one time, I was stuck running lights for our local show-choir, there a really big deal here, as they won in a nation competition, we were sold-out (we have a large theater, I'm not sure, but about 1500 seats I think.)
We were running the show from our normal lighting
plot, except for one special where there are 3 different spots, and a few different colored gelled pars for a couple of songs.
Well they had this tradition where all the cast and crew get in a circle behind the curtian and share stories,
etc. then pray. I knew one of the ellipsoidals used for the 3 spots special was out the day before, so I asked the janitor to replace the
bulb (he is the only one that has the bulbs,) I checked to make sure it was working, it was, but as soon as we started to pray, I hear that fizzling crack, look up and just as I thought, its out, the light that starts out the whole show is blown, 3min before showtime. GREAT!!! Sometimes I do think god hates us, lol.
We start the show with me running up a ladder to use the follow spot to light the soloist, GREAT, its geled blue! and I'm like 4 feet off (I've never actually ran this follow spot before, I just moved to this school over the summer) so after that terrible
cue I run down the ladder in time for the next
cue, a basic blue
wash on the
cyc, and standard full
stage wash.
We use what are called "STAR
PAR's" if you don't know they are stubnose lights that use a standard
bulb (well the kind the ellipsoisals use) and a
par lens, we have them for a basic
stage wash, and we have 9 along the 4th
electric to
wash the
cyc, 3 in blue, 3 in red, and 3 in green.
WELL, I notice the blue is getting paler and paler, along with (later in the show) the other colors as well, until by the last song they were pretty much just putting white light on the
cyc. After the show I run down to she what the heck has happened and all the gels were melted, all that was left was the part in the holder attached to the brads. I didn't know what the world would have caused this so I went to get replacement gels. WE RAN OUT, as we had just ordered more, but they had not come it yet, so I rummaged around and found some mis-matched colors and put them in and ran the next night with these pars at a lower
level, still by the end of the show they were gone. I spent about 3 hours that night trying to figure out what was wrong, as 2 of the 9 were not burning out, eventually I found out that the janitor had replaced the bulbs with a different kind of
bulb, I'm still new to this, so I'm not sure exactly what was different, but I ended up replacing the "wrong" bulbs with the right ones, because the janitor's door was unlocked (luckily!) But, I then had to pay $15 a
gel at a music store to get the colors matched along the whole
cyc, I had it fixed, finally by the third night, which was the most important, as this was the night the mayor, and many of the patrons who give money for the event attended.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the only problem, for one of the songs, Thriller, I had to bump some different subs as the
stage crew filled the
stage with
fog (we recently re-formated and updated the software on our
console and haven't had time to write new
effect sequences) this new software was different from the old, and when I bumped a
submaster it stayed on, not the
effect we were looking for, the
stage crew was completly visable, GREAT!!!
Well, thats my story, since then I've stuck to my good friend, the sound
mixer!