Hello. My name is Peter, and I do a lot of Lx, Sound, and a bit of everything else (as well as playing 'bone and piano) here in the UK. I've been at it around 6 years. I've found this forum from google and found it very useful; I hope I can give back as well as take away!
FWIW, I 'do tech' {read: fix things when they go wrong / are assisted in going wrong} at a secondary school (ages 13 - 19} in England. We have a fairly small dedicated space, a large empty space, and a fairly small gymnasium which are used for performance. Kit wise we have a Yamaha LS9-16, AVOLites Pearl Expert, 24 ch of dimming, *mindblock* i forget how many w of sound power (8 srms [yamaha amps], 4 powered monitors, and some old peavey system that sounds like absolute junk), a reasonable selection of luminaires (about 30), a couple of radio mics and a paultry selection of static microphones. I am striving to rectify this...although the person who controls the money (the bursar) is, at best, described as a tightwad...! (when it comes to this sort of thing, the school tends to do things in three quarter measures...get impressive kit, have it installed okay, but forget things like a decent number of mics, or enough XLRs, or 5pin XLRs for DMX, or...)
The Man (headmaster) likes things to look impressive, but doesn't care how it happens, and the resident director is skilled at acting but knows little about sound, lighting, pryo, what is possible, what isn't, what will drive all the techies up the wall, etc. The MD is very talented and is a great guy but often fails to hear things from the audience's point of view. We have two teachers that like to 'oversee' operations, a sound man and a lighting man. The sound man is a master of delegation, the lighting man, a master of procrastination. I have to balance everybody and make sure stuff gets done. (Which usually means me doing it). And then we have the ruddy school photographer. I don't know why he is surprised when I bite his head off when he tells me to "move, I'm taking a photo" whilst positioning microphones. *fume*.
I realise that this post has been too long...for that, I apologise!
Regards,
Peter Bridgman
FWIW, I 'do tech' {read: fix things when they go wrong / are assisted in going wrong} at a secondary school (ages 13 - 19} in England. We have a fairly small dedicated space, a large empty space, and a fairly small gymnasium which are used for performance. Kit wise we have a Yamaha LS9-16, AVOLites Pearl Expert, 24 ch of dimming, *mindblock* i forget how many w of sound power (8 srms [yamaha amps], 4 powered monitors, and some old peavey system that sounds like absolute junk), a reasonable selection of luminaires (about 30), a couple of radio mics and a paultry selection of static microphones. I am striving to rectify this...although the person who controls the money (the bursar) is, at best, described as a tightwad...! (when it comes to this sort of thing, the school tends to do things in three quarter measures...get impressive kit, have it installed okay, but forget things like a decent number of mics, or enough XLRs, or 5pin XLRs for DMX, or...)
The Man (headmaster) likes things to look impressive, but doesn't care how it happens, and the resident director is skilled at acting but knows little about sound, lighting, pryo, what is possible, what isn't, what will drive all the techies up the wall, etc. The MD is very talented and is a great guy but often fails to hear things from the audience's point of view. We have two teachers that like to 'oversee' operations, a sound man and a lighting man. The sound man is a master of delegation, the lighting man, a master of procrastination. I have to balance everybody and make sure stuff gets done. (Which usually means me doing it). And then we have the ruddy school photographer. I don't know why he is surprised when I bite his head off when he tells me to "move, I'm taking a photo" whilst positioning microphones. *fume*.
I realise that this post has been too long...for that, I apologise!
Regards,
Peter Bridgman