The company that did the Electrics install at a local community theatre went belly-up shortly after the terrible install. This probably woulda been a god job for JD, and I'm sure someone much more reputable; unless JD shows up to work drunk that is?
Never let a school design a theatre... pt. 2
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Spikesgirl
Active Member
You are all scaring me - AV, your roofing contractor ended up iin California and installed our roof. We had one major rainstorm and it leaked all over our flats on stage - oh, and the third electric... and the hub in the office.
The community theater I'm attached to now is starting to take bids for a new black box - still in the fesibility stage, but what would you abosultely recommend as specific areas to be doubly cautious in? Beside roofing, that's a no brainer now - the TD and I are of the opinion that it would be nice to bring the pros theater up to code first before starting a new project like this - we're still waiting for the next stage of our sound system install.
What say you, more experience new theater folks?
Char5lie
P.S. Charlie, you are right about not letting a school design a theater- they put a hotel lighting patch system in our theater that we had to struggle with for nearly 20 years before we could get rid of it. That was an odd experience...
The community theater I'm attached to now is starting to take bids for a new black box - still in the fesibility stage, but what would you abosultely recommend as specific areas to be doubly cautious in? Beside roofing, that's a no brainer now - the TD and I are of the opinion that it would be nice to bring the pros theater up to code first before starting a new project like this - we're still waiting for the next stage of our sound system install.
What say you, more experience new theater folks?
Char5lie
P.S. Charlie, you are right about not letting a school design a theater- they put a hotel lighting patch system in our theater that we had to struggle with for nearly 20 years before we could get rid of it. That was an odd experience...
Make sure that there is empty space in the data conduit, which should be at least 4" EMT.
You will always end up needing to run more wires, and it's much easier to get a fishtape through a half empty piece of conduit than a full one.
Make sure to watch the electricians and the neutrals.
You do not want the ground and neutral joined anywhere beside the service entrance or you will hear it in audio systems.
This is easy to test when the system is energized but before they sign off on the project.
All you need is a DMM and two probes, one in the neutral slot and one in the ground.
If you get more than about .5 volts you have a problem.
You will always end up needing to run more wires, and it's much easier to get a fishtape through a half empty piece of conduit than a full one.
Make sure to watch the electricians and the neutrals.
You do not want the ground and neutral joined anywhere beside the service entrance or you will hear it in audio systems.
This is easy to test when the system is energized but before they sign off on the project.
All you need is a DMM and two probes, one in the neutral slot and one in the ground.
If you get more than about .5 volts you have a problem.
Spikesgirl
Active Member
Two phrases to watch for "low, qualified bid" and "Value Engineering", both are good ideas gone bad.
"Low, qualified bid" means that the project is awarded to the "qualified" bidder with the lowest price. All sorts of potential problems here from 'low' meaning the bidder who cut the most corners in what they bid to how to define 'qualified' or even more difficult, how to prove a bidder is not qualified (just such an allegation often ends up with calls and letters from attorneys). Contractors need work to stay in business, some are very good and take the high road, but some play, or are forced to play just to stay in business, in the "how cheaply can we do it" mode in order to get work. In some cases, even for public bids, there may be other options that are acceptable alternative to "low, qualified bid" in order to get what are really 'best value' rather than 'low cost' bids (two envelope method/Brooks Act, allowances, etc.).
"Value Engineering" was intended to be just that, a way for the bidders and Contractors to offer alternates that could potentially increase the value of the work without increasing the cost or decrease the cost without decreasing the value. What it too often becomes is either "how can we cut costs" or "instead of what was designed, what can you do for this budget". A specific example on one project, a bidder recommended going from a four channel to a single channel production communication system. It may reduce the cost but how can anyone suggest it provides the same functionality and capability? Yet it appeared on the VE list (luckily we got it removed from consideration).
These types of issues are where having someone on your side who is familiar with the process as well as the systems can be beneficial. However, as I've too often experienced, in the end it doesn't matter what an end user or consultant says or recommends if the Owner accepts a lesser result. There is no practical way to overcome that.
