Comms

[themadhippy]

Thinking coordinating holding a phone and a followspot may be beyond my operators

gaffer the phone to there head??

[BatchFile]

The thought had occurred to me :** laughs out loud **:

[J Pearce]

Is there an issue with hiring them? We got a psu and 3 packs/headsets cheapish at a venue clearance; this does us for a pack in the booth and one each side of stage. Anything more we can hire cans packs in at £10 a week. Its not worth buying them when we can hire them for that and know we'll get quality, working equipment.

[BatchFile]

Is there an issue with hiring them? We got a psu and 3 packs/headsets cheapish at a venue clearance; this does us for a pack in the booth and one each side of stage. Anything more we can hire cans packs in at £10 a week. Its not worth buying them when we can hire them for that and know we'll get quality, working equipment.

That's what we do at the moment, bung them on the Whitelight order when we do the main production, but we're looking to buy more kit of our own for more regular use and comms is one area we'd like to be self sufficient in. (Next: Parcans and followspots :))

 

 

 

[samsound]

canfford belfpacks are currently £75 on ebay and theres plenty of them so for 8 thats £600 thats a good deal. just need your preferred headsset and powerbase

[J Pearce]

A new headset is upwards of 70 each. And many schools can't buy from eBay.

 

Even at 140 a station, hiring is still very attractive!

We bought our 3 as we do theatre hires with tech who expect comms and these are regular enough to make it worth owning.

[Pete McCrea]

Comms is one of those things that the purchase price always feels incredibly high. Even as a rental company, we don't put comms into stock because the returns are massive, we do it because we need a product that will work first time every time (bar the usual swapping of headsets, squiffy XLR and the typical pack that seems to not want to work today...). I'd look to spend your cash on the other hardware first (lanterns dimmers etc), and then continue to hire comms as and when you need them. A weeks hire for a 6 way system from the right places isn't going to cover the purchase price of one headset and belt pack.

[adamski1010]

The problem with cheap knock-off Chinese stuff is one of reliability. That's what you're paying for with the ~~ Altair systems.

 

 

That made me chuckle. Altair... Reliable.... Hmmmmmmm.

[OllieDuff]

To be honest, there is an aphorism about both having cake and eating it - if you want the features and reliability of nice comms, you have to pay for them, and unless your school is willing to bite the bullet and spend money now to save later, you're better off just hiring. Even if they are willing to invest, if you're only doing 4 shows a year, Stage will hire you a six way kit for £45 per day, let's assume 16 show days a year = £720 + VAT to hire which doesn't even buy you a Canford base station. Granted, Canford kit is pretty tough and can last for many years, but you'd need it to last for at least five years just to break even wrt the hire cost, and longer still if you're paying less than SLX list price for your hire (likely, if you're sticking it onto a larger hire order). On the other hand, buying your own stuff mitigates the risk of WL turning around and saying "sorry guys, all our cans are on hire because it's Panto season/someone needed 30 ways of comms on their show/another customer dropped them off a cliff".

 

The disadvantage to the cheap buy solution is that it's likely to get trashed, especially with inexperienced users such as in schools. At PLASA this year I was looking at various intercom options for a touring show, and Canford showed me a Series 2 Tecpro pack that had been drop-tested at 20ft onto their warehouse floor. Said pack was still functional with minor cosmetic damage. I then spoke to another comms manufacturer, who claimed to be more robust than Canford because their packs are made of steel and rubber, not plastic, and cheaper too. I asked the rep if I could drop one of their packs from chest height onto the carpeted floor of their stand, he assented, I dropped the pack and the front panel exploded in a shower of broken buttons. This is a condition that could easily be replicated ("sorry guys, I got my pack caught on a set piece and it fell down") in a working environment. QED.

 

Incidentally, the reason I haven't named the manufacturer is that the look of disbelief on the rep's face was so pitiful to behold that I feel sorry for the guy. Needless to say, we didn't take his kit on tour.