New lighting rig

[ursulaboy]

Hi,

I'm a highschool senior who helps with the theater technical stuff. We provide the audio, Lighting, etc. The schools lighting rig is very outdated and consist of only a few fresnel spots and 3 RGB LED's. Now here is the fun part. The school board asked me(And by that I mean ordered me) to create a new lighing rig but I have no clue how to do that and I was hoping you guys could help me. We have all kinds of performances like theater plays, live music gigs, presentations and so on. the stage is about 15m by 3m by 4m (w,d,h) sorry for the fact that it is in meters I'm dutch.
I really hope you guys can help me.

Max

 

[de27192]

If it makes you feel any better, I have been working as a concerts / theatre production electrician for nearly a decade and I have only started to take on jobs spec'ing house rigs for venues in the past 2 years.

What I mean by the above statement is if you have no idea what you're doing, it will probably not end well. You could easily end up spending a lot of time and a lot of money creating something which fails to take into account factors you didn't realise existed, and in no time have a rig which serves no better purpose than what you have already.

I would expect that reasonably locally, you will have a stage lighting sales company. And if that company are sensible, they should be prepared to visit the school, talk to you / staff / etc, look at what infrastructure is in the building already; and design you a new stage lighting system, within the confines of what you have, what budget you have, and most likely, within the confines of what kit they're able to supply. They should - as I said, if they're sensible - provide this service completely free of charge, providing that your budget is sufficient that they will recover their costs through the sale of kit. I certainly would.

For the time being, for the sake of goodwill and education, perhaps you could give an idea of the school's budget - schools' expectations on the cost of stage lighting, installation and maintenance are often hugely short of the mark - and maybe even post some photos of the space, and at least there may be some members also with this kind of experience who would be prepared to help give you some starters. But I will re-iterate that I think you will get best value for money by getting in a consultant who can take all the factors into account and sell you a rig suited to the job.

 

[ursulaboy]

Hi, thanks for the reply.
The budget is one of the things that worry me, they said they only want to spend about €10.000.
I will try to provide pictures as quickly as possible.
i will also try and contact a local dealer.

 

[de27192]

I would say you can do a new lighting rig for 10k euros.

Although it will largely depend on what existing power, data and rigging infrastructure you have and what desk you have. Having to buy a new desk might subtract a significant chunk of the budget, as would adding control infrastructure around the building.

 

[ursulaboy]

The desk won't be a problem we have just bought a new zero 88 solution, it has 4 DMX outputs for a high school that should be sufficient
power should be good I think we have a 24 channel dimmer pack lying around(with a power supply connection that can handle it).
we have 4 rows of single point truss hanging from the ceiling.
Sorry if I don't use proffesional terms for stuff I'm an amateur

 

[kicknargel]

de27192's advice is good, but in my opinion there are a few more steps. You should get a spec and quote from more than one dealer. Competition, you know. I also highly recommend finding an experienced, professional lighting designer who will review the specs and quotes for you independently, who's not interested in selling you anything. You may need to pay them for a day of consulting, or maybe you can find someone to donate time to a school.

 

[de27192]

de27192's advice is good, but in my opinion there are a few more steps. You should get a spec and quote from more than one dealer. Competition, you know. I also highly recommend finding an experienced, professional lighting designer who will review the specs and quotes for you independently, who's not interested in selling you anything. You may need to pay them for a day of consulting, or maybe you can find someone to donate time to a school.

Sorry I didn't say it explicitly but yes, always get several quotes or you will more than likely be taken for a ride.

And yes, getting an LD to point out whether a design is practical or not is also a good step. I wish to God that my old university had just dropped me a quick line (they know I'm an LD!) before their new lighting rig was installed (by a sound company!). It's a total disaster and obviously spec'd out of what kit they had lying around the stock room and not remotely based on the size of the room of the type of gigs they do. Now they want me to 'help with what they have' - a far greater challenge than having just got it right to begin with.

 

[Fountain Of Euph]

I would look from the infrastructure up. Start with your dimming: is your rack and packs up to spec. Then look at your distribution, is the wiring in good shape. Cables all good condition and appropriate for the venue. I would then look at desk. You seem to be happy with your grandMA so that's good. Maybe a wing? Im a Congo person so i dont know on that one.
Look at your fixtures. Do they all have safeties? I dont know your space, but it would be good to invest in a good stock of fixtures. ETC Source Four elipsoidals in the right degree (or zooms). S4 PARs or PARnels to augment your Fresnels.
Finaly, look at the bells and whistles. Get some gel and some more LEDs. Follow spots? Movers?

I am in the process of updating my space. HUB electrics from the 70's...

I know i don't have the funds to upgrade the electrics, so ive been focusing on instruments and a new desk.

Seriously, with public moneys, get a consultant. You know the space, the consultant knows the industry. What a great pair!

Best of luck

 

[de27192]

The desk won't be a problem we have just bought a new zero 88 solution, it has 4 DMX outputs for a high school that should be sufficient
power should be good I think we have a 24 channel dimmer pack lying around(with a power supply connection that can handle it).
we have 4 rows of single point truss hanging from the ceiling.
Sorry if I don't use proffesional terms for stuff I'm an amateur

That's a good start but not necessarily relevant to the project.

