Just closed my first show at the local HSA since the pandemic shut down the production 2 yrs ago a week from opening.
I'm their "go to lighting guy", although I work in an entirely different field the rest of the year. I'm very unhappy with the lighting for this years show, the primary reason being that while everything was shut down, the entire lighting
system was upgraded from entirely
conventional fixtures controlled via an Expression 3(which is the only
console family I have experience with, having learned on an
Express 24/48 and an Expression 1), and the replace
console being an Expression 3.) i.e. I had a massive learning curve just to do the simplest things. I took me up until just a month before the show to figure out how to turn on any non-conventional fixtures, and I'd suggested running the show entirely off sub-masters, as I wasn't sure I could program the board adequately. The other major issue being that I didn't dare move lights around, as I have no clue as to how to repatch the board, and that the new
system didn't account for an entire lighting position , up until they were installing, i.e. we have 8 less lekos than expected in key positions. Worst part being that I didn't realize up until less than a week before the show that it was a
tracking console rather than the
preset system I've worked with in the past. I much prefer
preset systems, as it allows me to go into a specific
cue and edit, without regards to the impact on other cues.