This was a great show. It was fun to see many CB friends. I really noticed that nearly everyone I talked to said, "Oh
Controlbooth... yeah you have a great website." Two years ago I had to always explain what CB was, last year about half the people I talked to knew CB, these days it seems everyone is checking us out. So Hurrah for CB!
There were not a lot of "have you seen the latest thing from..." products but never the less there were a lot of good things along the way. I think the new product that impressed me most as something CB members could really use were two new ladders from the "Little Giant" people. First off they have a really nice fiberglass step ladder with a
platform on top. The
platform has a
gate behind it so that you are essentially in a "bucket". As you would expect they are very adjustable for working in weird locations. It comes in two heights the small one is in the 5-9
foot range and the big one goes up to something like 18'... can't remember for sure and can't find it on their website. It has wheels built in so it can be easily rolled around while up... but not while working on it. Nice built in outriggers for
safety. It's a great ladder for many applications. The second one they have is a fiberglass extension ladder which grips and locks into place around a horizontal bar at the top, with a built in lifeline/ascender. I would have loved to have had one of these in my previous theater's black box. Just lock it in to your catwalks or
grid and get to work without fear of sliding sideways or falling off. Fantastic. I don't see either listed on their website so I think it's a very new product, but something to look forward to. If you need a new ladder for your theater wait a
bit and check these out. 9' ladder is going for somewhere around $1500, the taller one for $2k.
Our old buddy Rob Junk at
stage junk has an awesome new
widget out. How many times have you had an
XLR plug (audio or
DMX) that gets stepped on or run over and is now oval instead of round. Wouldn't it be great if there was a way to quickly press it back into shape rather than replace the
plug? Well Rob's come up with a way to do that. His new tool is a tapered shaft of solid steel about 7" long. Slide the shaft into the end of the
XLR plug and gently pound it back into shape. It's so new he only had a prototype and it wasn't up on his website yet, but it will be soon. His price at the show was $40, which seems a
bit high until you think about the cost of replacing a
plug. It will only take replacing a few plugs to make it worth while. If you have a rental shop... this thing could be gold! Rob has also redone my favorite product the
flat focus tool slightly. It's now made from a hardened steel. Still only $20.
I liked the new
ETC Cyc light. The one thing I didn't realize at first is that it's not actually a new
fixture. You simply take a
LED S4, pop it in half at the
gate and attach the new
cyc wash "
lens unit" (my words not theirs). It appears to essentially be a mirror at a 45 degree angle to shine the light upward into a plastic diffusion
lens, with a mirror to help aim it all in just the right direction. Nice and simple. I was told that they tried a lot of different approaches
cyc lights and none of them made them happy. Finally Fred said, why don't we just take the existing
fixture and
build an
adapter which nicely spreads the light out on a
cyc. Done. It really does look good. They said it's designed for a max height for a curtain height of about 16-20 feet. You need a
fixture about every 4 feet along your
cyc, closer than that is definitely better, but 4' will give you a good
wash. The other cool thing is that they have an iPhone app to help you calculate the ideal
beam angle for the light to hit the
cyc just right for a given distance. You literally can hold the phone up the top of the lamp housing and it will show you a digital
plumb bob and will beep when you get the angle just right.
There was a cool alternative to EL Tape on display from a company called Light Tape.
http://www.lighttape.com It's really nice looking stuff and made in Virginia.