# The NEW NNHS, first year report.



## Sony (Jul 10, 2011)

So the year is over! Our season was long and stressful but also wonderful and filled with great shows! See this thread for pics!

Now that we have finished our first season in the new space I am at more liberty to divulge details that I wasn't able to before!

Unfortunately I do not have more pictures as I haven't had time to take any, we were going full bore throughout the entire year and therefore we didn't have much time. Somewhat expected when you have to cram 13 separate full length shows into one school year.

Stuff I've learned this year about the new spaces...

NEVER hire Signet to do ANYTHING, they were the ones who did our audio install here (install, not design)...they have screwed up more things than they have fixed. They were caught stealing from UMass Amherst and are now in litigation with the state and banned from submitting any more state bids, they are terrible.

However the people who did the acoustical/audio design are amazing, AcenTech has been nothing but the best. The system they installed sounds freakin crystal clear and holy crap does it have balls. 12,000 watts of speakers in the large theatre alone, all completely Renkus-Heinz with an M7CL-48 feeding it all. AcenTech's acoustical design is great as well, you barely need to mic anyone in the large space, and with a full orchestra the music is VERY loud. For our large musical this year it was too loud and we had to install curtains and soft goods in our pit in order to help reduce the orchestra volume. We didn't mic a single instrument in the 22 piece orchestra and you could hear every single instrument crystal clear. The people from AcenTech have also been wonderful! On multiple occasions the people from AcenTech have taken time out of their own busy schedules (without us even asking them to) to come and see our shows, including some of our rehearsals and give us suggestions on how we can make things sound even better! 

ALPS has been wonderful as always! Their install has been virtually flawless and problem free other than two tiny issues which were resolved pretty much immediately. We have problems with one of the small Sensor+ 48 racks getting stuck in Straight 3-Phase mode for some reason instead of balanced. It required a software reset of that entire rack to fix. The other was a weird glitch with the ETC Paradigm system software where the Paradigm control system would crash after a period of 90 days or something like that and require a reset. This was fixed with the latest software upgrade. Paul has been awesome as well, he often comes in when he can just to upgrade all of our ETC software and firmware to the latest version for us.

We really tested our rigging system this year as well. For Curtains: The Musical, we hung a 1300lb fake brick wall off our number 19 lineset and it took it like a champ, no problem. I had 12 beefy lift lines on the thing to distribute the weight, it didn't move during the show, but it could have if we wished it to. For Sunday in the Park with George we had 6 Portals, 3 white and 3 painted which weighed around 200-500lbs each which flew in and out during the show. As well as two trees which also flew in and out with ease. SECOA installed a great system, it works great and the only thing I could wish for that we don't have is a walkable grid so I could hang chain motors and spot lines, or even a way to access our high steel without a boom lift, but alas you can't have everything. 

Our equipment inventory is huge, with over 400+ Source 4's now in our inventory, we had no shortage of fixtures for any of our shows. We did however have to rent more dimmers for Curtains! as our 137 were not enough. We rented 2 supplemental 24 Packs to our extra 24 Pack that we already own, giving us 209 total dimmers. We easily ran socapex to our electrics, allowing us to place the needed dimmers exactly where we wanted them, something that would have been impossible in our old space. The 400 amp and 200 amp company switches both saw use this year during that show. Our electrical distribution is great, we have 800 amps in our dimmer room for all those dimmers, plus a separate 400 and 200 amp feed for our company switches. This gives us a total capacity of 1400 amps of 3 phase so 4200 total amps. (Over half a megawatt of capacity!) This is all fed by a 1600a Air Actuated Breaker and a 500kVA transformer that is dedicated to just our wing of the building. 

The smaller theatre had a great run this year, we worked out all the problems we were having at the beginning of the year, and other than the lack of adequate dimmers (48 is NOT enough.) We hung curtains around the edge to provide sound dampening to kill off standing waves and we reconfigured the seating into an L Shape to give us more play space. Built some pretty awesome sets, my favorite being the one we built for Eurydice, some pics follow.








All in all it was a pretty awesome year, I couldn't ask for better students, they are amazing and I will deeply miss those who graduated this year. 

Please feel free to ask questions! I will try to answer as best I can/if I can!


----------



## emac (Jul 10, 2011)

wow!


I want your school. 

BADLEY!!!!!


great pics of your show too!