"Low, qualified bid" means that the project is awarded to the "qualified" bidder with the lowest price. All sorts of potential problems here from 'low' meaning the bidder who cut the most corners in what they bid to how to define 'qualified' or even more difficult, how to prove a bidder is not qualified (just such an allegation often ends up with calls and letters from attorneys). Contractors need work to stay in business, some are very good and take the high road, but some play, or are forced to play just to stay in business, in the "how cheaply can we do it" mode in order to get work. In some cases, even for public bids, there may be other options that are acceptable alternative to "low, qualified bid" in order to get what are really 'best value' rather than 'low cost' bids (two envelope method/Brooks Act, allowances, etc.).
"Value Engineering" was intended to be just that, a way for the bidders and Contractors to offer alternates that could potentially increase the value of the work without increasing the cost or decrease the cost without decreasing the value. What it too often becomes is either "how can we cut costs" or "instead of what was designed, what can you do for this budget". A specific example on one project, a bidder recommended going from a four channel to a single channel production communication system. It may reduce the cost but how can anyone suggest it provides the same functionality and capability? Yet it appeared on the VE list (luckily we got it removed from consideration).
These types of issues are where having someone on your side who is familiar with the process as well as the systems can be beneficial. However, as I've too often experienced, in the end it doesn't matter what an end user or consultant says or recommends if the Owner accepts a lesser result. There is no practical way to overcome that.
my highschool converted the 100 seat theater to a blackbox and added a 468 theater next to it.
the black box conversion was filling the house rake with cement,and replacing the lighting grid and giving us some risers platforms that are on carts but are too big to roll out of any of the doors.
the lighting grid is on one end of the box covering the same area as the old grid. they painted it all black and did not fix the broken house lights.
the 20 dimmers for this grid are in the same room with the 220 dimmers of the larger theater.
Well what the contractors did not do was add a splitter to the dimmer racks to make the theater and black box separate.
so the DMX jack in the box did not work. we had to pull the light board from the theater down and run DMX from box to theater in order to make the box light up.
it took us a bit to figure out which dimmers were which since they were labled 1-20 but with out the splitter it was really the "5th" electric of the theater.
so that is one of many issuses with lowest bidders and the seattle school district.
i have more to share if you like.
the black box conversion was filling the house rake with cement,and replacing the lighting grid and giving us some risers platforms that are on carts but are too big to roll out of any of the doors.
the lighting grid is on one end of the box covering the same area as the old grid. they painted it all black and did not fix the broken house lights.
the 20 dimmers for this grid are in the same room with the 220 dimmers of the larger theater.
Well what the contractors did not do was add a splitter to the dimmer racks to make the theater and black box separate.
so the DMX jack in the box did not work. we had to pull the light board from the theater down and run DMX from box to theater in order to make the box light up.
it took us a bit to figure out which dimmers were which since they were labled 1-20 but with out the splitter it was really the "5th" electric of the theater.
so that is one of many issuses with lowest bidders and the seattle school district.
i have more to share if you like.
Soxred93
Active Member
This is from my old school. Thank god I left that school after 8th grade (I left by choice, it was a combo middle/high school)...
Rant ahoy!
- Catwalk: Metal grate floor, so you can't kneel without cringing in pain.
- All the lights except for the cyc were on the FOH. Don't even think about trying to light upstage.
- First year I was there, it was an old 48 channel analog board. Channels 34 through 48 didn't work. We only had 33 channels we could use, which doesn't really matter when you only have 22 lights
- Second year: We upgraded to a computer with Horizon. Still needed a DMX to analog converter, which broke regularly
- Everything was fixed. Nothing could be flown
- Entrance to the catwalk was on a thin metal ladder 35 feet up with no handles.
- Instruments were 35 years old, at least 2 broke a night.
- 2 levels in the booth. Level 1 was where the sound person and director sat. Level 2 was 4 feet higher behind them. Total height? Maybe 6 feet. Couldn't stand up fully. Nor could you see downstang (which is where all the lights were)
- House lights were fluorescents, which means cringes of pain from the audience when you turn them on.
- Door to the booth was accessable from the seats, and it was locked with a padlock. That means that you couldn't lock it from inside, so kids would always "explore" into the booth.
- Modification of earlier point: We had 1 fly. It's not easy when the set designer wants a prop, the director wants a different prop, and the light person wants some lights to light upstage.
Rant ahoy!
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I had the fun opportunity to work with a mix between my Strand 520i which was nice this summer to go along with my Square D Resistance Dimmers. We are pretty sure that they were BTO or rebranded because Square D has no recollection of it ever existing. I was talking to my old undergrad advisor about it and he mentioned he had a similar one back when he was in high school and it was only 4 years old and Square D was clueless even then. The resistance dimmers were wired to floor pockets with the good old fashioned Stage Plugs .
