimate you need 5 off 20m 16A TRS - order 6 off

- ensure you document where any flown equipment (e.g. scroller PSU) is going, and the direction of the scroller rings etc

- build a collection of "get out of jail" cables - short DMX patch leads, one of each cable type that's 30% longer than the longest one you need etc

- add a few "get out of jail" accessories, like 15A - 16A jumpers, snappers/ rayguns etc.

 

Make sure your bible includes details of cable routes, so that the crew don't route stuff in sane but unhelpful ways!

 

This seems to work for me - I always have some stuff left over, but I tend not to get nasty air gaps...

[smeggie]

Another trick I find works rather well is to ensure, where possible, that the soca runs all travel in a common direction - i.e. all from SL to SR/Wherever dimmer city is - this makes it all that much easier to work out what goes where when you're running it in.

 

Also if time allows in the warehouse, label the soca runs with where they're going to go - doesnt have to be on the individual trs, but on the soca main lengths [i.e. when you get into dimmer city, you dont have 24 soca's that all look the same black ends without an idea where it goes into] This makes finding the dead line that much easier if it does decide to throw a tantrum.

 

AC

[stevep]

but any advice on estimating figures of things such as DMX and power cables for when I go to the hire company?

 

You could spend a few hours working out what you can - but with so many variables I doubt you'll be even reasonably accurate at this stage - so why not get the hire company to do it for you? - send them a spec that states what lanterns you want and the general arrangement you expect, and get them to quote a price with all cabling included.

That will allow for a bit of leeway if your event is sized a little different to what you currently expect, and will give you a reasonable figure for budgeting purposes

I run a hire company and thats a fairly common request for us, particularly for events in unusual/rarely used venues.