----------



## DuckJordan (Jul 10, 2011)

I'm glad things are working out so well for you, Right now my old high school is in the process of getting the research done for a bid process to update their lighting. Unfortunately the people in the area who are doing the installs aren't accustomed to theatrical spaces. I'm sure more things will come up along the way in which you'd wish you had gotten done but it, sounds like a couple of great spaces to perform and tech in. Just a word of caution about your flies. Secoa isn't very nice at coming back after 6 mo or so, at least in my area and tend to say "well, you signed off on the system its your problem now". Granted it was in a university space and it was partially installed by a professor there.

I do have one question, do you use many automated fixtures in the space, or at least have the option to add them in at a future date?


----------



## museav (Jul 10, 2011)

Sony said:


> NEVER hire Signet to do ANYTHING, they were the ones who did our audio install here (install, not design)...they have screwed up more things than they have fixed.


I can't speak specific to that particular firm and it sounds like there may have been some other issues involved, but looking at their web site I would guess that this was another case of lumping the audio and video in theatres in as part of a single "low voltage" contract that also encompasses paging, access control, clock systems, life safety, etc., something I have seen numerous schools do and have yet to see be successful.

I had one school where they contracted a company that may have been very qualified at those other aspects, but that had no experience with theatrical type audio systems. Making the situation even worse, the Contractor was apparently a dealer for very little of the equipment specified and bid on the work assuming they could substitute brands for which they were dealers, literally proposing Dukane and Rauland products in place of Shure, Sennheiser, Soundcraft, Clear-Com, etc. They quickly realized that with a Consultant involved they weren't going to get away with that and they ended up subcontracting another company that was better qualified and that could provide the specified equipment. We luckily did not have to be part of this aspect but that cost much more than what they bid so they apparently started introducing Change Orders into all their work to try to compensate for the added cost, which eventually led to they and the school going to court.

Just something to consider for others that may find themselves in similar situations.


----------



## Sony (Jul 10, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> I'm glad things are working out so well for you, Right now my old high school is in the process of getting the research done for a bid process to update their lighting. Unfortunately the people in the area who are doing the installs aren't accustomed to theatrical spaces. I'm sure more things will come up along the way in which you'd wish you had gotten done but it, sounds like a couple of great spaces to perform and tech in. Just a word of caution about your flies. Secoa isn't very nice at coming back after 6 mo or so, at least in my area and tend to say "well, you signed off on the system its your problem now". Granted it was in a university space and it was partially installed by a professor there.
> 
> I do have one question, do you use many automated fixtures in the space, or at least have the option to add them in at a future date?



Not too worried about SECOA, we have already contracted with ALPS to do our annual rigging inspection each year. 

As for automated fixtures, we would have to purchase a distro as well as socapex to run more than about 4 or 6 120vAC or 208vAC constant power circuits onto our electrics for automated lighting. We do have 6 Right Arms and 36 Apollo Color Scrollers but other than that no we do not own much automated lighting, nor do we really feel we need it. If we do use automated lighting we usually rent Mac 700's from ALPS.


----------



## Tex (Jul 10, 2011)

Sony said:


> As for automated fixtures, we would have to purchase a distro as well as socapex to run more than about 4 or 6 120vAC or 208vAC constant power circuits onto our electrics for automated lighting.


R20 relay modules are a pretty inexpensive and efficient way to get constant power to your electrics.


----------



## chausman (Jul 10, 2011)

museav said:


> I can't speak specific to that particular firm and it sounds like there may have been some other issues involved, but looking at their web site I would guess that this was another case of lumping the audio and video in theatres in as part of a single "low voltage" contract that also encompasses paging, access control, clock systems, life safety, etc., something I have seen numerous schools do and have yet to see be successful.


 
That happened at my middle school. No, they don't have a theater, but the choir/band rooms, large commons, and both gyms systems are used regularly...and have several limitations. Our gyms still have random popping/buzz/whatever whenever we want to use it. I have called the installer, my teachers have called the installer, the principle has called the installer, and nothing has gotten fixed.


----------



## venuetech (Jul 10, 2011)

museav said:


> the Contractor was apparently a dealer for very little of the equipment specified and bid on the work assuming they could substitute brands for which they were dealers, literally proposing Dukane and Rauland products in place of Shure, Sennheiser, Soundcraft, Clear-Com, etc. They quickly realized that with a Consultant involved they weren't going to get away with that and they ended up subcontracting another company that was better qualified and that could provide the specified equipment.



every theatrical project should have team of consultants. things come out so much better.


