# Drinks in the booth



## danhr (Dec 11, 2016)

So......My day so far. Matinee today of _It's a Wonderful Life_, sold out. My phone rings 45 to curtain. AD says, "911! The director spilled a cup of coffee in the light computer!" I say, "Look under the tech counter. There's a spare laptop, loaded with the app and drivers". The LD backed up everything when she finished last week. All was up again before house opened. This is why we plan ahead.........And I'm buying the director a sippy cup.


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## Amiers (Dec 11, 2016)

Ouch. But good thinking with the redundant.


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## derekleffew (Dec 11, 2016)

danhr said:


> ........And I'm buying the director a sippy cup.


.......And the director is buying a new "light computer".

 for the implementation of a backup plan.


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## seanandkate (Dec 11, 2016)

Solid save. Nobody ever needs a backup until they NEED a backup. And if you're buying the sippy cup, I hope the director is buying the "light computer" service gift card...


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## JohnD (Dec 11, 2016)

Consider for a moment, perhaps the coffee spill was part of the directors "artistic vision" for the piece. The purpose of the coffee spill was so that the entire cast and crew would be "innervated" for the performance. Okay, just inform the director that the booth, in fact any technical spaces are off limits, or they will be gaff taped to a seat in the auditorium.


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## Jay Ashworth (Dec 11, 2016)

I favor the Tervis 20 ounce sport bottle with the snap-shut cap, myself. The insulated walls and some ice will keep my drink cold all day and you have to basically throw it against the wall at high speed to get the lid to pop. It also has a molded in hanging hooks on the top. And it's about 20 bucks. That's much cheaper than a replacement ion.


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## EdSavoie (Dec 11, 2016)

Imprisonment, one more use to the list of uses for gaff tape


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## JD (Dec 11, 2016)

Drinks in the booth = No!
Great to have backup, but at some point you risk some show-critical element that has no backup.


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## EdSavoie (Dec 11, 2016)

I once saw someone with a can of pop in the same room as the dimmer rack >_<


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## danhr (Dec 11, 2016)

Thankfully not an Ion, we use the Lights Up! app (for the last 6 years) that will run on practically any computer with a pulse. It's limited in features but anyone here can learn it in 10 minutes and so far it has been utterly bulletproof. Didn't make my heart pound any less, tho....


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## egilson1 (Dec 11, 2016)

Why was the director in the booth to begin with.


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## EdSavoie (Dec 11, 2016)

My director's favorite show pass time is to invade Clearcom and tell us to be quiet while we are trying to figure out a last minute cue change or correction. 

Now that I think about it, the same director has spilled tea on our strand MX before. We sleuthed it was that person because they are the only one who drank tea at the time, and had the correct key.

Hmm...


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## RonHebbard (Dec 12, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> I once saw someone with a can of pop in the same room as the dimmer rack >_<


But not opened yet, right?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.


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## danhr (Dec 12, 2016)

egilson1 said:


> Why was the director in the booth to begin with.


Apparently he was assigned to run some sound cues to keep him busy because he was driving everyone to distraction pacing around backstage. Maybe I'll give him a gameboy to go with the sippy cup..... 
I talked to him yesterday after the show and he was in tears about it. I have never heard anyone apologize so many times in five minutes. Chalk up an important lesson learned by all.....
BTW Ethan, thanks again for that great rigging session in York, PA a while back! I use what I learned most often to discourage flying people on our budget!


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## Jay Ashworth (Dec 13, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> My director's favorite show pass time is to invade Clearcom and tell us to be quiet while we are trying to figure out a last minute cue change or correction.



"Mic Kill"


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## EdSavoie (Dec 13, 2016)

I've done those when said person was really starting to tick me off, though the defacto solution is to put that director on channel B and only set merge A+B when absolutely needed.

Heh heh heh...


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## Jay Ashworth (Dec 13, 2016)

I've always thought that button needed to be a Big Red Mushroom mounted in the desktop...


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## StradivariusBone (Dec 13, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> I once saw someone with a can of pop in the same room as the dimmer rack >_<



At least it wasn't a can of soda...

<regional dialect flamewar engaged>


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## JohnnyAmos (Dec 15, 2016)

On the opening night for a play I was light board op for the director decided to watch the show from the light booth. He kept making disparaging remarks about the cast at a volume the audience could surely hear. I tried to grin and bear it for a while waiting for the stage manager (who was in the same booth) to handle the situation. I finally lost my patience and threw a clipboard with a pad of paper and a pencil at him and told him that if he had any more comments, he could write them down. The next day I posted "No directors allowed" signs on the booth doors.


