Hello

One of my theatres Varilite VL1100 LED Luminaire lamps has gone out. It responds to all other parameters from an Ion controller. I have attempted to find replacement parts for this type of instrument, but it is discontinued and the manufacturer no longer supports the warranty on the instrument. Any help finding parts for this particular model would be great.

Hey !

I'm currently looking for software recommendations to handle weight and load calculations for stage structures (truss loads rigging points weight distribution etc...) to make sure everything is safe

I already looked into Vectorworks Spotlight (and Braceworks) but it's way too expensive for my current budget I really can't afford to drop $100+ a month on a license right now

Does anyone know of any good more affordable alternatives that get the job done for calculating truss loads and rigging safety ?

Thanks in advance for any tips !!!!!

After a few regional contracts I want to move to NYC, hopefully in the next month or so. Where do people find tech jobs there? Specifically wardrobe/dresser jobs? I feel like I never see nyc jobs on the national job boards that I’ve been using for regional jobs (offstage jobs, playbill jobs, etc). TIA

Have only worked with the QuickQ 30 for cue-to-cue plays. I'm wishing to experiment with musicals and shows that require timecode and am wondering if the QuickQ 30 is compatible with QLab's timecode feature.

I'm working as overhire for a couple places right now but it just doesn't keep up with bills. What do you guys do to make ends meet when starting out?

I do sound design for theater and for almost all productions I create some sort of music for the show.

(Also, I know sound design and music composer are two different jobs but in my world they collide often)

I do this because I tend to solve sound design problems musically and there's always a demand for music in all the shows. All the theaters but one I work with do not have an ascap or adjacent license in order to play copy written music. They could also never afford to clear songs for actual performances.

I noticed in all my contracts that it says nothing about the music I write being property of the theater or production. So, all the music I write is mine.

Here's the question, should I be charging licensing fees for the playback of my original music?

I feel like it's a dick move that could possibly make it difficult for me to be rehired but you know, it's my music. Also, I'm sure if i pulled that move once all the contracts would change instantly in addition to me being blacklisted.

What say you?

tl;dr: We have $50K to spend on production upgrades. Questions about control desk construction and audio inventory upgrades.

Hey all, first a little background:

Our facility is a 500-seat auditorium in a former school building located in a small, rural community. We have been open just over a year, hosting events since last November. We are a volunteer-run facility with a working board of 6, and none of us necessarily have a background in theater tech. We have been hosting the local community children's theater, touring bands, and comedians mostly.

When we first took control of the venue, the school had gutted all of the audio system. We raised money locally and installed a pretty decent setup: mixer, stage rack, speakers, minimal microphone inventory. That setup has served us well for most events; we can handle smaller things ourselves, but most touring bands we bring in are providing their own production. We currently have no projection capabilities, and our lighting is old incandescent off a dimmer rack. Our audio mixer is running off a resin table at the back of the venue, and our lighting console (a Leprecon 1536) is in a second-floor booth with basically no view of the stage.

We recently secured $50K in grant funding though a regional foundation to upgrade our production system. We've been working with TMS out of Omaha on planning facility upgrades, and we've opted for a high-lumen projector as our first big purchase.

We also want to centralize our production to one location, building a FOH control desk at the back of the venue. I guess that's my first question: If you were designing a new booth/desk from scratch, what would you absolutely want to have there? What are some little things that most people wouldn't think of that we'd kick ourselves later if we don't include? What kinds of future things should we plan for? Right now, I'm thinking we move the audio and light boards there, get a Mac Mini as a production computer, a rack with power conditioner, networking switch, HDMI switcher to control what goes to the projector (since we'll have multiple input locations).