----------



## Sony (Jul 10, 2011)

Tex said:


> R20 relay modules are a pretty inexpensive and efficient way to get constant power to your electrics.



I know all about R20 modules, unfortunately the shows we use movers for are also the shows where we need extra dimmers and therefore no 2 dimmers can be spared for an R20 module. I only have 48 stage circuits over ALL of our electrics so we are really limited. Thats why we have the extra SP12 and usually rent 1 or 2 more SP12's for the larger shows with extra socapex to give us up to 72 more electrics circuits. When we do rent, our rental budget is usually pretty large and therefore renting a distro is not usually a problem for us.


----------



## zmb (Jul 10, 2011)

Can you post the tech specification packet and talk more about the black box yet?


----------



## Sony (Jul 11, 2011)

zmb said:


> Can you post the tech specification packet and talk more about the black box yet?


 

I already posted most of the tech packet in the other thread. If you have any specific questions then feel free to ask! I will answer all I can.

The black box is a small 60ft by 40ft room with a standard 6ft square grid system. I don't have new pics that I can post yet, the only pics I have are from construction, there really isn't much fancy about it. Dark grey cinder block walls, and a seating system from SECOA which is far to heavy and hard to move. The only thing that is a bit funky is the booth is on the side of the space which how they configured it would be 90 degrees to the play area, and how WE have it configured makes it literally behind the play area/above the play area. We set up a camera feed from above the seating in order to help the stage managers call cues.

Feel free to ask questions, I'll answer what I can!


----------



## Tex (Jul 11, 2011)

Sony said:


> I only have 48 stage circuits over ALL of our electrics so we are really limited.


Wow. I can't imagine building a new space like that and not doing dimmer per circuit.


----------



## zmb (Jul 11, 2011)

Oh, how has it worked out to have movable electrics with the socapex breakouts?


----------



## TheGuruat12 (Jul 13, 2011)

To say I'm jealous would be a gross understatement.


----------



## ScottT (Jul 13, 2011)

This is a high school?

:O


----------



## Sony (Jul 13, 2011)

Tex said:


> Wow. I can't imagine building a new space like that and not doing dimmer per circuit.



It is dimmer per circuit, we only have 48 dimmers and circuits for all of our electrics. It works out to 8 total socapex runs. We get 4 more socapex runs from our extra SP12 and we can add on top of that whatever we need through rentals from ALPS.


zmb said:


> Oh, how has it worked out to have movable electrics with the socapex breakouts?



It actually works freakin amazing, originally our cable cradles were attached to specific pipes. I fixed that however by cutting the cradle free and then hanging 4 spare 5/8 rope loft blocks from the steel and attached the cable cradles to the 5/8 rope. That was fun...had to rent a 40' Genie and a super straddle for it which gave us just barely enough height to make it to the steel. (50') Unfortunately I'm not sure if our floor can support a boomlift so we went with the lighter genie option. 

So now we manually raise and lower our cable cradles, which is not a problem, we setup some cleats on the electrics rail using some 1ft lengths of schedule 40 and cheeseboro's so we just tie off to those. 

It's been working wonderful so far, we moved 2nd electric to 8 pipe from 10 pipe for Sunday in the Park with George and had no problem. For Curtains!: The Musical we moved 4th electric from 17 pipe to 18 pipe and had no problem ether. It's a truly flexible system, it's wonderful. It does sometimes take a little more time to hang and cable things because you do have the socapex to deal with as well as the regular cables, but it's honestly not any more difficult. I love it, it's wonderful!


----------



## DuckJordan (Jul 14, 2011)

what about using some carabeaners on the ends of the lift lines for the cable craddles, and putting a loop on the top of each batten line, giving use to every pipe to be an electric but not requiring an obscure procedure.... we just did that in our new updated space. (although our boxes cannot be detatched from the cable, this whole oh you can use any batten as an electric... but wait you have to figure out a way to get the boxes where you need them...


----------



## Edrick (Jul 14, 2011)

I still hope to get down there sometime to check out a show. Been booked solid so didn't have a chance to get down there this season. Alls I can say is boy oh boy haha.


