Do you use a Hang Tape?

[Charc]

Check the CB Wiki for Hang Tape if you are unsure what it is.

I'm curious what the actual demographics are.

[icewolf08]

I find hang tapes to be one of the most useful tools for an efficient hang. The time it takes to create them is much less than the time it would take to constantly reference the plot and paperwork and run around with tape measures at hang. The hang tapes give you all the information you need to hang, color, template, circuit, and orient each unit. So all my crew has to do is hang the right light in the right place, simple!

[elite1trek]

What is hang tape?

I actually only use it to mark out feet on some positions, just so one can easily eye out length.

[DaveySimps]

We do not use it, although I am sure there are situations where it is a handy tool.

~Dave

[soundlight]

I don't, we have foot markings on the plot and on all of our electrics and the proscenium pipe. And our FOH positions you just eyeball it based on the foot markings on the plot, and there are marks about every 5 to 10 feet on the FOH beams if I remember correctly.

[DavidDaMonkey]

I am a sound guy who is often used as an electrician in our theater, and from my POV, I love hang tape. It makes me feel useful without constantly having to ask questions and get in people's way. If there is something that needs to be hung that or oriented or something else that I don't understand, I can just jump to another one that I do understand and come back to the point of confusion when the LD has a spare moment to answer my questions.

[Footer]

Hang tapes for me go WAY beyond where to hang the fixture, the rest of the data on there is what is really vital. It easily takes twice as long to circuit, point, and color a plot (in most spaces) then it does to get the physical fixture hung. This is where hang tapes shine.

[cdub260]

Not only do I not use a hang tape when I hang lights, I usually don't even have a plot from which to work. Our designer makes his plot after I've hung the lights. Fortunately, I have a pretty good idea of what our lighting designer is going to want in the air, and the Pageant's lighting doesn't change that much from year to year. That said, If our LD would just give me a light plot, my job would be a lot easier, and we wouldn't have to make as many changes to the lighting design during our production season.

Okay, I'm done. You can get back to your regularly scheduled thread topic now.

[porkchop]

In a house that has a static rep plot I wouldn't see them being as useful. Unless the plot was changing significantly. But in a house where the plot changes a lot, especially if the LD or the LD's style is changing I think these are valuable beyond words. As a bonus (as previously mentioned) they make hanging a much more doable thing for the lesser experienced electricians out there.

SIDE NOTE: Derek your head would have exploded if you saw all the typos in the draft version of this very short post.

[TheDonkey]

Being in a Highschool, we don't really do full rehangs of lights...ever... so we don't have any tape type markings, if/when we do rehang lights, they usually just get put up beside their power rails, or just by eye with where it's supposed to point.

[Grog12]

Unless I'm hanging truss I find it to be a waste of time. There's a plot, there's hang cards, there's paperwork. No need for another piece of info that's probably out of date and doesn't match the plot or paperwork..

[bdkdesigns]

All of our pipes have E-tape on 18" centers. We just hand out small hang plots for each position and it gets the job done.

[SteveB]

Rather then a Tape, I generate a Hang Sheet out of Vectorworks. It's printed on 11x17 paper, 2 positions per page.

It's a template onto which I can cut and paste a re-hang from the master plot, then do a Rotate Horizontal and Rotate Vertical.

There's a specific file import map that puts the Lightwright info into particular fields. The hang sheet has no channel, purpose or color info, as that's either not needed or, in the case of color, is dealt with once the channel hookup is finished. I then load color by system.

I'm currently working on a method to have in the LW file, the distance from Center Line, L&R, which I will then dump to the VW label legend, to give exact spacing. I believe AutoPlot has (or will) do something along these lines.

Will attempt an upload of an Adobe example.

Steve B.

[rochem]

I have never used hang tape before, and I have never seen it used in any show I helped out on. Personally, I find that the time spent preparing them is just not worth the savings on-site. When we fly in an electric, we quickly stretch out two tape measures (from center going each direction) and mark out locations in chalk. Usually we attempt to use a few different colors of chalk to represent different types of instruments. Then we just go down the pipe hanging on the chalk lines, while someone with the plot is calling out the color/template/circuit info. It works pretty well for the not-so-large plots that we have.

[Mirrai]

I have personally always thought that hang cards are much more pratical. Having just coming off of a light hang I ran, the abilitly to whip out hang cards quickly and just had them out to people and it contains all of the information needed.

[soundman]

There's a specific file import map that puts the Lightwright info into particular fields. The hang sheet has no channel, purpose or color info, as that's either not needed or, in the case of color, is dealt with once the channel hookup is finished. I then load color by system.

I have made a vectorscript that takes the distance from center and puts it into a user field. It works by settign the origin to the intersection of the plaster line and the center line. It Turns the - sign into Stage right and the positive numbers get stage right. I think I will change it so it puts stage right and left in a separate field so it is possible to sort by distance off stage in LW.

