A little background. I was hired as a lighting designer for a show that is happening in our local performing arts center. There is no equipment budget for the show. The space is described as an indoor amphitheatre. There is a static grid above the stage (made out of rectangulare tubing) with 12 static led strips. There is a front of house position with some old leko's, two moving head washes, and two moving head spots. There is also a box boom position, each with a few leko's and a moving head wash. The space is running some unbranded wireless dmx (I found something that looks the same for about $50 on amazon) to the front of house position, and to the grid position. When I spoke to the "Venue Manager" who is in charge of all the lighting and audio he obviously had no idea what he was doing. He was unable to answer simple questions about the space like what are the address's of the dimmers and fixtures, and where are the wireless DMX receivers, are the house lights dmx, etc.
I went and toured the space to answer my questions and while I was there he told me that some of the lights have issues, like they lose control of them, or they flash while moving etc. Upon closer inspection all of the dmx cable appears to be microphone cable, I found a 3 pin xlr (2fer) splitting one of the DMX runs, and all the over stage fixtures are zip tied to the "grid".
The plan was originally to focus and move some of the over stage fixtures, and re focus the leko's. I am now very concerned about touching the over stage washes as there would be no way to secure them again without just re-zip tieing them. And the control issues of the movers are deffinately dmx related.
This is a first for me as I am used to working in larger more profesional theater spaces. Does anyone have suggestions to deal with the reliability and safety issues? I was going to talk to the venue manager again to try and explain everything but at this point I don't think they are willing to fix anything as he was very uninterested when I was telling him the first time...
I went and toured the space to answer my questions and while I was there he told me that some of the lights have issues, like they lose control of them, or they flash while moving etc. Upon closer inspection all of the dmx cable appears to be microphone cable, I found a 3 pin xlr (2fer) splitting one of the DMX runs, and all the over stage fixtures are zip tied to the "grid".
The plan was originally to focus and move some of the over stage fixtures, and re focus the leko's. I am now very concerned about touching the over stage washes as there would be no way to secure them again without just re-zip tieing them. And the control issues of the movers are deffinately dmx related.
This is a first for me as I am used to working in larger more profesional theater spaces. Does anyone have suggestions to deal with the reliability and safety issues? I was going to talk to the venue manager again to try and explain everything but at this point I don't think they are willing to fix anything as he was very uninterested when I was telling him the first time...