----------



## Sony (Jul 14, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> what about using some carabeaners on the ends of the lift lines for the cable craddles, and putting a loop on the top of each batten line, giving use to every pipe to be an electric but not requiring an obscure procedure.... we just did that in our new updated space. (although our boxes cannot be detatched from the cable, this whole oh you can use any batten as an electric... but wait you have to figure out a way to get the boxes where you need them...



I do not understand exactly what you mean, might just be I'm having trouble visualizing it. Do you mean place carabiners on the cable cradle then attach them to the end lift line on the batten we are using? That would be really pointless since then the cable cradle would just be at the end of the pipe where it does no good. The problem was the cradles were on their own lift lines attached to a specific arbor and the cradle lines dropped off a double loft block at the end of each batten. The only difference was that the cradle line ended 10ft above the batten which meant the cradle was 10ft higher than the batten, preventing full travel of the batten but keeping the cable from being too slack. This meant they were attached to and came in and went out with the arbor that was attached to the batten. Only 4 battens had these extra lift lines and therefore they were the only places the cradles could be attached.

This way is not really obscure, it just requires one extra step, it's not difficult. Also we usually leave enough slack in the cables on each side of the cradle that bringing in the baten to the floor does not require a re-trim of the cable cradle. They don'e move for the most part, they just keep the slack in the line from hitting the floor or getting caught on tall moving set pieces coming on or off stage.


----------



## DuckJordan (Jul 14, 2011)

I'm talking about attaching the carabiners to the ends of the lift lines for the cable cradles, and then using the carabiners to attach to your arbors. sorry. I used batten line instead of arbor which caused a major headache.


----------



## Footer (Jul 14, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> I'm talking about attaching the carabiners to the ends of the lift lines for the cable cradles, and then using the carabiners to attach to your arbors. sorry. I used batten line instead of arbor which caused a major headache.


 
Way over thinking it. Cable picks like sony put in are very common. Usually they are secured to a pin rail. In a space with movable electrics and no side rails its pretty much the best you can do. 

...... Something involving tapatalk.......


----------



## DuckJordan (Jul 14, 2011)

It may be over thinking but it allows for them to be moved during a show without much rehearsal time.

Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk


----------



## Footer (Jul 14, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> It may be over thinking but it allows for them to be moved during a show without much rehearsal time.
> 
> Sent from my ADR6300 using Tapatalk


 
Depending on how its picked, you could probably do that. You can at least get enough travel to have a high and low trim for an electric. However, I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I have moved and electric during a show. If it needs to happen, put a person on it, hes at a school... labor is CHEAP.


----------



## Sony (Jul 14, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> I'm talking about attaching the carabiners to the ends of the lift lines for the cable cradles, and then using the carabiners to attach to your arbors. sorry. I used batten line instead of arbor which caused a major headache.



Impossible for this system, that would require me to move an extra lift line to an arbor every time I want to move the cradle, this means I would need every one of our headblocks and loft blocks to have an extra groove since everything is underhung and also require me to have easy access to our grid, which I do not. In case you missed my previous post, I can only access our grid if I *RENT* a 40ft genie lift and a super straddle to go with it. I do not know the weight supporting capacity of our stage and therefore I cannot drive a boom lift over it for better reach. We do not have a walkable grid and our steel is at 49ft and therefore impossible to access with even the tallest of genie lifts. The Super Straddle gets my platform height to 45ft which puts the steel at head height...not fun nor easy.


----------



## Sony (Jul 14, 2011)

Footer said:


> Way over thinking it. Cable picks like sony put in are very common. Usually they are secured to a pin rail. In a space with movable electrics and no side rails its pretty much the best you can do.
> 
> ...... Something involving tapatalk.......



We have mid rails on both sides of the stage, do you have a better suggestion for having side rails? I'm up for suggestions, right now the cable pick is secured to a pin rail I constructed on the electrics mid-rail opposite of the arbors. You can see this electrics rail in one of the pictures I posted in my previous thread that I linked to at the beginning of this thread.


----------



## chausman (Jul 15, 2011)

Lucky...

Is the fly system a full fly?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Sony (Jul 15, 2011)

chausman said:


> Lucky...
> 
> Is the fly system a full fly?
> 
> ...



yes, high trim is 41 feet, low trim is 3 feet, floor to steel is 49ft.


----------



## chausman (Jul 15, 2011)

Sony said:


> yes, high trim is 41 feet, low trim is 3 feet, floor to steel is 49ft.


