I appreciate your concerns as are often laid out here and am myself a fan of the
@gafftapegreenia method to expanding lighting capabilities. However, the district has changed the funding mechanism for theater and we are no longer reliant on our
box office to fund production and maintenance on the space. I have been able and to secure a reasonable budget for both new technology and supplies (two separate
line items on the annual operation budget). Either
line item is sufficient to make multiple smaller purchases per year (replacement lavs, a
channel of wireless, a few S4) but enough for a reasonably powerful moving head
fixture.
This has and will continue to be a transformative year for the lighting
system in my space. Not to be overly critical to my predecessor but he was clearly over his head as a music teacher trying to manage a full course load and manage a space which hosts over 200 events a year.
Thanks to some very poor, and frankly dangerous, choices he made (such as ripping out the rondels and leaving bare buses and wires only capped with a
wire nut or nothing, wiring the female end of a Home Depot 16/2 extension
cord to three of the old rondels circuits with some twists and electrical tape,
etc) the school will be replacing our
dimmer racks as well as all of our
house lights and architectural panels.
I have received an
Ion Xe (and have a Congo Jr and
fader panel of anyone is interested) and used the first tranche of of the gifted funds to install a pair of balcony lighting ladders and enough 10 deg Color Source Spots to finally get a decent front
wash on my
apron. We have replaced the 3
cell Cycs with CS Spots with
Cyc adapters and picked up a stack of cs relays and showbabies to handle the data transmission side.
My plan is to use the normal production budgets (5 main
stage per year) to
purchase additional static fixtures to properly outfit the space from a lighting gear perspective ( the music teacher made sure there were plenty of mics, speakers and mixers).
My guiding principle through the use of these gifted funds was what would have the greatest benift to the largest number of students. By getting the
wash,
Cyc, and control taken care of I am now able to look into more advanced tools for my design students to work with regularly while hiring in additional gear on a show by show basis. But knowing that my dance groups, student variety shows and show choir groups will never have the budget to rent in movers I want to make sure that I have a good set of tools for color, movement and
pattern for their activities as well as the better funded groups.
In terms of upkeep that will thankfully be much less of an issue as part of my budget will directed solely in that direction every year and I, unlike my predecessor am able to do proper routine maintenance on the equipment.