New Lighting Board Technology in Theatres

[dannybliz]

Hello everybody,

 

I am currently a student at CSSD about to finish my course and I am writing my IST about 'How Theatres Choose New Lighting Board Technology'

 

I want to look at how people such as chief electricians make decision so they end up with the right board for the right venue. I would like to know the kind of processes people go through when investing in new equipment.

 

It would be great to hear about theatres that have just or are thinking about investing in a new lighting board.

 

Do people have any thoughts about where the theatre industry is going towards what boards will be in what theatres? And will there be a range of boards that will be perfect for a producing house, and a range for a touring house?

 

Thank you.

 

Dan

[iamchristuffin]

Do you want schools (also receiving houses) as well?

[dannybliz]

Do you want schools (also receiving houses) as well?

 

Anything would be great!

[iamchristuffin]

OK, well we have a Fat Frog, for three main reasons.

 

1. It was recommended by SLX back in 1992 when the venue was built

2. It's a pretty easy desk for school kids to pick up on, and many local receiving houses have one.

3. It has capability for our scrollers and movers.

 

On bigger shows we sometimes bring in another desk that we have been trained on.

 

HTH

 

Chris

[tom_the_LD]

1. It was recommended by SLX back in 1992 when the venue was built

Slightly OT but is the fat frog really 16 years old!?

 

 

Back on topic. The first step is establish what the desk needs to be able to do, how many channels it has, intelligent capacity etc. After this the available budget is evaluated. Once the budget has been established, research into the desks which do the job required and are in budget is carried out. It is then narrowed down to a choice of maybe 3 - 5, looking at the specs and how easy the desk would be to use and train other on etc.

 

After this a demo is usually taken on the desks to see how they are liked and if they do what's needed as easily as claimed.

 

The desk is then chosen and bought.

 

 

 

At least that is my understanding!!!

[niax]

In terms of schools, we have a Jands Event 400 series and a Fat Frog

 

The frog because of it's ease of use and it's fat because our old frog was stolen and the fat frog was a ex-demo unit which we got cheap.

 

The Jands was brought when we got 2 Mac 500s for budget reasons (in a school, if a department doesn't use all it's budget, it's liable to be less the following year) mostly because of it's cheapness although it is generally avoided now as most of the students prefer to use the frog.

 

So, mostly it comes down to the budget before anything else in my school enviroment.

[dannybliz]

Thank you for your reply’s but I am trying to focus on issues with the Strand 500 Series now being phased out, I wanted to know what the bigger venues where thinking about how to replace it and to keep away from people reflecting

[Bryson]

1. It was recommended by SLX back in 1992 when the venue was built

Slightly OT but is the fat frog really 16 years old!?

 

No. Not introduced until 2001. So Stage LX must have been very prescient. :D

[woody74]

I am trying to focus on issues with the Strand 500 Series now being phased out

But you asked

 

I would like to know the kind of processes people go through when investing in new equipment

To which the folks here answered very well.

 

-w

[The Gaffa]

Process used by My employer, when we wanted to re-equip

 

1, Send Production Tech to various trade shows (had great fun playing To do research)

2, Establish the total buget & time line for project

3, Make a list of equipment (Control, Dimmers, Lanterns, etc).

4, Invite suppliers to visit site

4, Contact suppliers for quotations (In our case we had to contact 6 suppliers)

5, Visit several projects that supliers have worked on (More playing)

6, Make a case for one supplier to provide the equipment based on the quotations, And then produce purchase order, set dates for delivery & installation

7, Arrange to close venue for full de-rig of existing equipment

8, Installation & re-rig, testing & comissioning

 

I should point out that this process is not our normal one, but as we had 4 months to do the work, we had to shorten the process.

[Bryson]

Thank you for your reply's but I am trying to focus on issues with the Strand 500 Series now being phased out, I wanted to know what the bigger venues where thinking about how to replace it and to keep away from people reflecting

 

 

You might have mentioned that in your OP....

 

I'm considering a new console here. Right now I have an ETC Express (which I know violates your 500-series criterion, but bear with me) which for the region I live in, is pretty much the "standard".

