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Help lighting the world's most remote stage


irs101

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Hi

 

I've recently moved from the UK to St Helena - a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic, halfway between Namibia and Brazil. The only proper stage on the island is in the secondary school sports hall - so it's terrible as a theatre but, on the upside, you can fit 25% of the island's 4,200 population in at a time!

 

I got involved in music and sound for the community panto at Christmas and, at the very last minute, was trying to cobble some lighting together. The system is in a terrible state. It's virtually the same system I was using at school in the early nineties with 3 Rank 6 channel dimmers. These are apparently unrepairable and have been cut off from the power supply. The power cables are still there, so I'm going to try to get those reinstated.

 

All the wiring to the bars is still in place - 2 bars on stage, one each side high up in the hall and one parallel but a long way back.

http://sams.sh/jpegs_news_2013/130718_500-Election_PAS.jpg

http://www.sams.sh/photo_weeks_2012/04_april/120401_volleyball_2.jpg

 

Lights-wise we've got a random selection of fresnels and profiles - which haven't been used for over 10 years. All the lamps will need replacing (we've blown several already). There are two sets of three channel halogen wash bars on the stage - 15 lamps in total (4.5kw probably).

 

I was going to work on the system during the year in time for next Christmas with some friends, but now the school music teacher has announced that she is going to stage We Will Rock You in July! So it's now become rather urgent - especially as everything will need to be order by mid-April to be on the island in time.

 

While I was heavily involved in stage lighting at school 20 years ago, I am now completely out of date and I've no idea where to start. So I'd really appreciate some advice on where to look and what I should be considering.

 

Obviously power supply is critical. If I can't get that sorted out, then we're on normal mains power - which presumably makes LED much more attractive. Even if we can get more power, there would be an argument for some LED, as then they could be of use for various events around the island. But from what I've read, the throws I'm looking at might make them impractical. Should I be looking at LED on stage and refurbishing our existing lights for the auditorium?

 

We've got no budget from the school - average income here is £7,000 and the island is half-funded by the UK Government, who probably wouldn't see stage lights as a priority! £5,000 is going to be the absolute maximum we can realistically expect to gather together (if I lean on my ex-pat colleagues really hard!).

 

I'd really appreciate some inital pointers and suggestions.

 

Many thanks

 

Ian.

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You could put together quite a nice useful system for that kind of money, and cheaper kit should be fine.

 

Lighting wise - what you seem to be missing is somewhere to hang lights parallel with the stage - all we can see go up and down the room, not across.

 

You look to have suitable steelwork easily available, so I'd spend some money on some light weight truss - and get somebody on the island to maybe make this lowerable on a simple hand winch which will make attaching lights much easier. It's often not that expensive. If the kit is intended to be used in different places, then for simplicity some colour changing LEDs, some cables and at your budget, a very simple manual DMX controller or something on a laptop maybe? We Will Rock You doesn't really need clever lighting (unless you need it to) colour washes and flashing is typical. There's another current topic here which might make sense.

 

Maybe have a look at the existing lights and see what they're like - if they are in good nick, then a smallish lamp budget should get them going - and maybe a small rack with some budget 6 way dimmers would be useful to control them, and I suspect I'd not bother with upgrading the permanent wiring, but just run them with rubber cable as it's often just simpler.

 

If you end up with a pile of refurbished tungsten lighting, a couple of dimmer packs and some LED kit, connected with a deceit pile of rubber cable and DMX cables - this will be most useful. Especially so if you add a bit of extra support stuff like stands so you have a complete portable system that can be quickly attached to a bar/truss on a winch in that space.

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I would definitely get your existing lights cleaned and working - they look like Strand Cadenzas or Harmonys from that photo which are relatively recent. A few hundred quid on lamps and a bit of cleaning should get you all working again.

 

Also your dimmers are almost certainly fixable - when people say "unrepairable" it usually means "I don't know how to fix it, please go away and buy a new one". If by "Rank 6 channel dimmers" you mean Tempus racks (black frame with red front panels) these are good dimmers, if you can identify the type of dimmer and the faults we can probably help you get them fixed.

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...what you seem to be missing is somewhere to hang lights parallel with the stage - all we can see go up and down the room, not across.

Although the ones we can see do look reasonably placed for setting up a 45/45 wash.

 

The stage does look far too wide so a set of flats to close it down to a 'nicer' aspect ratio wouldn't go amiss.

 

I would definitely get your existing lights cleaned and working...

^^^ What Tim said.

 

A small amount of your budget spent on lamps and spares, maybe supplemented by help from volunteers, would give you a half-decent basic rig. Add in some LEDs for colour effects and you're a long way there.

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It sounds like you have an OK setup for a starting point already. As suggested getting things cleaned up and servisable would be the most obvious starting point. I'm guessing one of the hardest things to find on the island might be specific skills, like dimmer servicing? But as Tim says if you post photos and questions I'm sure we can help somehow.

 

Not memtioned yet, but it would be prudent to PAT test everything, and inspect the hardwiring to the bars. If there is a friendly electrician, maybe a parent at the school, then they should be able to do it all and issue the correct bits of paper.

 

I would be tempted to get as much working first and then look at what is lacking and buy that, remembering to keep some money back for running costs, new lamps /gel etc.

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Thanks so much for your help so far. To answer a few points....

 

I've no reason to think that the existing lights wouldn't work with a bit of TLC - the main danger is if they've been hit by a few footballs. I know the stage floods just need new lamps and gels. So I'm hoping to get a gang together in a couple of weekends time, get the access tower out and we'll see what we've got. As I say, I just want to get some ideas for what additional equipment we need to buy, so that we can get it ordered early next month. Does anyone have any suggestions for which DMX controllers and colour changing LED lights would be worth a look?

 

I've not used DMX lights before. Is the idea that they have a permanent power supply and then the dimming etc is controlled via the DMX cable?

My main concern with tungsten lamps is the efficiency of them if I can't get the proper power supply hooked back up. But I'm really grateful for the offer to look at the dimmer packs - yes, they're Tempus ones. You're also right with the availability of skills - everything from doctors to qualified teachers to accountants to conservation people are all shipped in (that's why I'm here - I'm the island's economist). I might be lucky and find a helpful electrician - although PAT testing hasn't quite reached these shores. But we'll certainly have a good look at all the wiring.

Thanks so much for the offer of helping to get the dimmer packs working.

The photos don't really show it, but the stage can be closed down quite nicely. I'll have a look at putting in another bar - there is one parallel one, but it's right at the very back - far too far. I reckon I could get somebody to do that - would just be a question of whether the school allow it.

 

Thanks again.

 

Ian.

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