 
Lucky...

And, you said that it was operable from the deck and from the mid-rail? How does that work if the locks are at the stage level? 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## Sony (Jul 15, 2011)

chausman said:


> Lucky...
> 
> And, you said that it was operable from the deck and from the mid-rail? How does that work if the locks are at the stage level?
> 
> ...



There are two sets of locks, one on the mid rail and one at the floor rail. When you want to use the mid-rail you lock all of the mid rail and unlock all of the floor rail and vise versa.


----------



## Esoteric (Jul 17, 2011)

I remember the cable drops in the B Iden Payne at UT. What a pain in the @$$. They were motorized at one point, but all the motors were burnt out. So we had to drop them through the grid with boxes attached. Man, over 60'-70' of travel those things were HEAVY.


----------



## CSCTech (Jul 26, 2011)

Well its nice to see that a least some schoolsystems know what their doing 

400 Source 4s....
/Me weeps over his 16 Colortran 5/50s and other colortran fixtures.


----------



## Sony (Jul 26, 2011)

CSCTech said:


> Well its nice to see that a least some schoolsystems know what their doing
> 
> 400 Source 4s....
> /Me weeps over his 16 Colortran 5/50s and other colortran fixtures.



Yeah well...I can't say that they completely know what they are doing, but the key was they kept US (the employee's) in the loop throughout almost the entire construction process. This allowed us to personally make sure we got what we wanted, it also allowed us to fix NUMEROUS problems that would have destroyed us before they became major problems. Things like the particle detector being so low in the Little Theatre that a tall person on the top seating platform would have set it off when they walked to their seat, or things like the catwalk in the large theatre having full three level railings on ether side without an opening to hang lights on the side facing the stage which would have required us to lean over the top and yoke out every single fixture in order to hang ANYTHING on the FOH. It was a long process, but all the major stuff got fixed, we are now working on fixing a bunch of the little things.


----------



## museav (Jul 29, 2011)

Sony said:


> Yeah well...I can't say that they completely know what they are doing, but the key was they kept US (the employee's) in the loop throughout almost the entire construction process. This allowed us to personally make sure we got what we wanted, it also allowed us to fix NUMEROUS problems that would have destroyed us before they became major problems.


I think it is important to note that the examples provided seem to be more addressing general issues that they are getting "what we wanted". While I think getting the input of the users is critical, I also think this also sometimes needs to be tempered with a dose of reality. What I mean is:

The users today may often not be the users on 5 years or even next year. You often have to be careful of incorporating personal preferences that may not be shared by others.
The Users are often not the Owners or the people paying and those parties may have differing goals and priorities. If a user wants one thing and the Owner or party paying for it wants something different, guess which controls?
There may be practical construction and code issues that sometimes necessitate less than ideal conditions or solutions. Those are generally not open to being subrogated to personal needs or wants.
Typcially, there is some party that will be ethically and potentially legally liable for the results and they have to have the final say in what is designed. That party should certainly be open to input from others but if they are assuming liability they also have to have the associated authority. I have terminated my involvement on projects where people seemed to believe my role was to assume the responsibility for their decisions or direction regardless of whether I agreed with them or not.
I really wanted to highlight the potential difference between giving input to the designer(s) in order to help avoid problems or optimize the results versus "to personally make sure we got what we wanted."


----------



## DuckJordan (Jul 29, 2011)

museav said:


> I think it is important to note that the examples provided seem to be more addressing general issues that they are getting "what we wanted". While I think getting the input of the users is critical, I also think this also sometimes needs to be tempered with a dose of reality. What I mean is:
> 
> The users today may often not be the users on 5 years or even next year. You often have to be careful of incorporating personal preferences that may not be shared by others.
> The Users are often not the Owners or the people paying and those parties may have differing goals and priorities. If a user wants one thing and the Owner or party paying for it wants something different, guess which controls?
> ...


 
while I agree with most of your post, I have to say you have a bit of a skewed outlook on things. I understand that while the people financing hold the money they most likely have never touched the equipment in their own building nor tried to adequately used said equipment in making a performance work.