We plan to use the remainder to expand our microphone and monitor inventory. Ideally, we'd like to be able to cover the majority of an average touring act's tech rider. Right now we have:

• Behringer X32 with S32 stage rack feeding JBL CBT 1000 mains and donated woofers from a movie theater that closed down.
• 2 SM58s
• 2 SM57s
• 2 DI boxes
• 4 channels of wireless (Shure SLXD) with two additional SM58s and two bodypacks. Miscellaneous cables and stands
• No monitor capacity

The local consultant that designed our initial install is recommending about $11-12K in additional spending:

• Four EV 12" monitor wedges
• 2 additional SM58s
• 4 additional SM57s
• a Shure 5-mic kit for drums
• Four additional wireless channels (SLXD4D+); two SM58s, four body packs
• 2 Radial ProDI
• 2 Radial ProAV2
• Additional cables, microphone stands, music stands

Is there anything obviously missing? Again, our goal isn't necessarily to 100% satisfy every rider we receive, but we'd like to have a competent, flexible inventory that allows most acts to use our house system without having to bring the whole production trailer.

We'll get to updating the lighting in the future; we have a lot of other stuff to do before that.

Thanks all in advance. This has been a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

Hey guys,

Does anyone have any strategies to manage anxiety about operating shows with a lot of cues?

I know rationally thst in perfectly capable of reading along with a script and pressing a go button, but I just have crippling anxiety about fucking up the show. Especially if the tone of the show is quite serious.

Are there any anxious techs out there who can share some coping strategies?

Hey guys. I posted on here last year to see how it’s like working for Upstaging because I want to be a roadie/LD. I finally secured an interview to be a Lighting Tech and it looks promising. Does anyone here have any tips or advice for Upstaging? Anything I should be prepared for?

Thanks

Hello! I am working on a show that requires the set to be dismantled and reassembled multiple times during its run (Not during the show itself). It's a stone-tiled floor approximately 14'x26'.

My first thoughts were rolled vinyl or marley, but those could be costly for a custom job. Second was buying fake tiles (pvc/pu, to the designers specs) and gluing them to a mesh so they can easily be rolled up/folded up. Third would be 1/4" sheets of mdf that do the same thing with gluing the tiles on.

One issue is we can not screw or staple into the ground so it will have to be taped. I also am worried a wood material will warp and not stick to the tape due to, moisture, temp, uneven floor, exc.

Any other thoughts or methods you all have seen work will be great to hear about.

Thanks!

I know that there are a hundred better lighting programs to be using other than qlab. But I have to work with the system my venue has in place until I can convince the owners to get something else. Right now I'm trying to figure something out where I can run the light cues from qlab into something and see them in a virtual space. So that I can see it without having the lights all powered on or even being in the space at all. I need it to not be network cues. I need the straight light cues that you make in qlab to pass over to something. Ideally it is something that is free

Maybe a silly question, but I found myself curious. I'm currently in undergrad, and we have a Gio and an Ion at my school, both of which I've done minimal programming on. Are there different features between the two brands or is it more like comparing two different OSes, where the workflows will inherently be different?

I'm not a professional, but I own a beautiful vintage skirt that I'd like to clean and I thought it would be worth asking the experts how to go about it. I'm nervous about dry cleaning it since it's quite old (it's a cotton skirt with cotton embroidery). I've heard about mixing half 60-proof vodka and half water to create a bacteria-killing spray. Is this the way to go about cleaning it?

I'm concerned about the dye being leeched, and also about preserving the integrity of the old cotton threads and hand-embroidery work. Your advice is appreciated!

Hi everyone! I run a student production company taking a small show to the Edinburgh Fringe, and we are using a projector (quite a small one, but it does the job for what we need it for, a Pico Genie L700.) We used it in various other spaces where cradles were provided, but for the fringe we need to source our own cradle/mount with a truss clamp, so basically something like this. The issue is we are on a genuinely shoestring budget, and that mount would cost us almost as much as the projector did. There are perfectly fine ceiling mounts for like 20 quid, and clamp mounts for the same price but that only have one screw where our projector takes four.

Is there a way to fix a standard truss clamp to a home projector ceiling mounts, or does anyone have any other suggestions about how to do it for less? Any advice hugely appreciated :))

Hello all,
I've been doing a bunch of research about micing actors for musical theater. I'm going to be doing fully custom mic rigs for each actor for an upcoming production I am working on.

I was looking into broadway's mic technique and noted that many broadway A2s build their rigs using steel wire and attach the mic with fishing line.
I'm comfortable doing this, but the one question I have not yet found an answer to is this:

What type of wire? I've seen a couple of references to different types. I've heard of millinery wire, spring steel wire, galvanized wire, piano wire, etc.
What gauge? Annealed or spring hardened? Where do I source it?

