Design High School Lighting Upgrade

Adam Brunetti

Member
Premium Member
Hi all,
I have been asked to create a few proposals to present to the local school department to upgrade the lighting in the auditorium of the high school that I do some freelance work for in Rhode Island. Looking to make 3 different proposals- bare bones, standard, and a dream list. Looking for some input and suggestions.

Some background:
-Stage is 50'x28'.
-Current standard lighting set up is strip lights on 3 different electrics, DS, CS, US. 8 fixed spots in the catwalk, and a single Comet follow spot.
-48 dimmer channels through Leprecon dimmer packs, (Don't know the models off the top of my head. We have 4 banks of 12).
-I believe I have camlok connections in the cage, though I am not entirely certain.
-House lighting console is a Leprecon 1536, though use of the board has basically stopped since I started bringing in my own gear.
-Only way to connect to console is running a 100' DMX from backstage to FOH.

Ever since I started running all of their shows, I have brought an Entec DMX-Artnet dongle, and have been running lights off of QLab, and before QLab 4 was released, running off MyDMX2.0 (I know, I know. But my budget didn't allow for much at the time.)

What we want:
-House electric for front light, because as of now, we only have those 8 fixed spots as front washes. The concern with that is that the placement for it would be about 20' or more up in the house, so getting to the lights for focusing or dropping gels/gobos could get interesting.
-A new board for controlling lights when a hardware solution is preferred. I was thinking along the lines of an ETC Ion- I have the experience with the board, and seeing as I am generally the lead for all shows in the auditorium, I am trying to plan mostly for gear that I am accustomed to.
-A way to connect to the lights without running the 100' cable.
-A permanent connection on each of our electrics for external lights brought in- currently when I have my movers,pars, etc, I drop an edison line and a DMX line from each one. I was thinking maybe a pathport on each electric?
-Maybe a house hazer- I currently bring in a single Hurricane H2 and place it on the 2nd electric CS, but coverage has been an issue.

What I'm thinking:
-For the house electric, either a bar on a motor so we can drop the lights, though focus would be tricky if it's brought down to the floor. Another thought I had was some Lustrs, so that we would be able to change the color through color mixing instead of dropping gels. Another thought was some ADJ Focus Spot 3Z's, that was we would have focus, color mixing, some gobo washes, and the ability to reposition the lights without having to drop the electric for any of those reasons.
-As I said, thinking of an ETC Ion for the board.
-Pathports on each of the electrics, and a connection to the Ion through ethernet.

I don't know what kind of budget they are going to give us, all we know is that the principal is "looking into funding". I'll try to attach some pictures to this thread later on.

We are located in Woonsocket, RI so if anyone local to here has some ideas and would be interested in walking through the space please feel free to contact me.

Thanks!
Adam Brunetti
 
Worth talking to someone at ATR in Providence. They do this kind of work a lot and can give you all of those options pretty easily. Just did a sound renovation in my theatre a year or so ago, had no idea what budget was going to be. Started out as a 150k quote, with 3 different sections. Ended up at 60k with gear and labor. Worth shopping around a bit but I've had good luck with them over the years.

Also most places that would do this and sell you the board should be able to give you/someone else at the school some kind of training on it if you're unfamiliar.
 
Awesome. Thanks, Josh! I'll be sure to send them an email. I believe they've actually been doing most of the installs at the school, so that might help with pricing too. Haha
 
That would certainly help. One of the main guys there is Tracey, he's almost always who you'll hear back from or talk to if you call. John Boomer is one of their lighting guys. They have done a lot of schools in the area and are definitely used to coming up with the tiered quotes.

If you looking for other options too there's high output, though I haven't had great experiences with them or their installs. Or Alps out of Boston, also great people to work with.
 
Hey guys,
So an update on the upgrade, I met with the school department today, and they are 100% onboard, and even added some requests to the upgrade.
We'll be doing this upgrade over the course of about 5 years, each year adding on to the previous year's upgrades.
Year one will be getting our ETC Ion, our dLive s5000, lighting trees on the proscenium and in the house, and, per their request, replacing our roundell strip lights onstage with LEDs.
That is where I am once again asking for input- what would you recommend I replace them with? Pars? LED strip lights? It's a 50'x28' stage. I would LOVE RGBAW, but would also settle for RGBW.
I was thinking maybe some Blizzard RGBAW+UV Par Hex's. I generally have my electrics about 15'-17' above the deck. 3 electrics.
Thanks!
 