Now I am not saying the employees should be allowed to make final decisions, I am just saying taking input from the people who end up using the equipment while understanding that some of it may be personal preference, (such as what I am trying to convince my AV friend from buying cheap DJ dimmers for their S4's in a convention center) it still should be noted that asking how the facility is actually used an not just what they see the goals of the facility being. (most people who are in charge of a building have no idea what the building needs to actually accomplish, just the clients that they serve). 

Again this is not an attack at all to consultants but just a reminder that even though the money comes from the top, the top doesn't necessarily know what they need.


----------



## Chris15 (Jul 29, 2011)

Is not this where the role of consultant comes in?
Generally consultants come into play when the people at the top recongise that they don't have the knowledge / skills / etc. to deal with a particularly specialised part of a project. Consultant are generally assumed to be competent and because of the way things work in the big bad world, because someone is being paid to give the advice, it's apparently more valid than anything that might come from existing staff.

The way I see it, the consultant is there firstly to help the big wigs work out what they want and to define the basis on which the systems are then designed and specified. Looking at what management want as a future vision is critical. Just because a facility hosts a certain spectra of events now does not mean that's what management want that profile to look like in a few years time... Does that mean you should neglect the current uses? Absolutely not. But if a minor inconvenience now is going to make it much easier to achieve management's grand dreams later is that not a small price to pay (financially and otherwise)?

I'd tend to think a good consultant will be acutely aware of the usability of the system, but they can only work on the information they manage to squeeze out of management and their own experiences. I don't know any consultants who have noteworthy skills in mind reading.
One of the best projects in recent times was a theatre in Melbourne. Over time, the producing company had developed a specification of sorts for what they wanted in their space. It ended up forming the basis for all the consultants' works on that venue. It had been built up over 20 odd years and was 600 pages. The key here is that the ground level people in the organisation had created an easy line of communication with the consultants. Management didn't have to need to understand each thing in that document, they could just hand it over...

Above all else, remember the golden rule...
He who has the Gold makes the rules...


----------



## Sony (Jul 31, 2011)

Chris15 said:


> Is not this where the role of consultant comes in?
> Generally consultants come into play when the people at the top recongise that they don't have the knowledge / skills / etc. to deal with a particularly specialised part of a project. Consultant are generally assumed to be competent and because of the way things work in the big bad world, because someone is being paid to give the advice, it's apparently more valid than anything that might come from existing staff.
> 
> The way I see it, the consultant is there firstly to help the big wigs work out what they want and to define the basis on which the systems are then designed and specified. Looking at what management want as a future vision is critical. Just because a facility hosts a certain spectra of events now does not mean that's what management want that profile to look like in a few years time... Does that mean you should neglect the current uses? Absolutely not. But if a minor inconvenience now is going to make it much easier to achieve management's grand dreams later is that not a small price to pay (financially and otherwise)?
> ...



Thats what you would hope...but the school didn't use their consultant past the value engineering stage. So when we came in there were some major redesigns that were not discussed with the consultant.

Also MuseAV, please don't take what I said so literally... not being able to hang lights on an FOH bar is not a matter of personal preference, nor was having particle detectors that would have been set off during EVERY show. 90% of the problems we had addressed were problems with useability and not personal, although there were a few of those too but those were mainly in the shop area and storage. Things like there being only one 20amp power outlet in the followspot loft which would be incapable of running two 1200w Robert Juliat Topaze spots. The electrician more than happily installed a second 20 amp outlet when we told him about the problem. In all honesty I would have loved to have him install some 208v outlets up there too, for movers but that was a personal thing and not necessary.


----------



## museav (Aug 1, 2011)

DuckJordan said:


> while I agree with most of your post, I have to say you have a bit of a skewed outlook on things. I understand that while the people financing hold the money they most likely have never touched the equipment in their own building nor tried to adequately used said equipment in making a performance work.
> 
> Now I am not saying the employees should be allowed to make final decisions, I am just saying taking input from the people who end up using the equipment while understanding that some of it may be personal preference, (such as what I am trying to convince my AV friend from buying cheap DJ dimmers for their S4's in a convention center) it still should be noted that asking how the facility is actually used an not just what they see the goals of the facility being. (most people who are in charge of a building have no idea what the building needs to actually accomplish, just the clients that they serve).


Your comment actually seems to support the point I was making. Consider that a Consultant is generally not a decision maker on a project, their role is typically to provide input and recommendations to allow the actual decision makers to make informed decisions. Even detailed drawing and specification prepared by a Consultant have no real authority except as assigned them by those who do have such authority. At least in my experience, the actual decision makers with that authority are typically the administrators, backers, etc.