I feel the need to rant about the space I learned (more like dealt with) theatre in...
Starting onstage: no fly so everything was dead hung, no wings to speak of on either side of the stage, no shop to build anything in so all construction was done onstage, no changing areas, so the band and choir rooms across the hall served as dressing rooms/hang out areas for the cast. The stage dimensions themselves were approximately 40 feet deep by a wonderful 60ish feet across with a roof height of about 18-20 feet off the deck. The "proscenium arch" consisted of a lowered dry wall block across the top to basically cover the front valence and the first electric (at least they painted it black) and the black brick walls of the stage. Either side of the stage, a permanent set of steps ran onto the stage directly into the folds of the leg hiding a retracted main. Our main curtain is a blazing red-orange vinyl sheet which someone got splotches of yellow paint on near the center division.
The house was what I like to call a gymatorium with three brick walls and a fourth retractable wall to make the actual gym bigger. No permanent seating, all floor chairs and four sections of moveable bleachers for the back. No pit; we had to build the pit walls out of band risers which were used during concerts. The ceiling was strewn with huge white acoustical panels that deadened echoing and didn't help with sound reinforcement as well as six retractable basketball hoops, three of which blocked house lights. One of these hoops was installed so that what would have been one FOH lighting bar was actually two bars.
The booth was a room about the size of a dorm room 12'x12' with a brick wall dividing it in half (sound side and light side) with two doors in it. The booth was so far away from the stage that there was a delay between the sound from the mains and the booth monitors which was never fixed properly.
Lighting system, at the time, was run by an ETC Mircovision FX with a serial number in the low 100's. I got this replaced by an Express 24/48 my senior year just before I left.
House had 60 dimmers total, 8 of which were house lights (8 sets of 3 Altman PAR56's scattered across the floor) and all of the dimmers were up in the air (no floor or wall pockets). All Altman lighting equipment which was probably one of the only good things of the space. The FOH position was focused with a large two person Genie lift (which didn't drive so I got to pull it everywhere) and the smaller Genie for onstage stuff which was constantly stolen by the janitors when I needed it (and never charged, of course).
I was constantly fighting with the athletic department about using the space and had to work around basketball and track practices each year.
Thanks for allowing me to rant...
So, after all that, I agree with you 100% that a school (or an inexperienced architect) should not be allowed to design a theatre. If I could find whoever did our theatre, well...
Starting onstage: no fly so everything was dead hung, no wings to speak of on either side of the stage, no shop to build anything in so all construction was done onstage, no changing areas, so the band and choir rooms across the hall served as dressing rooms/hang out areas for the cast. The stage dimensions themselves were approximately 40 feet deep by a wonderful 60ish feet across with a roof height of about 18-20 feet off the deck. The "proscenium arch" consisted of a lowered dry wall block across the top to basically cover the front valence and the first electric (at least they painted it black) and the black brick walls of the stage. Either side of the stage, a permanent set of steps ran onto the stage directly into the folds of the leg hiding a retracted main. Our main curtain is a blazing red-orange vinyl sheet which someone got splotches of yellow paint on near the center division.
The house was what I like to call a gymatorium with three brick walls and a fourth retractable wall to make the actual gym bigger. No permanent seating, all floor chairs and four sections of moveable bleachers for the back. No pit; we had to build the pit walls out of band risers which were used during concerts. The ceiling was strewn with huge white acoustical panels that deadened echoing and didn't help with sound reinforcement as well as six retractable basketball hoops, three of which blocked house lights. One of these hoops was installed so that what would have been one FOH lighting bar was actually two bars.
The booth was a room about the size of a dorm room 12'x12' with a brick wall dividing it in half (sound side and light side) with two doors in it. The booth was so far away from the stage that there was a delay between the sound from the mains and the booth monitors which was never fixed properly.
Lighting system, at the time, was run by an ETC Mircovision FX with a serial number in the low 100's. I got this replaced by an Express 24/48 my senior year just before I left.