The Z88 Solution will definitely be perfectly good for your needs, so that's a great start.

The dimmer pack... again good (it will accept DMX?). Next question though - are the outputs run to the LX bars / trusses? How are they wired?
Since you have a moving light desk, and the technology is now affordable, I would be thinking to suggest some decent LED fixtures. LED PARs now are very good and very affordable, you should be able to get bright, hex-chip LED PARs for less than 400 euros each. The hex chip (RGBWAUV - red green blue white amber UV - although the UV is more congo blue) is much better than the older RGB chips and excellent for achieving really nice saturated colours. Older LED kit was simply not capable of getting the darker shades accurately.

Trouble is, to run those, you will need to have hot power (as opposed to dim power) run to the all the LX bars, as well as DMX data run to all the bars. Putting in that infrastructure could be costly and needs to be factored in to the cost, as well as your choice of fixtures. You may also have to consider purchasing hot power distro and DMX distribution. These bits can be costly and should be done properly to begin with so that future maintenance / upgrades can be done easily.

You also need to think about whether you need to cater for any more positions. Do you need to run in power and comms for a followspot position ? What about power and data for a floor package on stage? Would you like extra bars over stage or over the house?

And how are you accessing your lights for focussing? Is it a rickety old ladder from the caretakers? Perhaps some of your budget could get you a decent tower or tallescope.

These are all things you should consider besides the obvious one of just which lights you want to buy.

 

[ursulaboy]

First of all thanks for all the help you guys have been giving me I really appreciate it.

Now as far as the dimmer, yes it accepts DMX and the power is run to the bars.
(The dimmer packs are 2 zero88 Betapacks 3)
Also there is hot power available at the bars.
The DMX though that's a mess it's just scattered around the ceiling to get to the few points where it's needed.

The followspot is not a problem we have that covered another way.
House lights are fluorescent lamps(sinds we're still a highschool) which we are not able to control via DMX and they won't let us change it.

Do you have any recommendations regarding the LED fixtures?

 

[de27192]

Some ideas for what you can do with your cash then:

- Clean up the DMX and get it properly run into the bars, you will appreciate that in the long run and it is unlikely to cost much.
- Ensure there are enough hot power circuits running to each bar. The trouble with LED is the earthing and too many on a circuit can trip an RCD.
Do these things before you install any lights. It's easier to install lights into a solid infrastructure, than try to change the infrastructure with the lights in place.

- Fixtures - as a multipurpose venue you want a mix of colour wash, white wash, and key front light. If you really do just have 3 old fresnels and 2 RGB PARs I would be inclined just to go from scratch with the whole design. So you will need a range of both conventionals - for the front light in particular; and possibly some LED too for things like colour wash. Decent LED PARs ( https://prolight.co.uk/DJ/item.php?id=510179 is a favourite of mine, for a good price ) with Hex chips can produce pretty much any colour you like and will save you on additional lanterns, on lamp stock, and on gel - so well worth buying, even if some purist tells you that real conventional PARs are 'better'.

- Work Light / House Light - maybe you could consider some expenditure installing house light (perhaps chandeliers?) in the auditorium, and work light (perhaps LED floods) over the stage, which you can connect to the lighting desk, or to a small additional controller - to control those lights from the FOH position.



I honestly think you sound like you don't really know where to start - and that's fine! When I was at school I didn't know anything about lights and didn't know for a few years after either; but I would see this as an opportunity for you to learn from a professional, rather than trying to make mistakes on your own. I would go back to my point about seeking out some local companies and getting them to produce some designs with some approximate costs, once they have seen your theatre and what kinds of shows you want to put on.

I can't do much more for you. Besides not knowing the space, we are just getting close to the line in the sand between ideas and pointers I'll give out for free, and consultation that I feel I should be paid for.

 

[JohnD]

Do you or your school or city library have any stagecraft or stage lighting books? That would be the first thing I would do.
Since it is a high school, the parents are going to want to see the performers faces.
The very basic lighting system would consist of dividing the stage into zones, small spaces with limited budgets would use two rows of 3 zones, large stages can go up to 3 or 4 rows of 5 zones. From a position above the audience you could use 3 pairs of ERS( ellipsoidal reflector spotlights aka leko or S4) lights to cover stage right, center and left. From the first electric you could use 3 pairs of Fresnel lights to cover upstage R,C and L. This is the bare bones, to that you could add sky drop lighting, down lights and back lights.

 

[petercav17]

Do you or your school or city library have any stagecraft or stage lighting books? That would be the first thing I would do.
Since it is a high school, the parents are going to want to see the performers faces.
The very basic lighting system would consist of dividing the stage into zones, small spaces with limited budgets would use two rows of 3 zones, large stages can go up to 3 or 4 rows of 5 zones. From a position above the audience you could use 3 pairs of ERS( ellipsoidal reflector spotlights aka leko or S4) lights to cover stage right, center and left. From the first electric you could use 3 pairs of Fresnel lights to cover upstage R,C and L. This is the bare bones, to that you could add sky drop lighting, down lights and back lights.

I learned a whole lot about light theory and system/plot design from this book I got as a gift from my set designer. It discusses what JohnD is talking about and a whole lot more. It's called Stage Lighting Design by Richard Pilbrow. Definitely check that out, one of the best gifts I have ever gotten.