Recorded pre-show announcement?
- Thread starterCSCTech
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Get someone with a loud voice out there? Get some ushers to herd people towards the doors? Get some music struck up in the auditorium to draw people back in? These are ideas I've come up with while dealing in lobbies with HID lighting with a "flash" speed of maybe 20 minutes on a good day.
At least you don't have to worry about someone thinking it looked tacky. We just use the flashing method. There are only a few theaters in the area, they all flash lights, and our intermissions are so long that people just naturally start going to their seats anyway.
As far as the original question, about pre-recorded announcements, we send out a real person, like the director of that show, the artistic director, or someone important and they say the usualy stuff. I like it that way because they can stall if necessary, unlike having a recording that just starts the show when we aren't ready.
Les
Well-Known Member
I believe you misinterpreted the subject of my post and Shawncfer's quoted reply. We were referring to flashing auditorium house lights. That IS tacky, and I will stand by that. Lobby lights, while I am not opposed to flashing, I agree with cpf that there are other good ways to get the crowd's attention. Proactive ushers can help out a lot with this. I feel like the transition in to a show should be as seemless as possible. Maybe you guys could look in to running a dedicated line to power a monitor in the lobby that can play some sort of chime or preshow music.
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Yes, I misread what you had said. I agree that flashing house lights isn't a very good choice. Not necessarily because is looks tacky (which it does), but because, and especially in our house, the aisles have three different heights of stairs and with up to about 500+ people trying to find their seats with lights going on and off is not good. I did read that to fast. And, in my personal opinion, since we are a non-profit group, I like having someone there at the start of the show opposed to just a recording. Thats just my opinion.
Les
Well-Known Member
Glad we got that cleared up! Good call on the safety aspect. That is a real danger as flashing lights can be disorienting; especially for older patrons. I feel like it also sends a subliminal signal of alarm, or maybe that the power is going out, which can make some people uneasy. Definitely not one of the more soothing approaches
. I agree with you on live curtain speeches. My community did that for years and it was a great way to engage the audiences, while informing them of upcoming events as well as giving thanks to all who worked on the show. It's nice for them to be able to know first-hand how the ticket sales and subscription funds are being used, and in general, people just like real human interaction.
JChenault
Well-Known Member
Type best method I have ever seen for getting the audience to move from the lobby to the house was a six foot decorated pole with five jingle bells attached on spring wire to the top. The house manager took a turn through the lobby gently shaking the staff up and down, and the bells encouraged the patrons
The other clue I have seen to tell the house we are about to start is to close the door or curtains leading into the house. (this of course supposes that closing the doors are obvious )
The other clue I have seen to tell the house we are about to start is to close the door or curtains leading into the house. (this of course supposes that closing the doors are obvious )
DotNM
Member
Hi all,
I'm just wondering what type of pre-recorded announcements everyone has - both venue and performance specific. If you can share some of your script/wording for them, that would also be appreciated.
Some I've thought of include:
I'm just wondering what type of pre-recorded announcements everyone has - both venue and performance specific. If you can share some of your script/wording for them, that would also be appreciated.
Some I've thought of include:
- Pre-performance announcement (something along the lines of "we're beginning shortly, please no smoking, turn off your cell phones, etc.)
- Evacuation announcement (e.g. "please evacuate using nearest exit", etc.)
lwinters630
Well-Known Member
http://www.baxeldata.com/Files/firemarsh.wav The forum doesn't seem to allow uploading anything but pictures, so I put it on my own server. It's very simple - pointing out the exits, no pictures, no phones. Smoking is not allowed in any public building, so that's not mentioned.
kiwitechgirl
Well-Known Member
Currently: "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to My Fair Lady. Please take a moment to switch your cellphones off and be advised that photographing or recording the performance in any way is strictly prohibited. Thankyou, and enjoy the show." We don't actually have FOH announcements for the house for whatever reason - just bells which usually start ringing five minutes prior.
All the pre-show announcements I've used have run something along the lines of "Welcome to xxxxx theatre. This evening's (or afternoon's) performance will commence in 30 minutes; the house is now open and you are invited to take your seats." Usually then have fifteen and five minute versions of that, then "Ladies and Gentlemen, this evening's performance is about to commence. Please take your seats immediately."
All the pre-show announcements I've used have run something along the lines of "Welcome to xxxxx theatre. This evening's (or afternoon's) performance will commence in 30 minutes; the house is now open and you are invited to take your seats." Usually then have fifteen and five minute versions of that, then "Ladies and Gentlemen, this evening's performance is about to commence. Please take your seats immediately."
flowalex999
Member
One place that I have done stuff for uses pre-recorded for the big shows that fit the theme eg they just did wonderland and the preshow announcement included things like "smoking and the use of E cigs is strictly forbidden execpt for out hooka smoking caterpillar for whom it is strictly medicinal" as well as "in the event of an emergency please do not follow a rabbit down a hole, it creates problems for you and paperwork for us" And it ends with XXXXX presents (in this case) Wonderland. I just get the file that is done in advance
This questions comes up every so often, but one I've always wondered about is what do you all use for playback of said announcements? We use QLab as a media server, but don't keep that laptop in the booth 24/7. We've got a CD player for house music, but I'd love something that could remain in the booth and run stuff consistently, but be easy to alter if need be. I'm wondering if this might be a good fit for a raspberry pi?