House had 60 dimmers total, 8 of which were house lights (8 sets of 3 Altman PAR56's scattered across the floor) and all of the dimmers were up in the air (no floor or wall pockets). All Altman lighting equipment which was probably one of the only good things of the space. The FOH position was focused with a large two person Genie lift (which didn't drive so I got to pull it everywhere) and the smaller Genie for onstage stuff which was constantly stolen by the janitors when I needed it (and never charged, of course).I was constantly fighting with the athletic department about using the space and had to work around basketball and track practices each year.
Thanks for allowing me to rant...
So, after all that, I agree with you 100% that a school (or an inexperienced architect) should not be allowed to design a theatre. If I could find whoever did our theatre, well...
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My high school's theater isn't the worst, but it definitely has its issues. It started out as a high school commons with a stage, and they started turning the thing into a real theater several years ago. Last summer we finally got some permanent seating, and this summer they replaced our old house lighting (two PAR cans and a half-dozen gym-style fluorescents) with some dimmable fluorescents and wall sconces.
I don't think they hired a theater consultant during the initial renovations; for one, we got a ColorTran Innovator 24/48 board. >_< Our director told us that she told the contractor to put the FOH lighting bars (two of them) back at about twice the distance he was planning (twenty feet or so horizontally), but he didn't think the 360Q's would throw that far.
We got a Genie lift the summer before I started doing lighting, though, so I never had to deal with the ladder and cherry-picker my predecessors have told me a great deal about.
Our stage and and the equipment on it are probably the things that give me and my underlings the most problems. For one, there's no fly or winch system whatsoever; any hanging involves getting the Genie up on stage (not too hard, since there's a ramp behind the stage), although we can swap gels with an A-frame. That's not really a problem for us; the fact that we have to fasten our cyc to a rope strung under the ceiling and spend a great deal of time putting it up or taking it down is. Luckily, we don't take it down very much.
The dimming system, though... well, several of our 48 channels don't work properly. One is always on at 100%, and the rest of the misbehavors just don't work. About half of them are floor channels, though, so it's not that big of a deal.
Finally, we have no booth. The sound and lighting boards are merely on desks in the back corner of the house, and some of the actors and makeup crew like to hang out there before shows and plug their iPods into the sound board. Needless to say, my crew and the sound guys don't really like listening to rap and/or having to shove people out of our way while we're working or just in need of some quiet time before the show, so it's a bit of a frustration. There's talk of giving us an actual booth next time they get a grant for renovation, though. I'm definitely going to keep in touch with my trainees after a graduate, and the woman who generally heads the renovation planning will actually listen to us, so maybe we can get an Ion and some fader wings too...
I don't think they hired a theater consultant during the initial renovations; for one, we got a ColorTran Innovator 24/48 board. >_< Our director told us that she told the contractor to put the FOH lighting bars (two of them) back at about twice the distance he was planning (twenty feet or so horizontally), but he didn't think the 360Q's would throw that far.
We got a Genie lift the summer before I started doing lighting, though, so I never had to deal with the ladder and cherry-picker my predecessors have told me a great deal about.Our stage and and the equipment on it are probably the things that give me and my underlings the most problems. For one, there's no fly or winch system whatsoever; any hanging involves getting the Genie up on stage (not too hard, since there's a ramp behind the stage), although we can swap gels with an A-frame. That's not really a problem for us; the fact that we have to fasten our cyc to a rope strung under the ceiling and spend a great deal of time putting it up or taking it down is. Luckily, we don't take it down very much.
The dimming system, though... well, several of our 48 channels don't work properly. One is always on at 100%, and the rest of the misbehavors just don't work. About half of them are floor channels, though, so it's not that big of a deal.
Finally, we have no booth. The sound and lighting boards are merely on desks in the back corner of the house, and some of the actors and makeup crew like to hang out there before shows and plug their iPods into the sound board. Needless to say, my crew and the sound guys don't really like listening to rap and/or having to shove people out of our way while we're working or just in need of some quiet time before the show, so it's a bit of a frustration. There's talk of giving us an actual booth next time they get a grant for renovation, though. I'm definitely going to keep in touch with my trainees after a graduate, and the woman who generally heads the renovation planning will actually listen to us, so maybe we can get an Ion and some fader wings too...
This is most-likely easily and inexpensively reparable. See this thread: Three dimmers won't turn off.
