Classic Gear Live - PLASA 2023

[sandall]

It was indeed a good reason to visit. The show itself seemed noticeably smaller this year (quite a few manufacturers had a presence on a distributor's stand rather than their own), with a lot of empty space round the edges & no stands on the gallery. It was quite busy by afternoon (a lot of students appeared after lunch), but Interestingly whenever I passed the seminar theatres they were barely half full. 

[richard]

the classic gear was definitely the highlight for me!

[Rob Halliday]

😉

Some views from today... joined by a bunch of lovely people some expected, some wonderful surprises.

And for anyone in the area on the last day (Tues), a special treat - Vari-Lite programming legend Mike 'Oz' Owen, of Pink Floyd, Genesis and so much more, is coming to be re-united with the Artisan, VL2 and VL4. There will, I'm sure, be stories told...

Rob.

 

 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Rob Halliday

[gareth]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:51 PM, Rob Halliday said:

Hey Gareth,

Same modules plus a few more- labels show some are from Chichester, some from the Piccadilly. 
 

Sadly this is the only bit of the exhibit that isn’t alive, in part because we don’t have the frame for it, in part because I’m not brave enough  

John Wright was doing good work explaining it to people today, though, and it was all attracting great interest from visitors of all ages…

Rob 

Maybe one day there'll be enough of a system together in one place to enable it to be powered up. MMS was the very first memory console I ever got my teenage hands on - that particular system was ripped out of Theatr Clwyd in 1986 to be replaced by a Galaxy, but I encountered bits of it many years later in slightly unexpected circumstances...

I was relighting a show at the Cliffs Pavilion in Southend in October 1999, and one of the guys on the local crew mentioned that he was involved in a local amateur venue, the New Empire Theatre, which had two interesting lighting desks - an MMS, and another pretty impressive 'homebrew' desk which one of their members had built using, if I recall correctly, all manner of bits from other consoles (MMS and others) plus some of his own bespoke hardware. An invitation to pop across to have a look the next day was duly accepted. The MMS in their upstairs studio venue had come, in the main (desk furniture, crate and some modules) from one of the West End theatres, I believe - can't remember which one. But some modules had come from a variety of other sources - including one (maybe two) which were labelled "Mold Arts Centre" on the side of the frame (which would've been what Theatr Clwyd was referred to before they'd decided on a proper name for it!). That, at least, explained why a couple of the modules in the Clwyd desk when it was decommissioned were marked as "Rank Strand Service Department" - they must've been swapped out at some point, and rather than being swapped back the repaired mods were redeployed elsewhere with the service spares being left up in North Wales.

A quick Google reveals that the amateur company were booted out of the venue in 2008, the building suffered very badly due to an arson attack in 2015 and was demolished completely in 2017. I wonder if any of the MMS bits from their venue survive? Maybe you even have some of them in your collection...

[paulears]

I volunteered to do an hour, and really enjoyed myself. If the diary allows, I’d be keen to do every day next year. I detected two distinct groups of visitors. The young folk, who it was totally new to, and the others who just looked knowingly at gear they’d use in the past, but so many people revealed they are still using the kit. 23’s in particular people have, and are up in the air, doing their stuff. Equally, we’d been a bit sneaky and included a few special items, so people recognised the Sil, but not the fact it had the shutter set where the side shutters were worked from the top or bottom, neat for packed bars, plus the original Sil that few people realised was one! 
The strangest question was at first, I thought, a pi**take. A guy asked me about one of the cut away lights, asking if it didn’t spill all over the scenery? I spoke to so many people from foreign countries who were old Strand users, places I didn’t even know bought our lights. 
 

The thing that made me think, though, was some of the audio exhibits. The Pink Floyd PA for example, but what made me smile were a pair of 4x 12” WEM cabs stencilled Led Zeppelin. Rob already has some great ideas for next year. Like others my annual visit to PLASA gets less enjoyable with so many cutting edge products not really interesting me. I never even had time to wander around, so have missed great things no doubt, but I met loads of Blue Room folk too, which was great. 
 

I’ve also had to reassess my recent views on students too. Rob had three helping on the stand and they were really clued up, keen and nice to work with. Being blunt, the kind you hope to work with again. I also bumped into old friends from some colleges and they were keen to get some of the historic kit into student hands, which I’m hoping to arrange if I can.

[sleah]

It's interesting that interest in historic kit is quite high profile.

I guess it's the advent of LED that's been a huge game-changer. After all, until LED theatre lanterns have been largely the same since someone put a bulb in biscuit tin, then added a lens. Even movers have been the same basic device until LED.