Would that help with what you are trying to accomplish?

[Balo]

I have 2 ideologies when it comes to a Hanging Tape or Jute as we call them in Portland.

1. I DO NOT use them when I have a small crew of 6-8 people in my own space. I trust my crew and we all know the room. We also discuss the plan for the day and "walk-through" the plot so everyone understands the goals and separate projects, a very useful 5-10 minutes in the morning.

2. I DO use them for large union crews of 10 or more stage electricians where the jute has all of the information the stage electrician needs to hang and circuit a light for me. They also indicate where the soca or drop boxes are to be hung on the pipe. I have someone go through besides myself to verify the positions and circuiting, another person to add gel & gobos with their own set of paperwork. Again I also have a quick chat with my crew first thing in the morning to explain things as well.

In the end it's a production/master electrician's personal preference.

[SteveB]

I have made a vectorscript that takes the distance from center and puts it into a user field. It works by settign the origin to the intersection of the plaster line and the center line. It Turns the - sign into Stage right and the positive numbers get stage right. I think I will change it so it puts stage right and left in a separate field so it is possible to sort by distance off stage in LW.

Would that help with what you are trying to accomplish?

That sounds like it does the trick.

Only question I would have is the automatic setting of origin, as some spaces - black boxes for instance, may not/won't have a P/L, thus it maybe becomes a useless measurement. And how does the script actually determine where on the drawing the P/L exists ?. I generally and always set origin at P/L @ C/L as the theater's a proscenium, thus the Y (I believe it's the Y) coordinates are already telling me distance from C/L.

So maybe allow no automatic origin setting, but simply dump the Y coordinates to exportable separate fields. Or just one field, and then use a LW Search and Replace to do a "If field contains "-" change to SR, kind of thing, with the script placing a "+" symbol for the other direction, and the LW Search and Replace to convert "+" to SL. Etc....

Refresh my memory - does L/R distance from origin get expressed with a "+" symbol ?, or is it "-" and nothing - I.E. "-18'-0" or "18'-0", with no positive symbol ?.

Steve B.

[Grog12]

Almost every tour I've worked with used hang tape. Makes it a lot quicker to tell someone to put the light on the mark instead of trying to explain where it goes.

Funny every tour I've worked with rolled in with their electrics pre hung on truss. Granted I'm positive that the rental house that put it together hand hang tape.

[soundman]

Excuse my wording, the script does not set the orgin itself, it needs the use to do that. - taken to PMs to stay on track.

[willbb123]

I'm looking for a way to print my hang tape directly onto the receipt tape. It seems like it would be simple enough to do; make a 2" by 60' Vectorworks drawing, and place text where I want the light. Will a receipt printer be able to print this?

[Footer]

I'm looking for a way to print my hang tape directly onto the receipt tape. It seems like it would be simple enough to do; make a 2" by 60' Vectorworks drawing, and place text where I want the light. Will a receipt printer be able to print this?

WYSIWYG does this if you have the right printer.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk

[willbb123]

I know WYSIWYG does it, but I'm happy with Vectorworks, and don't want to buy another piece of software.

[venuetech]

When we fly in an electric, we quickly stretch out two tape measures (from center going each direction) and mark out locations in chalk. Usually we attempt to use a few different colors of chalk to represent different types of instruments. Then we just go down the pipe hanging on the chalk lines, while someone with the plot is calling out the color/template/circuit info. It works pretty well for the not-so-large plots that we have.

Chalk is great for temporary marks. no other mark goes away with the swish of a damp rag. Love it. I have a scenic painter who does much of her work with colored chalk.

[SteveB]

I'm looking for a way to print my hang tape directly onto the receipt tape. It seems like it would be simple enough to do; make a 2" by 60' Vectorworks drawing, and place text where I want the light. Will a receipt printer be able to print this?

The method others have described is to use Lightwright to export a data file into Excell, then port over to MS Word and print on Avery labels. The labels are then pasted onto webbing, police caution tape, drywall tape, your choice. I suspect the Instrument data export in VW would do the same thing and you can choose which data to export - I.E., you probably don't need purpose, possibly not the channel (your choice, I don't), etc...

Others have described using FileMake Pro, but like you I have no need to purchase and learn another piece of software. Thus I simply use VW to cut and past the positions to a dedicated drawing that functions as a Hang Card.

We just did a thread on all this, where I posted copies of my VW drawings. Hang Cards

[venuetech]

Rather than export data, you can create a lightwright instrument schedule layout easily by changing the font to a larger size and spending a bit of time to arrange it. Do a "save layout as" then Print it direct from Lightwright. Then you can cut up the scheduled into in unit strips to be attached to the proper hang tape with scotchtape.
the advantage is you do not have to do the export/import / disadvantage is you loose the convenience of self-adhesive labels and print format and options are limited.