Sayen
Active Member
In the debate surrounding the you should be happy, guess what we have, the only catch is that many of these new theaters are built wrong, at twice the cost. My old theater, before the rebuild, was junk to work in, but I knew it was old junk so that was okay. You had to crawl on your belly to reach the partial FOH catwalk, for example. My new theater features multiple catwalks...but so much of the work was done wrong that many of the new elements are unusable, or pale versions of what the school should have recieved based on what they paid. The contractors and school officials were convinced they knew more than teachers or local experts, so they wouldn't listen to us, and continue even now to make poor decisions. The building is almost four years old, and we're still solving problems that should have been taken care of during the installation. For what we paid we should have a state of the art facility.
Unfortunately any time we, the staff, try to point out the problems the construction teams come back with that guess what other schools have, you're lucky! line, and it takes another endless meeting full of price proof and industry recommendations to explain, for example, why when I push a button to turn a light on the light should actually turn on.
That button still doesn't work.
Unfortunately any time we, the staff, try to point out the problems the construction teams come back with that guess what other schools have, you're lucky! line, and it takes another endless meeting full of price proof and industry recommendations to explain, for example, why when I push a button to turn a light on the light should actually turn on.
That button still doesn't work.
I feel bad for you guys. My High School's theater was proposed by the arts department chair and technical director after a lot of research (I've read the reports). He laid out the specifications and made most of the base decisions about what would be included in the space.
Then, the school hired an architect that specialized in school design, who proposed to build a facility exceeding the plans - and the community agreed to pay for it in a bond issue.
Technical equipment and consulting was performed by faculty from Webster University. The original technical director was directly involved throughout construction.
We ended up with one of the best theaters in the region.
Now, if you ask me about letting a school design a video information system...
Then, the school hired an architect that specialized in school design, who proposed to build a facility exceeding the plans - and the community agreed to pay for it in a bond issue.
Technical equipment and consulting was performed by faculty from Webster University. The original technical director was directly involved throughout construction.
We ended up with one of the best theaters in the region.
Now, if you ask me about letting a school design a video information system...
I won't go into my HS theatre, it was garbage but it was old. Limited lights and autotransformer dimmers. However advance ten years and I was hired by my old principal to check out his new theatre. They installed two rows or strip lights for the stage, no thought to hanging anything else. One house electric with 6" fresnels on it. All circuits were hardwired to the dimmers. I checked it out and everything came on but the strips were were wired wrong. They were four circuit but he had wired them 1,2.3.4 not 1,5,9,13. The lighting company, read low bidder, came in and I explained the problem, they said if they came on then it was good. I then asked why fresnels instead of lekos, they didn't even know the terms.
The electrician said he wouldn't rewire without new prints being drawn. I told the principal to accept iit and I would fix it. The owner of the electric company came in and when it was explained to him he told his foreman to fix it.
The electrician said he wouldn't rewire without new prints being drawn. I told the principal to accept iit and I would fix it. The owner of the electric company came in and when it was explained to him he told his foreman to fix it.
There are many considerations that often go into school performing arts facilities. Budget is an obvious one and you cannot assume that the budget to do it right is always available at the same time the need to do something is there, although how that dilemma is handled can vary greatly.
Politics can be a factor. I have had multiple school districts that had less than ideal existing facilities and were concerned about improving the new facilities too much as it could result in complaints from those assigned to the older facilities. I quite literally had one school district hire us to look at what could be done better within the money they were spending only to then have them not implement some of the proposed changes in order to make the new facilities less dissimilar from the existing spaces. Another district had us not include the mixing console as an part of the system but rather to design for a console that the high school would provide itself, a solution to the school wanting to utilize a nicer console than what was in other existing theatres in the district schools. Ironically, the console they thought they had turned out to be an empty case, no idea where the console was, and they had an unusable sound system until the theatre groups came up with the money for a new console.
The long term/short term perspective is also a potential factor. Most performing arts facilities are viewed as long term facilities, which means sometimes looking beyond, or over, the current users and applications. I have experienced direct conflicts between the administration's long term goals for a facility and the goals of the current users to the point that it was not practical to reconcile the two. This is sometimes hard to accept, but from the administration's perspective the facility does not belong to the current students or instructors, it belongs to the school district and thus they are the ones that make the decisions.