I'm old and decrepit but I was in love with MiniDiscs right up until my mini-stroke robbed me of my vision. I own three Sony's with keyboard inputs and used HHB's 80 minute discs exclusively. I LOVED the "Auto Pause" at the end of each track preventing any of the decks from running into their next cuts. That, combined with "Auto Cue" which would reliably park them at the precise beginning of audio on each track. For most productions I'd run two players with 40 minutes of pre-show on one and 25 minutes of interval plus playout on the second. This normally left me enough time on the two discs to store all of my effects and incidental music for any given production. I moved to Minidiscs from 1/4", 1/2" and 1" open reels. No. I never used an Edison cylinder player for effects; I'm not quite THAT old. I always considered cassettes beneath my dignity, suitable only for 40 minute tracks of background wind, rain or crickets, etcetera. I also loved that I could operate the MiniDisc decks with their timers in count down mode and being able to type titles and notes into their displays on a disc, and per track, basis was also extremely useful.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard.
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GreyWyvern
Well-Known Member
Loved MiniDisc and still do (and I'm not old or decrepit!). I used them for the community theatre I was the TD for right up until I quit a couple years ago. I have a full size deck that I would pull from my home system and take to the venue. I also have a portable one that I would hook a mic up to for recording sound effects, like city sounds, gun shots, fireworks, etc. It worked great as a very compact and versatile recording rig. We would tend to record most of our pre-show music ourselves. It was done on a mid 1990's Clavinova that I hooked my MD deck up to. I had fun doing all of that. Sure made things easy. You definitely couldn't do that with CDs. I know they would be obsolete now anyway, much like CDs, but I always wished they would have caught on better since IMHO they were better than CDs. My first car was old enough that it didn't have a CD deck, so I used a cassette adaptor and would plug my portable MDiscman into it. I loved the auto record feature of MD. Connect the MD deck to the CD deck, put the MD in record standby, press play on the CD, and walk away. After the CD was done, you had a MD of the CD with all the track marks automatically inserted.
Okay, I'm rambling and should stop. Back to your regularly scheduled thread.
The group I was with, the director would do the pre-show announcements live. It was always fun because it would be tied into the show, like the Wonderland example by @flowalex999, and would include some shenanigan or joke. For instance, going back to the Wonderland example, the director would have been smoking a fake cigarette while telling the audience to not do the same. Have fun with it!
Morte615
Active Member
I ran across this article the other day, possibly from here. But someone took a Raspberry Pi, put it in a rack case, added some buttons and now has a Intermission audio controller. This could be utilized for just about any type of playback needed actually.
http://makezine.com/projects/intermission-light-sound-control-raspberry-pi/
http://makezine.com/projects/intermission-light-sound-control-raspberry-pi/
I'm old enough to recall the hey day of the MD. When I went to college for my music ed degree, it was an extremely popular format amongst my fellow music majors since it was relatively cheap and easy to record (with decent fidelity) oneself practicing to playback for self-critique or auditions or what-have-you. This was just before the Zoom recorders really took off and solid state recording devices were still very cost-prohibitive and somewhat bulky. For a poor college kid like me (and several others) even MD was out of budget, so we resorted to tape cassettes for recording practice sessions. Sometimes even MICROCASSETTES! It really was a shame to see the MD not take off as it seemed like a really good bridge between CD's and floppies in terms of data storage, but physical media was already starting to become less desirable even then.
That's essentially what I was envisioning. You could use SFTP to update it and never have to open the Pi up once it's up.
Nah, wanna play like the big boys? Just drop three grand on http://360systems.com/products/instant-replay-2/ .
JerseyMatt
Member
Years ago (before I joined) our community theater had a member with a great voice, who recorded a whole load of "parts" which we use to assemble our pre-show announcement (I assemble them in Audacity and then simply run the file as a cue). It has a whole bunch of options, but the one we usually run goes like this: "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. Russell Community Theater would like to welcome you to tonight's performance, and remind everyone of a few things that will make the experience better for everyone. Please take this time to turn off all cell phones, pagers, beeping watches, and other noisemaking devices. Smoking is not permitted during the performance. Please, no flash photography, it is distracting to the actors and audience alike. Recording of this show in any format is strictly forbidden by the copyright holders. The actors will be greeting you after the show in front of the stage. Thank you for your attendance this evening and enjoy the show."
That is pretty nifty, I'm going to play with that one!
That is pretty nifty, I'm going to play with that one!
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