Inventory and Cataloging Instruments for a Community Theatre

[drawstuf99]

Hello!
I'm just wanting to get some opinions from other designers and lighting technicians out there on what is easiest and most helpful when you get a lighting inventory for a new space you'll be working in. The situation is this...

After having been the lighting designer for a community theatre for about two years now, I'm going off to college. Since it's such a small crew of people at the theatre, the LD typically hangs and focuses everything themselves, so there isn't someone who really knows exactly what they have and how it works on hand all the time. So, I'm wanting to leave the artistic director and other folks at the theatre a detailed inventory of instruments, cable, accessories...etc. so that whoever they hire as designer for their upcoming shows can have something on paper, as well as for liability purposes--everyone will know what they're supposed to have so gear doesn't walk.

What are some things that you guys would like to see included in an inventory catalog if you were to come into this position? What sorts of details?

Thanks in advance!

[tech2000]

In the inventory catalog (I've been putting these together for sound lights etc. for my high school theater) you should put the quantity of each item, the manufacturer, what the item is, model number. If you have time, put down if any of the equipment has issues/needs to be fixed. I'm going through my school's equipment and writing down serial numbers, but you don't have to include it.
Depends on how detailed you want it to be.

[IlyaSmirnov]

Originally Posted by tech2000

you should put the quantity of each item, the manufacturer, what the item is, model number. If you have time, put down if any of the equipment has issues/needs to be fixed. I'm going through my school's equipment and writing down serial numbers, but you don't have to include it.
Depends on how detailed you want it to be.

I've been doing the same thing - serial numbers are practically non-existent on our instruments, though, just a note.

If you have time and want to, you could also make note of any instruments that might be hung and plugged in right now, so you can find what's where at the time. If you want to be really detailed, you could also record individual items, but that's a lot of extra work (personal experience). Mostly depends on how much information you want to leave for the other techs.

I began doing one for my school at the very end of the last school year, maybe it'll give you an idea or two:
Theatre inventory

[lieperjp]

Originally Posted by IlyaSmirnov

I began doing one for my school at the very end of the last school year, maybe it'll give you an idea or two:
Theatre inventory

That website is pretty cool!

Make sure that your lists are organized clearly. Be sure that if you do it in a non-web base, have it also saved as a pdf to send out as needed, because the person you send it to might not have Excel (or whatever you do it in.)

[tech2000]

Ilya, it looks like you inventory each of your lighting instruments separately. How do you tag each of the instruments to identify them? and where would you put the tag on the instrument so it doesn't burn or fall off from the heat of use.

[Clifford]

It looks like it's by serial and/or ID number. For example, B5 has "B5" painted on the yoke. This is a good system if your lights are so labelled. Many venues don't individually label them (we don't at our theatre), so this wouldn't be as practical as a simple number count, even though the latter is less accurate.

[IlyaSmirnov]

Originally Posted by Clifford

It looks like it's by serial and/or ID number. For example, B5 has "B5" painted on the yoke.

These numbers seem to be from an earlier inventory many years ago - this is mostly on our old Fresnels and the occasional ellipsoidal. For the time being I've been writing the ID number (the order in which I inventoried them) on a small sticker and attaching it to the yoke near the clamp - in the least hot place I could find. When school starts up again I'm going to convince our TD to get some small barcoded stickers printed on vinyl, or some other permanent material - I'll post a sample one momentarily.

[IlyaSmirnov]

Here's a sample of what I'm planning to put on all of our instruments, if/when the school district approves it: (bigger version if you click it)

My primary goal is to make an inventory that, if people update it, will let any the crew find any type of instrument and its location, or to find what instruments are on a particular batten without necessarily having to be in the theatre, or without having to search through our light closet. Any thoughts, on this, by the way? Hope this helps!

[tech2000]

That would be nice.
Buy a cheap barcode scanner and use cheap barcode inventory software and it could make keeping track of things a lot easier.

[Clifford]

It's quite an idea. If I didn't already have a paper inventory and if I had money, I could go for something like that for our theatre.