Wonder what the next major thing will be?

[sandall]

Long before LED came along, the game-changer was when lighting desks started being designed by computer engineers, rather than lighting operators (grey writing on a small grey button, in a row of identical grey buttons, in a sea of grey buttons - "Can I have a red 'Record' button?" "No, we only bought grey ones!").

By contrast, specialist computer (& laptop) keyboards with colour-coded button-tops have been around for decades.

Edited September 5, 2023 by sandall

[James]

14 hours ago, gareth said:

A quick Google reveals that the amateur company were booted out of the venue in 2008, the building suffered very badly due to an arson attack in 2015 and was demolished completely in 2017. I wonder if any of the MMS bits from their venue survive? Maybe you even have some of them in your collection...

I believe Danny (the chap you were talking about who built the impressive homebrew desk) is a Blue Room member (https://www.blue-room.org.uk/profile/14434-spectralight/) 
(and also https://www.blue-room.org.uk/profile/9729-electronicdan/)

He did seem to confirm that they were able to remove the MMS bits from the venue in the previous MMS thread.  

 

[sparkyweb]

Unfortunately I did not have as much time to visit this stand as I would have like as I was busy on my own stand, however it was great to see all the equipment and have a quick chat about some of the items! Thanks for bringing it along

[gareth]

23 hours ago, James said:

I believe Danny (the chap you were talking about who built the impressive homebrew desk) is a Blue Room member ... {snip}

 

Ah, thanks - I'd completely forgotten that this had been discussed before.

[jonhole]

Congratulations @Rob Halliday and team for putting this stand together so well - it was really special to have the opportunity to program and run an Artisan with a VL2 & VL4.

One of the revelations was realising every key was backlit by its own incandescent lamp...

[gareth]

4 hours ago, jonhole said:

One of the revelations was realising every key was backlit by its own incandescent lamp...

 

Used to be the standard way of doing it for many years on pretty much any console with illuminated buttons.

[jonhole]

1 hour ago, gareth said:

Used to be the standard way of doing it for many years on pretty much any console with illuminated buttons.

Makes perfect (and obvious) sense, I’ve just never thought about it before.

[AncientLight]

19 hours ago, jonhole said:

Congratulations @Rob Halliday and team for putting this stand together so well - it was really special to have the opportunity to program and run an Artisan with a VL2 & VL4.

One of the revelations was realising every key was backlit by its own incandescent lamp...

Then there was the LP desk. Three presets, and each fader had two indicators - one red, one white - which, by means of a microswitch in the fader, selected the "group" for that fader. As it was all by relays, the desk required. So an 80 way desk had 480 indicators. if my memory serves,  a three phase 32A supply was required.

[Rob Halliday]

(This is a blatant repeat of something I put on LinkedIn - sorry if you've already seen it there!):

 

If you're a lighting fan and a music fan of a certain (how shall we put this...?) 'vintage', you will immediately recognise the rig shown in the drawing above - part of Marc Brickman's iconic lighting design for Pink Floyd in 1994. 

It was casually dropped on to the Artisan by Mike ‘Oz’ Owen, the Vari-Lite programmer for that tour and so much more besides, when he came to hang out with us on the Classic Gear Live stand on the last day.

The conversations it provoked were fascinating. And it was also wonderful just to watch him reach out to the console and start gently using it, just as it had been three days earlier when Andy Voller said 'I haven't used this for twenty years' but then you saw the muscles in his hands remember just how to work it, like a piano player coming back to their instrument after decades away, slowly at first then faster and faster as if they'd never been apart.

There are many reasons why I love exploring the history of what we do, but moments like these are some of the best.

Thanks to everyone who was part of this, in particular the wonderful students who helped set it up, take it all down and guarded the gear as if it were their own during the show: Allie, Annie, Gee, Jacob, Oscar and Zihaire; Jim Laws the keeper of the theatre lights, Dik Welland the keeper of the Vari-Lites and Autograph, keeper of the Cadac; Philip Parsons at Steeldeck for giving us a place to put everything; Chris Hewitt for his world of rock and roll sound; Andy Voller for being there way longer than he'd perhaps expected to be, and all of the other guests who came to share their expertise, memories and stories: Oz, John Wright, Don Hindle, John Schwiller, Paul Johnson, Mike Walker, Alan Luxford, Marco van Beek and so many of the VLPS London gang - and all involved in getting it there and back particularly Sam and the gang at White Light. Plus everyone who came to visit - thankyou.

We've been asked to do it again next year. There are already so many ideas. (the best of which, so far, might be 'Classic t-shirt'...)

See you there?