Standards can also be enter into the result. I've seen a local high school plan a very nice theatre only to then have the school district's design standards imposed upon it resulting in a Scene Shop with 7' doors and Music Practice Rooms with door widths that would not allow a piano to be moved into the rooms. A school district in another state had 'standard' audio and lighting system packages, which were simply equipment lists, and the system designer's role for new facilities was limited to figuring out how to apply those standard components to spaces that were definitely not as standardized.
And of course the usual 'low, qualified bid' problems related to both consultants/designers and contractors have already been noted. Making this even more of a problem in some cases are Purchasing Agents who seem to feel feel their role is to get the lowest price, the don't have the technical expertise to address the value but they can understand the related dollars and cents. Just to be clear, I have worked with Purchasing people who were a joy to work with and a great benefit to the project, but just like most things, it seems that for every one of those there was one who had a very myopic view.
I don't mean to paint a picture of hopelessness, that is not at all the case. Based on my experience, the important thing is to recognize that there are many factors that can be part of the process and to learn to work within that environment. Some issues can be addressed with fairly simple things such as focusing on prioritizing your goals and needs rather than simply presenting a laundry list of everything and leaving it up to others to decide which are priorities. Other issues involve relationships, being seen by the Administration as a positive resource looking out for the general good rather than someone with their own personal agenda. Some things you can do relate to details, such as including some less important items that you can trade-off for more important ones while being perceived as making compromises. And some are homework, finding out about any standards or political issues that may apply prior to developing your own 'wish list' and working to resolve any internal conflicts as early as possible. Having a Consultant involved can certainly help in many areas and provide a 'disinterested third party' perspective, but it is still often how well you 'play the game' that matters as much as the technical expertise or experience.
Politics can be a factor. I have had multiple school districts that had less than ideal existing facilities and were concerned about improving the new facilities too much as it could result in complaints from those assigned to the older facilities. I quite literally had one school district hire us to look at what could be done better within the money they were spending only to then have them not implement some of the proposed changes in order to make the new facilities less dissimilar from the existing spaces. Another district had us not include the mixing console as an part of the system but rather to design for a console that the high school would provide itself, a solution to the school wanting to utilize a nicer console than what was in other existing theatres in the district schools. Ironically, the console they thought they had turned out to be an empty case, no idea where the console was, and they had an unusable sound system until the theatre groups came up with the money for a new console.
The long term/short term perspective is also a potential factor. Most performing arts facilities are viewed as long term facilities, which means sometimes looking beyond, or over, the current users and applications. I have experienced direct conflicts between the administration's long term goals for a facility and the goals of the current users to the point that it was not practical to reconcile the two. This is sometimes hard to accept, but from the administration's perspective the facility does not belong to the current students or instructors, it belongs to the school district and thus they are the ones that make the decisions.
Standards can also be enter into the result. I've seen a local high school plan a very nice theatre only to then have the school district's design standards imposed upon it resulting in a Scene Shop with 7' doors and Music Practice Rooms with door widths that would not allow a piano to be moved into the rooms. A school district in another state had 'standard' audio and lighting system packages, which were simply equipment lists, and the system designer's role for new facilities was limited to figuring out how to apply those standard components to spaces that were definitely not as standardized.
And of course the usual 'low, qualified bid' problems related to both consultants/designers and contractors have already been noted. Making this even more of a problem in some cases are Purchasing Agents who seem to feel feel their role is to get the lowest price, the don't have the technical expertise to address the value but they can understand the related dollars and cents. Just to be clear, I have worked with Purchasing people who were a joy to work with and a great benefit to the project, but just like most things, it seems that for every one of those there was one who had a very myopic view.
I don't mean to paint a picture of hopelessness, that is not at all the case. Based on my experience, the important thing is to recognize that there are many factors that can be part of the process and to learn to work within that environment. Some issues can be addressed with fairly simple things such as focusing on prioritizing your goals and needs rather than simply presenting a laundry list of everything and leaving it up to others to decide which are priorities. Other issues involve relationships, being seen by the Administration as a positive resource looking out for the general good rather than someone with their own personal agenda. Some things you can do relate to details, such as including some less important items that you can trade-off for more important ones while being perceived as making compromises. And some are homework, finding out about any standards or political issues that may apply prior to developing your own 'wish list' and working to resolve any internal conflicts as early as possible. Having a Consultant involved can certainly help in many areas and provide a 'disinterested third party' perspective, but it is still often how well you 'play the game' that matters as much as the technical expertise or experience.
MillburyAuditorium
Active Member
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