Looking for remote stage management software

[Thomas1987]

Hi all, thanks for the responses and sorry for the delay! To run through your points...

 

In effect, yes I most likely am over complicating things - but with the theory that in the long term it could makes things easier or be a step forward. I certainly wasn’t planning on piggy-backing on festival WiFi as thats asking for trouble, rather a small router next to my laptop with my own network. Admittedly that may still fall over with 30,000 punters near by!

 

I do a lot of corporate shows where you need to stall a compère for a while, or get announcements to them - which was another purpose I was thinking of. Of course, yes in an ideal world they’d be fully briefed, but I was thinking its another tool in the belt as sometimes it doesn’t work out like that.

 

I’ve brought in SM’s who use a screen and VGA lead and it works a treat, agreed. My thinking is to make the set up a bit easier, and also a 12” iPad in a waterproof/rubberised case is also pretty robust in rain with rolling risers etc - a bit more than a 17” LCD.

 

Quite possibly, as some say, its easier to ‘keep it simple’, but it was an idea I wanted to investigate as I can see some benefits as well as risks, and with a potential group of programmers who are looking for projects, I may still give it a go. Your feedback is very welcome too!

 

It would never be able to be used for anything “mission critical”, but I’m trying to think of the simplest method, with the least amount of data transmission required. Effectively a bunch of pre-programmed slides which I simply use the laptop to “activate” on the iPad so theres not tons of data travelling between the 2 with screen sharing.

[ImagineerTom]

don't base it on wifi - it will just keep failing.

 

If you're essentially looking for something that displays premade slides then an LCD screen (of any size) strapped to an arduino that is triggered by a 433 / 318mhz remote control mounted inside a waterproof box would cost considerably less than your Ipad solution, be exactly what you needed and although not 100% reliable is certainly 10 times more reliable in real world environments than anything that uses WIFI or bluetooth in a location with 2000 devices flooding the spectrum. Look at shows that tour with wireless playback on stage (for example Dave Gorman or the TED talks) and you'll discover that even with small audiences and highly controlled environments they will be using cabled internet connection, parallel servers and multi frequency presenter controllers (forwards / backwards button) with double redundancy on everything precisely because the wifi and bluetooth spectrum aren't show reliable. Also don't over-complicate this - many shows still use a traffic light system to cue the compare (red light = keep going, you've got plenty of time, amber light=we are nearly ready, start to wrap up, green light= we are ready, introduce the next item) and that could be implemented for pennies and is a system anyone could understand how to follow with 10 seconds briefing.

[Thomas1987]

don't base it on wifi - it will just keep failing.

 

If you're essentially looking for something that displays premade slides then an LCD screen (of any size) strapped to an arduino that is triggered by a 433 / 318mhz remote control mounted inside a waterproof box would cost considerably less than your Ipad solution, be exactly what you needed and although not 100% reliable is certainly 10 times more reliable in real world environments than anything that uses WIFI or bluetooth in a location with 2000 devices flooding the spectrum. Look at shows that tour with wireless playback on stage (for example Dave Gorman or the TED talks) and you'll discover that even with small audiences and highly controlled environments they will be using cabled internet connection, parallel servers and multi frequency presenter controllers (forwards / backwards button) with double redundancy on everything precisely because the wifi and bluetooth spectrum aren't show reliable. Also don't over-complicate this - many shows still use a traffic light system to cue the compare (red light = keep going, you've got plenty of time, amber light=we are nearly ready, start to wrap up, green light= we are ready, introduce the next item) and that could be implemented for pennies and is a system anyone could understand how to follow with 10 seconds briefing.

 

Thanks Tom, thats an interesting idea, I know we have a stock of arduino’s and a machining workshop I can make use of! Particularly the traffic light system, I like that idea.

[Stuart91]

A friend of mine implemented a system like that using a real set of traffic lights, which were hung off the front edge of a gallery. It wasn't exactly subtle.

 

Funnily enough, I would usually expect the traffic light sequence to go the other way, where green="plenty of time, keep going" and red="time up, get off the stage now". But I guess that's aimed at featured speakers, rather than a compere filling during changeovers.

[Jivemaster]

Messagemaker.co.uk do 3in high LED scrolling message boards that can sit among the monitors.

 

Sadly if the band don't look there is little you can actually do.

[ninjadingle]

Traffic lights could work perfectly, both ways. For bands - Green - you're good, amber - last song, red - you're out of time. For compere - Red - you're good, amber - wind it up to green - announce next act, then the cycle continues....