In addition, your comment seems to go right to the difference between defining the problems and goals versus developing solutions, addressing how to achieve the goals versus defining the goals. The general issue is what in the design profession would be viewed as programming versus design. Programming is defining the needs and goals for the project, in effect what the project goals are and the desired result, while design is developing solutions to meet and support those needs and goals. To develop any effective design solution requires first sufficiently defining the problem and goals. At least for most projects, the definition of a successful project is not the hardware and its application (the a particular solution was applied) but rather what the venue can do and how effectively it can do it (that the defined goals were achieved). And it is generally parties such as administrators, executives, etc. that establish the overall goals and their relative priority.

This can be important as virtually every project will have numerous often competing aspects. There may be differing goals or desires between users, between different trades, with the budget and so on. When such conflicts occur the resulting decision is often a matter of how everything relates to supporting the overall project goals and vision. What it often comes down to is that something that makes the operation easier or better is not seen by the decision makers as being as critical in the overall picture as something that impacts the ability of the venue to support the defined uses and goals. And thus one must consider the perspective of the decision makers in order to effectively serve a project.


----------



## Sony (Sep 20, 2011)

Beginning of the second year update!

Starting a little side project we have desperately needed since last year.

Lighting Rack for some of our 400+ Source 4's, mounted on the wall 20ft up on the electrics rail. Until now this was wasted space. Waiting for 30 90° Cheeseborough's to come in before we can finish this project. 




In the process of cleaning up the rail and installing pipe.




A small part of our inventory, which was up on that electrics rail on the floor until now making one hell of a trip hazard and hard to navigate. 




Schedule 40 getting ready to ascend, temporary cheeseborough was placed on the end before ascending to prevent the rope from slipping.


----------



## derekleffew (Sep 20, 2011)

Sony said:


> ...Waiting for 30 90° Cheeseborough's to come in before we can finish this project. ...


I'm curious as to why you went with Cheeseboroughs as opposed to the cleaner Kee Klamp or less-expensive Rota-Lock?

I don't see one in the pictures, but I hope you're planning on building a gin pole/gantry arm with pulley and a double-ended rope to move fixtures from gallery to stage and back.


----------



## Sony (Sep 20, 2011)

I meant Rota-Lock, most people don't know the difference so I just used the generic cheeseborough name. Already have a 5/8" Rope loft block up there with 75' of nylon rope for lifting fixtures up and down


----------



## Sony (Sep 22, 2011)

Sony said:


> I meant Rota-Lock, most people don't know the difference so I just used the generic cheeseborough name. Already have a 5/8" Rope loft block up there with 75' of nylon rope for lifting fixtures up and down


 
So I take this back...we will be using cheeseboros...apparently cheeseboros are less expensive than Rota-Lock's from our supplier...which is REALLY weird. A black 90 degree cheeseboro from Peak Trading was $15 each while they wanted $25 each for Rota-Locks. Crazy I know, buy they work so we will use them. We are about halfway done finishing the wall, got a couple horizontal pipes up as well as 3 of the verticals, hopefully we can finish it sometime next week when the rest of the cheeseboros come in.


----------



## Sony (Sep 28, 2011)

Update! Almost completely finished, only need 4 more cheeseboro's to put up the last two bars. They are on their way, started hanging lights in the meantime.  Definitely way more space now then we had before!

Most of the bars up and secured.



A small portion of our inventory hanging out.


You can see a little bit of our color coding system that we have. I saw this done at Trinity Repertory Co. and I liked it so much that I brought it here. Each lens tube gets the bottom tip coated with a certain color of spray paint. 

Red = 50°
Blue = 36°
Yellow = 26°
No Paint = 19°

We do not paint our 10°, 14° or 70° since they look so different from everything else that it is not needed.

This allows us to quickly identify each fixture and what degree it is without thinking and having to examine the lens barrels for numbers or lens position. This speeds up hanging and striking fixtures as well as identifying fixtures on the plot easily in a crowded grid from the floor in the Little Theatre where grid access is not possible without a ladder or genie. It also helps keep fixtures sorted and easy to grab on the floor or in storage so people are less likely to just throw lights in piles when they know where they should go just by looking.


