TheLX1 Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 I'm just about to start prep for a theatre tour going out later this year, we're taking most of our own kit and just using the Venues FOH Fixtures, to help facilitate a more efficient in/out I'm going to build looms with tails for power and data spaced appropriately along the bar, but I've reached a slight dilemma, according to the Tech Spec's for the venues we'll be visiting, the length of the bars varies (9m is our shortest, 15m is our longest). Is there a 'Standard Approach' to this or is it best to make each loom for the average length bar and then just add short extensions as needed? A few of the larger tours I've worked as a casual don't seem to have this issue, am I missing something? Any Advice or other pointers for building cable looms would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, TheLX1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRW Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 If it's a theatre tour, you presumably have a set? If you have a set, do your fixtures not have relative positions to the set, and will therefore need to be in pretty much the same place (relatively speaking) in each venue? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete LD Posted January 21, 2018 Share Posted January 21, 2018 Your missing the fact that the playing area stays the same. A band or show wont stretch out to fill to much! So if you have lights on 1 m from centre and 2m and 3m then the loom stays the same. If you need to bunch up the lights in a smaller venue then the loom will still work. Make sure your feeders are long enough for the larger venues! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLX1 Posted January 21, 2018 Author Share Posted January 21, 2018 Sorry - let me add some context. The show does not have a set, its a dance show, this means that theres a high probability that they will re-block the choreography to use the available space at each venue! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Jay Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Then you need to make your design fit all the variants surely? I have taken many musicals on the road and the way we prep is the way you are thinking but the lights remain in the same place relative to the playing space and we go from small to large houses. If the lights cannot stay in the same place, maybe IWB's that can slide in or out then make the Socca on the breakout loom reach to your largest then when in smallest, double back your socca. The Main Feeder and Breakouts should be separate (well IMO). But remember, even if the bar goes from 9m to 15m, it doesn't mean the Pros also does. So your playing space also doesn't stay relative to bar length. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LXbydesign Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Is this a pro show? Regardless of stage size, a company wouldn't usually 're-jig' the show each time to fit a space!! The stage size is set and marked - and then regardless of size of venue the stage area is then masked in to create the black box..... Im currently relighter / LX1 on a national tour and I have all lx bars fixture positions marked on a long run of strap which then ensures the lighting position relative to the stage always remain the same. For very large spaces, the masking is dropped in accordingly and for smaller spaces then its just squeezing everything in a bit. It would be a big strain and a lot of work for the company having to re-learn choreography at each new venue. Thats madness. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLX1 Posted January 22, 2018 Author Share Posted January 22, 2018 Thanks for the responses everyone! I've had a chat with the choreographer and asked him to expand on what he meant by re-blocking, turns out he only wants to change the position of the tables used in the piece, which is easy enough to do with my position palettes! I will definitely take on board the points about using a strap with my fixture locations marked on and Ensuring my feeders are long enough! Upon further inspection of the Tech spec's, the prosc openings at all the venues differ by around 1m, so the performance space does indeed stay the same! If you guys have any other tips to save time, I'd love to hear them! Thanks, TheLX1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dosxuk Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Please don't do what someone did on one of the tours (solo gig) that came into my venue last autumn, and loom *everything* together, along with 50m of socapexes on the end. All the fan outs were looping back and forth, random bits of extension hanging off and massive lumps of taped up connectors, all in one almighty cable that took three local crew to get in and out of it's flightcase. I'm sure in the warehouse it seemed like a great idea, one cable, drop it in (this was for a floor package), plug in fixtures, done! But in reality you had this unmanageable mess that took far longer to get out / put away than two or three sets of soca looms to each area, and fan outs that can be easily plugged on the end once in place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gareth Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Sort of covering ground with this which has already been covered .... but as has been said, if it's a touring professional production the rig should be the same for every venue regardless of the length of the house bars. Even for a dance show with no set, the spacing (of the choreography) wouldn't be adjusted on a weekly basis to account for variations in stage width. So make your bar looms according to your rig, and stick with it! Separate bar looms and feeders is a good way forward. Also, unless you can be 