Jay Ashworth
Well-Known Member
[ I'm gonna put this in Electrics since it's mostly about lighting, and if a mod wants to move it, that's certainly fine with me... ]
So I have this friend...
Isn't that how all those Letters to the Magazine start?
His PTA wants to buy new stage lighting for his school's small proscenium stage. He has 2 bids from vendors, with 3 options, all clustered around $120k; one Altman, one ETC.
For an elementary school.
Whose stage has a dropped acoustic tile ceiling at about 12-15ft, attached to a gymnatorium with a 30ft ceiling.
He thought this might be somewhat overkill, and I agree. Both quotes are all-LED, one with Phoenix 2, and the other with S4 and D40. The fixtures are coming in around $1300-1500 ea, which as far as I know ain't all that bad. It's difficult for me to evaluate exactly what the hang is, because the components are broken down (at least on the ETC quote) in ways I'm not personally accustomed to seeing, even having looked at their website a fair amount.
The quotes include design and install, and all electric except panel expansion, with 2x20A at each batten. Since the design work isn't actually shown (one vendor explicitly offered to complete and furnish it in advance for $2500 in reply to a query, which I don't especially have a problem with), I can't really tell where they expect to put the pipes, and how they expect to protect the front of house electric from dodgeball, much less what geometry they envision for it.
The quotes were, as near as I can tell, written up in conjunction with the theatre teacher, who also teaches a grade level and has been there since Christ was a lieutenant; his enthusiasm is properly appreciated, but they're a little concerned that it's contributed to overkill in the spec.
Myself, I am inclined to think (and have suggested to him) that the PTA ought to engage a consultant to provide opinion and suggestions, if not a replacement design, taking into account *all* the constraints, including those at what we networking people call layers 8-10 (financial, political and legal).
The event inventory includes all the stuff you'd expect in the gymnatorium of an elementary school in an upper-middle class district, plus some of what I would call "light theatre"; trimmed down 45-minute Gilbert and Sullivan from the third-graders, and things like that. They're not doing Into The Woods, much less Wicked, on a stage this small (that's roughly a 13x25 proscenium, I think, and about 15ft deep, with no fly and almost no wings. It's not really a theatre stage.
I have the quotes, and about a dozen photos (of the stage, not the gym), and if anyone who does this is interested in looking at them, and seeing if they'd like to quote some consulting, I'm authorized to provide those, off-line. He doesn't have an engineering drawing at the moment, though he's planning to do a sketch with measurements next week; there may *be* such a drawing and he just doesn't have it; neither he nor I are clear on that point.
I can provide more detail here in the thread too, if that's useful for anyone.
So I have this friend...
Isn't that how all those Letters to the Magazine start?
His PTA wants to buy new stage lighting for his school's small proscenium stage. He has 2 bids from vendors, with 3 options, all clustered around $120k; one Altman, one ETC.
For an elementary school.
Whose stage has a dropped acoustic tile ceiling at about 12-15ft, attached to a gymnatorium with a 30ft ceiling.
He thought this might be somewhat overkill, and I agree. Both quotes are all-LED, one with Phoenix 2, and the other with S4 and D40. The fixtures are coming in around $1300-1500 ea, which as far as I know ain't all that bad. It's difficult for me to evaluate exactly what the hang is, because the components are broken down (at least on the ETC quote) in ways I'm not personally accustomed to seeing, even having looked at their website a fair amount.
The quotes include design and install, and all electric except panel expansion, with 2x20A at each batten. Since the design work isn't actually shown (one vendor explicitly offered to complete and furnish it in advance for $2500 in reply to a query, which I don't especially have a problem with), I can't really tell where they expect to put the pipes, and how they expect to protect the front of house electric from dodgeball, much less what geometry they envision for it.
The quotes were, as near as I can tell, written up in conjunction with the theatre teacher, who also teaches a grade level and has been there since Christ was a lieutenant; his enthusiasm is properly appreciated, but they're a little concerned that it's contributed to overkill in the spec.
Myself, I am inclined to think (and have suggested to him) that the PTA ought to engage a consultant to provide opinion and suggestions, if not a replacement design, taking into account *all* the constraints, including those at what we networking people call layers 8-10 (financial, political and legal).
The event inventory includes all the stuff you'd expect in the gymnatorium of an elementary school in an upper-middle class district, plus some of what I would call "light theatre"; trimmed down 45-minute Gilbert and Sullivan from the third-graders, and things like that. They're not doing Into The Woods, much less Wicked, on a stage this small (that's roughly a 13x25 proscenium, I think, and about 15ft deep, with no fly and almost no wings. It's not really a theatre stage.
I have the quotes, and about a dozen photos (of the stage, not the gym), and if anyone who does this is interested in looking at them, and seeing if they'd like to quote some consulting, I'm authorized to provide those, off-line. He doesn't have an engineering drawing at the moment, though he's planning to do a sketch with measurements next week; there may *be* such a drawing and he just doesn't have it; neither he nor I are clear on that point.
I can provide more detail here in the thread too, if that's useful for anyone.