----------



## icewolf08 (Oct 3, 2011)

Sony said:


> Red = 50°
> Blue = 36°
> Yellow = 26°
> No Paint = 19°


 
I realize that A) it's too late, and B) we have had many ongoing discusisons on this topic on CB. However, I am a fir believer that when color coding units, a 36˚ should have no paint as the 36˚ (or 6x9) when drawn on a plot has no hatch marks (ie. drawn as an open unit with no additional lines for degree marks).


----------



## Footer (Oct 3, 2011)

icewolf08 said:


> I realize that A) it's too late, and B) we have had many ongoing discusisons on this topic on CB. However, I am a fir believer that when color coding units, a 36˚ should have no paint as the 36˚ (or 6x9) when drawn on a plot has no hatch marks (ie. drawn as an open unit with no additional lines for degree marks).


 
The only issue with that is when you have outside units in everyone will assume they are 36 degrees.


----------



## icewolf08 (Oct 3, 2011)

Footer said:


> The only issue with that is when you have outside units in everyone will assume they are 36 degrees.


 
Well if you have outside units in an any of your house fixtures don't get painted you would have the same confusion.


----------



## Footer (Oct 3, 2011)

icewolf08 said:


> Well if you have outside units in an any of your house fixtures don't get painted you would have the same confusion.


 
That is why we paint everything. Also makes it much easier to run through the rig and rip out stuff that is not yours. We work in a hard rep situation so its nice to be able to walk through the entire rig and see that every barrel matches every yoke which matches the tag on the raceway. To each their own. All I know is that I wish ETC marked more then one corner of their fixtures. Whats an extra sticker or two? Always bothered me. Then again, they did better then strand/century who put the label on the barrel so you can only see it when the barrel is ran out!


----------



## chausman (Oct 3, 2011)

I wish the barrels had the degrees on more then two sides. I always seem to have it in the wrong direction and can't tell from the cats what the fixture is. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


----------



## ScottT (Oct 3, 2011)

chausman said:


> I wish the barrels had the degrees on more then two sides. I always seem to have it in the wrong direction and can't tell from the cats what the fixture is.


 
Silver sharpie...


----------



## chausman (Oct 3, 2011)

ScottT said:


> Silver sharpie...


 
Not my theater, not my lights... Otherwise I would.


----------



## Sony (Oct 3, 2011)

Footer said:


> That is why we paint everything. Also makes it much easier to run through the rig and rip out stuff that is not yours. We work in a hard rep situation so its nice to be able to walk through the entire rig and see that every barrel matches every yoke which matches the tag on the raceway. To each their own. All I know is that I wish ETC marked more then one corner of their fixtures. Whats an extra sticker or two? Always bothered me. Then again, they did better then strand/century who put the label on the barrel so you can only see it when the barrel is ran out!



I would agree with you, I would have painted everything but at the time I only had 3 colors of high temperature enamel spray paint on us when we did it. Hasn't been a real priority to paint the rest of them at the moment. That and we have so many fixtures...we don't rent conventional fixtures. Also when we do rent anything we rent from ALPS who conveniently sprays a corner or two of all their gear bright red. It makes all of their gear easy to spot.

Also, if anyone wants, our technical specifications packet is finally up on the web as well as our rep plot and blank Vectorworks plots. Theatre Ink : Newton North's Teaching and Working Theatre


----------



## Footer (Oct 3, 2011)

Sony said:


> I would agree with you, I would have painted everything but at the time I only had 3 colors of high temperature enamel spray paint on us when we did it. Hasn't been a real priority to paint the rest of them at the moment. That and we have so many fixtures...we don't rent conventional fixtures. Also when we do rent anything we rent from ALPS who conveniently sprays a corner or two of all their gear bright red. It makes all of their gear easy to spot.
> 
> Also, if anyone wants, our technical specifications packet is finally up on the web as well as our rep plot and blank Vectorworks plots. Theatre Ink : Newton North's Teaching and Working Theatre


 
I've always just used paint pen. Never had an issue.


----------



## Sony (Oct 3, 2011)

Footer said:


> I've always just used paint pen. Never had an issue.



Also didn't have any on hand, other than my personal ones, of which I only have Black and Silver. We already had the Yellow, Red and Blue enamel on hand, the enamel looks nice and is highly visible which I like. I cut a rectangle into a piece of chip board and used it as a template for the painting. It went pretty quickly and without much mess.


----------