 

Primary in my thinking are these criteria:

 

How much will I have to retrain the operators?

How likely is it that incoming operators and designers will know the console?

How likely is it that it will be "acceptable" to incoming companies?

How easily can we reload our Express show disks? (Every touring company here has an Express disk.)

How much space does it take up? (This matters to me, but possibly not to everyone)

 

 

Note that I'm not that interested in regular "features". Why? Because every modern console has a bunch of fancy features. No matter what I buy (within reason), a console of this "generation" will be an upgrade on the Express - so the issues that matter to me are those that surround it's wider usability in my environment. I haven't quite decided yet - I may wait another year - but I'm leaning in a direction.

[richard_cooper]

Thank you for your reply’s but I am trying to focus on issues with the Strand 500 Series now being phased out, I wanted to know what the bigger venues where thinking about how to replace it and to keep away from people reflecting

 

We (a professional theatre based within a private school) had a 520i go very sick (dead) on us around the time the old Strand went under. The decision was made at the time to not attempt to get it repaired, as that would lead us to an uncertain period of hire etc. We looked around for a console that would physically fit in the control room desk space, provide better busking capabilities than the 520i, had all our required features (riggers remote, networking that allows a remote surface for plotting, Midi show control, media server control/integration).

 

After looking around and trying a few options we settled on the ETC Congo Jnr with master fader wing. Couldn't really be happier myself, we have some problems with visiting companies and the learning curve of the console, but for our use it's been excellent. A year later and I think I'd have been torn between the Congo Jnr and the Ion. With the release of Congo V5 and the new support for touch screens I'm even happier.

 

Happily our 520i made a return many months later when it was combined with parts from another dead machine to form a working console. This acts as a backup and comes out when a show comes in with the show on a disk. I've never tried the Showport to ASCII into the Congo route, so I'm not sure how well it works.

 

Hope this is of some help.

 

Richard

 

Edited to say that the support provided by ETC via their community forums is great, as is Zero88's (we have a Fat Frog in a studio space). I wish more companies would go down this route, having direct access (but not by phone only, which can be difficult to fit into hectic schedules) to the company in this way is starting to influence my buying.

[iamchristuffin]

1. It was recommended by SLX back in 1992 when the venue was built

Slightly OT but is the fat frog really 16 years old!?

 

No. Not introduced until 2001. So Stage LX must have been very prescient. ;)

 

Arrghhh!!! Just re-read what I've written, and realised what a complete noob I've been!! Sorry, when the venure was built, a Strand MX48 was installed. Then, when our second venue was built, the Fat Frog from there (built 2002) was swapped with the MX!

 

Revision is causing burn-out!! :D :P ;)

[andy_s]

lots of considerations applied, but in the end, two things mattered most when we made our choice 3 yrs ago for the new venue (two theatre spaces).

 

one was "how much?"

the other was "how future proof?".

 

the strand 520 in the original brief (drawn up a couple of years previously) was ruled out on both counts.

 

(should add perhaps that we ended up with 2 congos, talking to sensor dimmers via ethernet, with a few nodes for DMX legacy kit...this would have been ruled out previously by our original criteria because we were looking for technology that was tried and tested, as we didn't want to be doing lots of snagging or debugging, but the strand situation trumped that, and ETC were pretty helpful in sorting out any issue that arose - even swapping out a desk within 3 hours of the phone call.)

[GridGirl]

We're looking at a complete theatre re-fit within the next two or three years, and much as we love our 520, the consensus is that when we refurbish we'll probably get a new lighting desk, as the 520 is not going to last forever. We're still very much in the preliminary stages, but thoughts at the moment are either a Strand Classic Palette, or an ETC Ion with a 2x20 fader wing. We don't use movers much at all, and so don't need anything like a Hog - a similar moving light functionality to the 520 is all we need. Down this end of the world, support and servicing can be more difficult if a desk goes down, and so that's going to play a major part in our decision. Space is also a concern, as our control room is not huge, and on that front, I like the look of the Ion.