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## JohnD (Dec 15, 2016)

StradivariusBone said:


> At least it wasn't a can of soda...
> 
> <regional dialect flamewar engaged>


It's soda pop, so there!!!!!


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## techieman33 (Dec 15, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> I once saw someone with a can of pop in the same room as the dimmer rack >_<



That wouldn't bother me at all unless it was sitting on the racks. If it's sitting on a table 5 feet away then there isn't really any risk to the dimmers.


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## Skervald (Dec 16, 2016)

Why is it always the director? This happened to me during intermission a few years ago. Director, large plastic cup of Coke and ice, ETC Express 48/96. He walked in and set it ON the console. I opened my mouth to say something as he turned around, bumped the console, and spilled the drink all over it. I disconnected the board and flipped it over as quickly as I could so gravity would be on my side. Luckily we were able to clean most of it up and everything functioned for the second act. I spent a late night opening up the console to clean it. There was a surprisingly small amount of liquid inside. The apologies though. Non-stop apologies.


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## JohnD (Dec 16, 2016)

One has to wonder if there was more than Coke and ice in that cup......just sayin'.


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## EdSavoie (Dec 16, 2016)

At least the lighting boards don't have massive power circuitry in them.
I'd probably crap myself if someone dropped a cup of liquid on our old powerMAX 16 (Which is a powered board). I mean, I watched the amplifier in it fail spectacularly without any help, last thing I want is something of questionable conductivity getting in the already bad clearance between the intertwined heatsinks.

Which reminds me I need to have a local shop get the amps removed so we can just use it as an auxiliary board...


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## RonHebbard (Dec 16, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> At least the lighting boards don't have massive power circuitry in them.
> I'd probably crap myself if someone dropped a cup of liquid on our old powerMAX 16 (Which is a powered board). I mean, I watched the amplifier in it fail spectacularly without any help, last thing I want is something of questionable conductivity getting in the already bad clearance between the intertwined heatsinks.
> 
> Which reminds me I need to have a local shop get the amps removed so we can just use it as an auxiliary board...


Are you suggesting you'd have them removed and reused externally mounted in a newly fabricated enclosure or merely removed and set aside? If the latter, could you not simply disconnect the amps from their power source(s) and leave them hiding within the board so long as you didn't require any of their functionality and there was no longer any danger of them taking down the powering for the remainder of the mixer?
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.


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## EdSavoie (Dec 16, 2016)

I should clarify, the amps have already gone thermonuclear, all they are doing is adding weight and noise to the right channel. This is no longer our primary board because we now use a pair of Europower 2100W amps with a 32 channel unpowered Behringer board I can't remember the model of.

The idea is to use this for events where classes need sound during the day, or we need more control than our 10ch / 4 XLR portable unit can supply


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## Jay Ashworth (Dec 16, 2016)

EdSavoie said:


> At least the lighting boards don't have massive power circuitry in them.
> I'd probably crap myself if someone dropped a cup of liquid on our old powerMAX 16 (Which is a powered board). I mean, I watched the amplifier in it fail spectacularly without any help, last thing I want is something of questionable conductivity getting in the already bad clearance between the intertwined heatsinks.
> 
> Which reminds me I need to have a local shop get the amps removed so we can just use it as an auxiliary board...



Not knowing the PM 16, I completely missed that we'd shifted to soundboards, and you can imaging how confused I became...


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## EdSavoie (Dec 16, 2016)

Heh heh... I can see how that might be odd.


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## RickR (Dec 17, 2016)

I imagined my first console, a late 60's EC auto-transformer monstrosity, with a thoughtfully sloped surface so it was not tempting.


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## derekleffew (Dec 17, 2016)

RickR said:


> I imagined my first console, a late 60's EC auto-transformer monstrosity, with a thoughtfully sloped surface so it was not tempting.


In fact, here's a rarely-scene picture of our @RickR from that time,


(possibly taken at Halloween). 
My, my, my; there have been so many ch-ch-changes over time. But I suppose old habits die hard.


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## StradivariusBone (Dec 19, 2016)

derekleffew said:


> But I suppose old habits die hard.



"He who would pick a pun would pick a pocket."


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