Similar size stage at high school venu had update 4yrs ago. Added ETC dmx to all electrics and non dim Edison to electrics. Swaped strip lights to leds. For your front of house i'd suggest something with moving mirror like elipscan or right arm to solve your hard to reach position. You may want to plan more led fixtures as your power is limited. I do like the par zooms and vivid Rs


High School Light Inventory (as of 5/12/2017)
(lamp code in parenthesis)
7 Source IV 14 deg Elips. (HPL750 115x)
18 Source IV 19 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
4 Source IV 26 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
14 Source IV 36 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
4 Source IV 50 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
9 Source IV Par - WF, MF, NS, ACL lenses (HPL575 115x)
4 Altman 6” Fresnels (BTN)
13 Altman 6” 1k Fresnels (EGR)
28 elation par zoom Led
13 Par 64 WF, MF, NS, VNS (500w or 1000w)
2 Pinspot Altman 3.5Q (EHD)
2 Altman 3 circuit cyc lights (FFT)
4 Forerunner power source
19 Forerunner 7” color scroller
5 Metro Elipscan
2 Technobeam (one need repair) (lamp MSD 250-2)
4 Gam Stick up (SU2020 100w or SU2021 150w)
2 luminator follow spot (ENX)
Source IV Barrels
1 14 deg
3 19 deg
6 26 deg
1 36 deg
6 50 deg
3 90 deg
Auditorium Circuits (2P&G)
FOH 1 Circuits 1-35
Stage left portal Circuits 36-40
Stage right portal Circuits 41-45
1st Electric Circuits 46-74
2nd Electric Circuits 75-86
3rd Electric Circuits 87-102
4th Electric Circuits 103-135
5th Electric Circuits 136-148
Floor Pocket Circuits 149-163
House light Circuits
ETC ION control board, 2- touch screen monitors,2x20 playback wing, Remote focus unit.
 
The strips currently purpose as downlight? I'd look at replacing them with a colorsource par or similar--I like the CS Par because it has a really good "default" white, something that can't be said for the altman equivilent... and it's quite reasonably priced given what you get. What trim height are we talking?

One thing to really think about is the infrastructure part of this renovation. Given how rarely it looks like the school upgrades, I'd say pushing for LED now makes it much more future proof, but you'll need to look at replacing some dimmers with hot power and getting data run to many places it probably isn't. That has a not insignifigant cost all on its own.
 
Yes, they function as our downlight. This is the first lighting upgrade in at least 10-15 years, so I am taking FULL advantage. I was told "Don't worry about the cost". Almost everything will be LED, save for our Source 4's.

This is what we've settled on for the upgrade, save for the new addition of replacing the downlight strips:

House Electric 1 and 2:
-3 ADJ Focus Spot 3Z
-2 ADJ Visi BSW 300

Side Trees (Proscenium, 1 per side):
-3 Source 4's (Still calculating optics to decide barrels)

Side Trees (House, 1 per side)
-2 Source 4's (Still calculating optics to decide barrels)

Specials and Atmosphere:
-2 ADJ Entourage Faze Machines
-8 Source 4's with 26, 36, and 50 degree options
-4 Blizzard RGBAW+UV Par Hex's
-2 ADJ Illusion Dotz 4.4
-6 Apollo Gobo Rotators
-2 ADJ Focus Spot 3Z

Follow SpotsL
-4 ADJ FSL101 60W DMX Follow Spot

The 3 stage electrics and 2 house electrics will have Color Source Relays for Wireless DMX, and will also have a powercon quadbox for edison connections.

Our plan in terms of phasing these in, (as of now, I JUST started figuring this out about an hour ago)

Year One (Summer 2018):
-Replace downlights
-Side Trees
-ETC ION
-2 ADJ Focus Spot Z
-Follow Spots
-1 ADJ Entourage Faze Machine
-dLive S5000 Sound Desk
-Replace Amps

Year Two (Summer 2019):
-House Electric 1
-1 ADJ Entourage Faze Machine
-Begin building House Wireless Shure System
-Permanent Tech Booth
-Projectors and Projection Screens

Year Three (Summer 2020)
-House Electric 2
-Finish House Wireless Shure System
-Robo Cam installation
-Remaining lighting fixtures and specials

Year Four (Summer 2021)
-Line Array system
-Any additional updates and additions

This may be turned into a 3-year, maybe a 5-year operation, etc.

I'm HOPING to maybe be able to move the timeline up a few months to have the first phase completed by May 2018, when we have our first musical in years.

Thank you for all of the input, I will definitely be keeping it all in mind!
 