100% sure that you can arrive at a length of feeder which isn't ridiculous and will 100% definitely be enough for every venue, consider taking a set of extensions if budget and truck space will allow. One more tip - which side are you running the feeders off to at each venue? Is it always the same? If it varies week to week, think about running the feeder loom to the centre of the bar, and having the bar looms run out to the sides from there. Making up a side-fed loom is OK if you've only got, say, half a dozen LED wash lights on each bar which are all hanging off the same power and data feed (just run the loom the other way around!) - but anything more complicated than that and you won't be able to just flip it around if it needs to run to the opposite fly floor in a couple of venues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jivemaster Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Don't make any part heavier than you can carry without breakages. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LXbydesign Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Sort of covering ground with this which has already been covered .... but as has been said, if it's a touring professional production the rig should be the same for every venue regardless of the length of the house bars. Even for a dance show with no set, the spacing (of the choreography) wouldn't be adjusted on a weekly basis to account for variations in stage width. So make your bar looms according to your rig, and stick with it! Separate bar looms and feeders is a good way forward. Also, unless you can be 100% sure that you can arrive at a length of feeder which isn't ridiculous and will 100% definitely be enough for every venue, consider taking a set of extensions if budget and truck space will allow. One more tip - which side are you running the feeders off to at each venue? Is it always the same? If it varies week to week, think about running the feeder loom to the centre of the bar, and having the bar looms run out to the sides from there. Making up a side-fed loom is OK if you've only got, say, half a dozen LED wash lights on each bar which are all hanging off the same power and data feed (just run the loom the other way around!) - but anything more complicated than that and you won't be able to just flip it around if it needs to run to the opposite fly floor in a couple of venues. Yes, I always adopt that method if Im involved from Day 1 of a prep - but on this occasion I got beaten to it and they decided to loom everything off to SR. I said ok but what if the powers on 't' other side of stage and I got back - well you can just plug the SL and SR soccas the other way round on the distro.Er...yeah - can you imagine the confusion THAT could cause......So I made a noise and insisted on a 20M and a (top up) 10M run of powerlock to simply run mains from one side t'other if need be. Bit of a bore but we have'nt got the heavy duty powerlock at least - so it plops in & out of the box nicely :-) Thanks for the responses everyone! I've had a chat with the choreographer and asked him to expand on what he meant by re-blocking, turns out he only wants to change the position of the tables used in the piece, which is easy enough to do with my position palettes! I will definitely take on board the points about using a strap with my fixture locations marked on and Ensuring my feeders are long enough! Upon further inspection of the Tech spec's, the prosc openings at all the venues differ by around 1m, so the performance space does indeed stay the same! If you guys have any other tips to save time, I'd love to hear them! Thanks, TheLX1 yeah so I have my lx bars coloured like the rainbow.... R O Y G B I V and if you have more than 7 LX over head then bar 8 would be 2 strips of R and so on... then a long ratchet strap - 10 M. mark on CL in white and then every fixture position in each colour is taped on and its fixture number added. Then you simply tape it to each bar as it gets rigged and match fixture number to colour / position! Works like a dream. Some venues we went too the techs hadnt seen that method before ( I was gob smacked ) If youve got a lot of lights then sometimes its worth getting a couple of straps and breaking down a strap to do, say, 3 or 4 bars each - otherwise it gets a bit crowded!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunray Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 When I do any colour coding I use the international electrical/electronic colour code AKA resistor colour code:Black(0), Brown, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Grey, White(9). Loosely based on the rainbow and all colours available in 20mm plastic tape. Numbered and coloured wire markers available in all good electrical outlets to correspond. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete LD Posted January 26, 2018 Share Posted January 26, 2018 I use cloth tape measures for the fixture spacing. I put coloured lx tape around at each point I want a light and put the fixture number on it. They are cheep and roll up tidy! they can double up as the tape for dead marking as well! On rock and roll tours I always run off to SR with the feeds and tour a 20M and 10M power lock set for the venues with power on the wrong side which is always enough! But running to centre is the best option if your going to be switching sides with dimmers! And dont forget to label the centre of the loom! It makes life a lot easer. And make sure all sockets are labeled (unless they are really clear what they are for!) even spare ways. And label spares as "Spare Hot" or "Spare dim" if you have a mixture on the bar. Makes fixing stuff easer! Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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