Hello from New York - Call me Triple D, or 3D. 2nd Career now I own & operate an upstart event/ party lighting company.

TED Events

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Howdy, title says a lot but not enough. Looking forward to interacting with you all in the future. I've got a lot of questions to help get me up to speed. Did stage lighting in HS and then became an electrician and worked 2.5 decades in NYC sometimes but, not as often as I'd like involving MSG and Yankee/ Citicorp Field events from an electrician's standpoint. I started a n event lighting company (ox truck, stage lights, portable trusses/ stands, LED "disco"- centric fixtures as well as standard old-school INcan. and Halogen stage lts, (Par cans, fresnels & Lekos... ) and RGB / RGBW DMX pars... as well as a temp power provider (12 gensets) for emergencies or planned remote events/ parades...

Looking like a good resourceful site ya got going here... looking forward to some great interactions!
-3D
 
Howdy, title says a lot but not enough. Looking forward to interacting with you all in the future. I've got a lot of questions to help get me up to speed. Did stage lighting in HS and then became an electrician and worked 2.5 decades in NYC sometimes but, not as often as I'd like involving MSG and Yankee/ Citicorp Field events from an electrician's standpoint. I started a n event lighting company (ox truck, stage lights, portable trusses/ stands, LED "disco"- centric fixtures as well as standard old-school INcan. and Halogen stage lts, (Par cans, fresnels & Lekos... ) and RGB / RGBW DMX pars... as well as a temp power provider (12 gensets) for emergencies or planned remote events/ parades...

Looking like a good resourceful site ya got going here... looking forward to some great interactions!
-3D
What size gensets?
 
Welcome 3D . Don't be shy jump in and ask your questions and share when you have answers yourself. Our community has quite a variety of members including: students, fresh to the industry techs, old skool road warriors, dealers, educators, and manufacturers. There's somebody here who is an expert in everything. We don't allow "selling" in the forums, unless someone directly asks for it, but you are welcome to add your company name and contact information to your signature. (Click on your user name in the upper right corner to find your profile settings).

One of our favorite stories to tell around here is how @Pie4Weebl 10+ years ago decided he wanted to go in the rental business himself. We spent a while here on CB debating what he needed to buy to start his company. I believe he got a loan from his grandma to start things, and off he went to work. These days his company https://www.squeeklights.com is growing, becoming well known, sending rigs out on tours with a constantly expanding list of bigger and bigger bands. Victor has become well known and respected as an up and coming designer. It's a cool story and he's a cool guy you should get to know.
 
Sooo... probably going to need one of these at some point although I've no actual need at the moment... anyone got any hands-on experience with these new followspots? The Super Trooper seems overkill for a wedding.
 
Welcome 3D . Don't be shy jump in and ask your questions and share when you have answers yourself. Our community has quite a variety of members including: students, fresh to the industry techs, old skool road warriors, dealers, educators, and manufacturers. There's somebody here who is an expert in everything. We don't allow "selling" in the forums, unless someone directly asks for it, but you are welcome to add your company name and contact information to your signature. (Click on your user name in the upper right corner to find your profile settings).

One of our favorite stories to tell around here is how @Pie4Weebl 10+ years ago decided he wanted to go in the rental business himself. We spent a while here on CB debating what he needed to buy to start his company. I believe he got a loan from his grandma to start things, and off he went to work. These days his company https://www.squeeklights.com is growing, becoming well known, sending rigs out on tours with a constantly expanding list of bigger and bigger bands. Victor has become well known and respected as an up and coming designer. It's a cool story and he's a cool guy you should get to know.

Thank you Gafftaper, (Hey any truth to what I'm hearing, gaffer's tape is the bees knees or what?) Hearing a business success story is always good for my heart & soul. I have no intention of leasing/renting out my equipment though. We'll be doing the rigging, and running, and breakdown. I'll get some small truss work that's flexible. Well, what truss isn't? I want at least 2 if not 4 larger versions of typical "ADJ" free-standing adjustable speaker/ lighting towers, if you got the skinny on a source, used would be ideal but, local pickup to NY (Tri-state region) would be a must. I'm ok with my collection of Par Cans on the ADJ stands, but not for hanging actual old-school Fresnel's, my Altman's or my Leko Zooms. They're just no robust enough.