...
7 Source IV 14 deg Elips. (HPL750 115x)
18 Source IV 19 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
4 Source IV 26 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
14 Source IV 36 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
4 Source IV 50 deg Elips. (HPL575 115x)
9 Source IV Par - WF, MF, NS, ACL lenses (HPL575 115x)
...
Sorry for the interruption, but WHY do you (or does anyone) use "Source IV" instead of "Source 4" or the even more proper "Source Four"? Every time I see this I think of Source IntraVenous. The manufacturer has never referred to them in Roman numberals, so why should the user(s)?

As long as i'm picking nits,
...
9 Source IV Par - WF, MF, NS, ACL lenses (HPL575 115x)
...
It's WFL, MFL, NSP. Are you sure the others are ACL (rare) and not VNSP lenses? VNSP is curved and clear; ACL is a flat circle of glass with both sides parallel.
 
This is what the current layout is, with none of my external lights added. Pictures of the stage electrics to come.
WHS As Is.jpg
 
At the risk of coming across as rude, knowning that a) "Don't worry about the cost" and B) This gear presumably should last 10-15 years, why in the world would you spec american DJ? If any of it works five years from now, let alone fifteen, I'd be shocked. You're setting the school up for disappointment. Who in this school full of people used to leprecaun dimmers will be maintaining and fixing this equipment when it breaks?

Do yourself and the school a favor and bring in a professional consultant. You are leading the school down the wrong path.
 
What's a "powercon quad box"? Sounds like a non-code-compliant invention.

And I agree with Dan - I would not expect ADJ to be working in 5 years, let alone 15.

Odd the followspot seems to be the weakest I've seen - 60 watt LED can't do much.
 
Quad box- http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/229238-Lex-Products-Corp-DB20PC-SBPC

As for why I chose ADJ- I've been working in this school system for the past 7 years- I know that when they say "don't worry about cost", it means to keep the cost down as much as I can. As for who will be doing the repairs and maintenance? That would be me. If it lasts 5 years, that's a win in this school system. I may change the follow spot, but not much else will probably be changed.

I'm basically the only one who designs in the space, so I chose products that I know, trust, and know will fall into the budget
 
If anyone could offer alternative moving heads that fall around the same price range as the ones I've spec'd with similar capabilities, I am certainly all ears. I just know how this school system is, so I'm keeping the cost down as much as I can.
 
Sorry for the interruption, but WHY do you (or does anyone) use "Source IV" instead of "Source 4" or the even more proper "Source Four"? Every time I see this I think of Source IntraVenous. The manufacturer has never referred to them in Roman numberals, so why should the user(s)?

As long as i'm picking nits,
It's WFL, MFL, NSP. Are you sure the others are ACL (rare) and not VNSP lenses? VNSP is curved and clear; ACL is a flat circle of glass with both sides parallel.
If it`s "nit's we're picking", why would anyone include a "b" in the midst of numerals?
Toodleoo!
(that little old blind nit picker)
Ron Hebbard.
 
Quad box- http://www.fullcompass.com/prod/229238-Lex-Products-Corp-DB20PC-SBPC

As for why I chose ADJ- I've been working in this school system for the past 7 years- I know that when they say "don't worry about cost", it means to keep the cost down as much as I can. As for who will be doing the repairs and maintenance? That would be me. If it lasts 5 years, that's a win in this school system. I may change the follow spot, but not much else will probably be changed.

I'm basically the only one who designs in the space, so I chose products that I know, trust, and know will fall into the budget

No mention of it being UL listed, so not code compliant in my world. So you have an adapter with 5R-15 or 20 to powercon to break it out to 5R-20's? It's not a plug box to be powered from a panel.

As a long range strategy, I would generally recommend getting better quality and fewer units with funds now, and in 5 years instead of replacing all, add another small quantity of good quality that will last.

Good luck.
 
Hi all,
So after going through the quotes I had created, and looking back at all of your suggestions, I have revised the lighting portion of the quote, and have replaced all the ADJ gear with Elation, including the Fuze Z350, and some Platinum Spot Pro LEDs. As this is happening over the course of 5 years, I figured I could work with an increased price, as it will be spread out. Working on replacing our strip lights with Color Source Pars, 10 per electric.
Thanks for all of the suggestions, I truly appreciate it.
Adam
 
Spotted these @ Whirlwind's booth at Infocomm, proudly bearing UL tags.
Those are true1, however, which I could see being used in this application. Original powercon was only designed as an appliance cord, so I think code would be a bit more negative about using it for a quad box (though powercon is it's own beast, regardless)
 

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