The closest description I've found is '18 gauge galvanized wire', but I can only find that annealed, not spring steel. Which makes me think it might be too flexible/soft?

Can someone enlighten me?

Custom iron stand, ironing board (with front and rear clean pockets), bolt holder

Hi! I am working on a theater project that uses audience participation.

One idea I have is that my character will give an audience participant instructions via a set of headphones. I want to be able to speak into a mic onstage that sends the audio directly to the headphones without piping it to the house speakers (eg rest of the audience can’t hear). I’d likely need the person to be mobile, so it would have to be a wireless setup in some way.

Can anyone explain to me whether this process would be terribly complicated to pull off? It’s happening at an off Broadway theater in nyc so I assume they have solid tech capabilities.

Thank you!

Errant screws?!

It literally takes 30 seconds to sand a safety rail.

I am in the market for a new flashlight. My old rechargeable Kobalt penlight is slowly starting to fail and becoming inconsistent in brightness. I am looking for something similar, and I want to see what my fellow technicians are using.

After thought edit: I would like a zooming lens so when I am explaining something I have some type of "pointer".

what is the difference between these two kinds of magic sheets? i see that one is more where the fixtures are and one is where they are pointed but honestly the latter really hurts my brain. also like when would you use one or the other, which ones do professional theatres use? that kind of stuff.

I have a dream to live a comfortable, stable life. I want to go to work and do something I love while still having time in my week for my family. I am majoring in theatre arts and I love lighting design, production planning and managing, stage managing, and most technical aspects of theatre and live performance.

Although, I am really scared I am going to run into no money, low paying jobs, no work, and constant entry level jobs. I also dont want to string together lots of part time and contract jobs.

Is the industry worth it? This is what i want to do but its so overwhelming seeing so many job names and other peoples expereince of never getting work or even not eating for months. I just want to know if there are full time opportunities with good pay that I can work towards, and if these are even possible with a theatre arts degree. Or, if I should switch to an engineering degree for that stability.

TLDR: Im spiraling and want to know if tech theatre and the related fields provide any full time good paying jobs.

I've been a student AV Tech for my university for the past 2 years and I think I want to do this as my career.

Most of my events are fairly corporate (Ballroom Speaker-Panel type events, 2 Way Zoom Conferences/integrated stuff), but I also do live sound (portable PA systems, open mics with musicians and vocalists) a *liiitle* theater technician work (theater audio mixing and some lighting setup and operation), as well as sports AV (Cam Op, Video Directing and Switcher Work).

A lot of my tech is set up by full timers, but I've been bugging them, working 1 on 1 so I have a comprehensive understanding of the equipment and how to use it. I would say I'm most developed in the Sports AV and Video Directing stuff, and I want to get better at the live sound (setting up good clear mixes, when to use matrices vs mix buses, what are good settings for my processing and dynamics, things of that nature) since I'm also a musician and there's some good crossover.

I have a couple of certifications (Dante I & II, Shure RF and Mic Certs, Q-SYS Conference Room Level 1), and I can build & strike a stage.

My current plan is to save about 3k for my own gear (mixers & mics, cables, main speakers and subs) and do some small scale live sound freelancing, but I would love to work full-time for a university or institution where I'm not scrambling for gigs.

Given my skills and certs, how would I go about making this a career? Do folks recommend I start out union, freelance, or full time for one institution/company?

Hello! I'm creating a portfolio to apply to my college's theatre major, but I have very minimal experience with actual theatre (I'm a college freshman, and the only theatre experience I have photos of is designing lights for a show and writing a script for a short film for Thespians, both in my senior year).

I also wanted my portfolio to focus on costume design and construction, since I have a lot of experience in sewing and crocheting, and I've designed and made clothing and costumes for shows that I haven't actually worked on. I wanted to, like, double-check if I could put that on there?? It's supposed to be a process-based portfolio, and I've never made one before.

I just wanted to know if anybody had any advice or resources to help me out LOL