We got temporary power if needs be. Looking at some inverter generator sets now and discovering that paying extra for LED fixtures or fixtures converted to LED is more cost-effective, since the gensets can be a lot smaller and fewer needed, not to mention the noise at an outdoor/ spontaneous venue. Also cuts down on the gauge/ weight/ and total number of power cables and the time/labor setting them up, not to mention the obvious safety hazard... (I wouldn't be hauling my Altmans or Leko Zooms in masse onto a beach unless... well... $$$) I got 2 good beads on box trucks with liftgates. Now looking at road cases for my movers.

This part was prompted by an earlier thread about "what got you into this technical business?" --->

I got some of these ideas at my Friend Cara's wedding reception, which was held on a beach on Long Island, the generator was loud, kept crapping out, and had to be 200' away from the area we occupied... (I was told it was the DJ's, but turns out it was the bride's dad's.) Every time it would go kaput, we had to run 2 x 100' extension cord lengths away by the time we get back it's sputtering again. The few lights and the crystal chandelier and strings of white Christmas lights we put up above the main table couldn't be used. 5 or 6 houses on the top of a roughly 60' - 75' cliff overlooking this beach... they wouldn't drop a cord, because they're miffed about their houses being on the precipice of collapsing into Long Island Sound or something I'm not privy to.

So, at a subsequent party at that same beach her little brother played "DJ" and had only a couple amateur DJ (No mixer) karaoke machine. (Thanks but no thanks) But between his smartphone and a borrowed second one, and some 1/8" stereo phono jacks and splitters, his Bluetooth-or-aux jack rechargeable speaker/amp, and my Milwaukee Jobsite radios (with aux in) we put a great little, decent-sounding, and inexpensive system together in under a day. All powered by this tiny Honda inverter generator you could not hear at all. Which could be off most of the time until something needed recharging. Unfortunately, the alcohol ran out first anyway.

I had no intention of doing anything involving audio in this business, but it seems that these go hand in hand, at least in everyone else's minds, since both things involve electricity. Or just falls under "technical." I want to learn all about sound boards and amps and speakers, mics, wireless and auto-tune like I want root canals. But it appears I'd lose a lot of potential clients if I don't. I cannot/ will not be a DJ though. No problem providing them some equipment, or setting up an audio system for speaking engagements and the politicians. *

( *Provided I can wear earplugs. )
 
I heard an interesting podcast a while back about power distro. In the future they are looking towards using portable battery units. LED's are all 12v DC or 24v DC native. So you can be more efficient with the power by dropping the power supplies and just feeding DC direct. Distribute ice chest sized batteries all over the venue. Then send power cables for them out to the main generator. The big generators are far more efficient running at full capacity than the usual 25%-50% we run them at now. So turn the generator on, charge the battery supply. Turn it off and wait for the need to turn them on again. It saves fuel. Saves copper because you can have spare batteries to swap out at the most distant locations. If venues are redesigned they could have solar cells which are used for recharging. You probably need less generators because you start the day by fresh charging everything before there is a load. In the end it would actually save money.

The latest high end portable batteries are durable enough to drop off a tail gate and have roughly the same capacity as a standard Honda geberator and one full tank of gas... But without the Hazzard of dealing with gas.

It's going to be a while until this system trickles down to the little people like us, but a fascinating future.
 
I heard an interesting podcast a while back about power distro. In the future they are looking towards using portable battery units. LED's are all 12v DC or 24v DC native. So you can be more efficient with the power by dropping the power supplies and just feeding DC direct. Distribute ice chest sized batteries all over the venue. Then send power cables for them out to the main generator. The big generators are far more efficient running at full capacity than the usual 25%-50% we run them at now. So turn the generator on, charge the battery supply. Turn it off and wait for the need to turn them on again. It saves fuel. Saves copper because you can have spare batteries to swap out at the most distant locations. If venues are redesigned they could have solar cells which are used for recharging. You probably need less generators because you start the day by fresh charging everything before there is a load. In the end it would actually save money.

The latest high end portable batteries are durable enough to drop off a tail gate and have roughly the same capacity as a standard Honda geberator and one full tank of gas... But without the Hazzard of dealing with gas.

It's going to be a while until this system trickles down to the little people like us, but a fascinating future.
I'm on that...
Bought a property 2 towns away it's a full gut rehab, no power (yet.) The service I decided will go in later, and a temp pole/power is, now after Covid, too much. So for security I got a solar panel keeping a car battery charged from an inverter and a trickle charger. (Yea... I know...) But it was easy, and a few charging bricks for 4 Waze Cameras, internet/wi-fi... (Smarthome stuff.) And a T-Mobile wireless internet 5g receiver/router also always charging. Works like a charm.
 

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