Stage dressing in a road house?

[JudyJoe]

Hello Folks,
I'm a newbie both to the ControlBooth and to my job as Head Tech (started in October 09) at the Playhouse.

The Playhouse is a road house and shows are generally music, everything from rock bands, orchestras, classical music duets/quartets, etc. For 9-10 months a year, we run the gamut of different acts. For these shows, we normally do the black upstage traveler with black legs & borders. But the crew & the audience are starting to get bored with the look...a black box with some cool lights.

We've received a budget to purchase items that will "dress up" the stage for the shows that come in. So far, we've purchased black skirting for our risers. We already have white sheer legs in stock which we are starting to use again. We're also looking at spandex socks to hang & light, some new oriental carpets, and some small tables for artists to put their water, picks, etc. on.

Here's the question - we're not thinking outside the box for stage dressing, does the collective hive have any ideas or suggestions for me?

Many thanks!
Judy

 

[Footer]

What kind of music events are coming in? Are we talking 4 guys and a van or a tour bus with a 24' or 53' truck? Do any of the events carry an LD or does a house guy run the lighting?

First thing you should do is take your borders to a higher trim and get a hazer. Rugs help as well if thats the type of people you are bringing in.

Biggest thing that will add flair to the shows though is lighting. Something as simple as a color changing cyc and backlight can help a ton. What is your current lighting rig looking like?

 

[wolf825]

FWIW....I run a road house and we run the gambit from local acts and dance to full blown concerts & national acts.. You have to basically plan & budget for a wide variety and flexibility if you are looking to expand your stocks. We have to be able to go from corporate to concert to dance to orchestra music and everywhere in between in less then 24 hours usually... When planning a road house--you want to plan on it being flexible and have multiple uses limited only by your imagination with your stock as much as you can...

For example--we have a black fiber optic star drop/scrim we can drop in front of our cyc with half a dozen illumnators..we can go from a subdued cyc, to black, to twinkle stars with ease.. Our legs and borders are 'double size' the theater norm so we can be more flexible in dressing & borders. This permits us to easily tighten up a stage or open it up wider by flying it out/tieing off. We have access to and use about a dozen Colorblasts and half a dozen color blazes--they work very flexibly as ground row, uplights, riser or spandex sail/transformit lights or even foot/face lights etc. We stock rolls of white spandex along with standard black coverings (white spandex in front of risers goes nice as well as black--but you can backlight the white spandex in front of the riser by placing LED fixtures under the risers for color)...as well as carpet rolls of various sizes for decking. We don't stock spandex sails of specific types or sizes--we prefer to rent those locally or regionally if needed because if we buy--we get stuck with one or two types that folks get used to seeing..renting allows for the flexibility when it comes to transformits IMO...

We have moving lights, scrollers and a variety of dimmer cabling and DMX cabling. One of the things we found helpful was expanding our cable inventory to include a lot of Socapex and fanouts. We have hazers and mirrors and access to other special effects locally and we do all our own rigging. We have in-house chain motors, truss and a rigging box for putting points almost anywhere...and our staff (myself and two others) are experienced tour and design folks in lighting and audio, corporate, stage and theater... We also keep a variety of roadcases around for our gear for easy transport but also because we can double and use them covered on stage as needed.. Short of flying folks--we can do just about anything or fill almost any rider easily into our space...

If you can list an inventory approx of what your venue stocks and has and the types of shows you typically do, and also about what kind of theater/road house you run and its layout--folks can probably help tell you where some of your 'gaps' are that could be improved upon for flexibility... Remember--different design ideas are just limited by your imagination and space....


-w

 

[museav]

I would think that for many touring music acts much of the stage dressing might be rider driven. The acts may want to have some say in the visual aspect of the stage and that may be something they drive more than your crew or regular audience. Thinking outside the box can be nice but for acts that have to play in different venues every night and that prefer to avoid surprises, being well inside the box can also be appreciated.

 

[JudyJoe]

Brad, Wolf & Kyle,
Thanks for the responses folks - lots to think about.
Here's some more info:
1. the acts - we get a bit of everything from 2 guys in a rental car to a 4 truck show. For example, tonight, the Australian Queen tribute show is in. Tomorrow, the provincial symphony is in. The stage dressing is really for those 2-10 musicians who don't tour with anything but their instruments.
2. Riders - I would only offer up the stage dressing during the tech advance, after I have gone thru the rider and established that it might be appropriate.
But even those shows that don't want stage dressing, could make use of some items like tables (instead of using a stool to put their water on).
3. lighting - 2010/11 season is the year of lighting for us. The TD plans on large purchases including new Macs (we have the 250s of which 3 are working), scrollers, etc. We purchased a GrandMA 2 last year in prep for the year of lighting. Our house hang (5 onstage LX pipes & 3 FOH pipes) is a 3 colour wash with tips and specials from FOH. We've got a fair supply of ETC Source 4s & Zooms, Fresnels, Pars, 3-cel cyc lights & 4 cel ground rows. A good stock of gobos & colour.
4. other inventory - other than black softgoods, we've got a white cyc & an RP screen & 12k lumen projector, 12 Wenger Versalite risers (1' & 2' legs), some "nice" bar stools, road cases & blacks for onstage use, 3 oriental rugs & an MDG hazer (which gets a lot of use).
5. renting is a great idea, only problem is that our local resources are small. But worth considering for maybe a 1/2 season rental time...Thanks for that idea!
6. staffing - good point on the experienced tour & design staff. Again, resources not that great in my neck of the woods.
7. to put purchases in perspective, we've got a little over $5k for budget.

So, if we take the lighting out of the equation & consider stage dressing more as "props," are there any more ideas out there?
And yes, the obvious Xmas tree for the holiday shows, candleabra when we use the grand have been put forth by staff already. ;-)

Judy
Playhouse

 

[Footer]

You guys have any truss? For 5k you could pick up some used truss and do ground plates. 4 Towers up lit adds a lot of vertical space and they are very fast to put in. I am not a big fan of the spandex hoola hoop things. However, spandex waves and such can be fun. If you guys are improving your lighting rig your going to want to get stuff you can project against like that. Many acts don't want flash and trash and instead you need to deal with ambience so that will play alot.

One other cool effect is to get the plastic used in florescent lights (comes frosted or in a diamond pattern) and tape it to face your risers. Kind of like this...

It its back lit it works rather well.

 

[wolf825]

Brad, Wolf & Kyle,
Thanks for the responses folks - lots to think about.
Here's some more info:
1. the acts - we get a bit of everything from 2 guys in a rental car to a 4 truck show. For example, tonight, the Australian Queen tribute show is in. Tomorrow, the provincial symphony is in. The stage dressing is really for those 2-10 musicians who don't tour with anything but their instruments.
2. Riders - I would only offer up the stage dressing during the tech advance, after I have gone thru the rider and established that it might be appropriate.
But even those shows that don't want stage dressing, could make use of some items like tables (instead of using a stool to put their water on).
3. lighting - 2010/11 season is the year of lighting for us. The TD plans on large purchases including new Macs (we have the 250s of which 3 are working), scrollers, etc. We purchased a GrandMA 2 last year in prep for the year of lighting. Our house hang (5 onstage LX pipes & 3 FOH pipes) is a 3 colour wash with tips and specials from FOH. We've got a fair supply of ETC Source 4s & Zooms, Fresnels, Pars, 3-cel cyc lights & 4 cel ground rows. A good stock of gobos & colour.
4. other inventory - other than black softgoods, we've got a white cyc & an RP screen & 12k lumen projector, 12 Wenger Versalite risers (1' & 2' legs), some "nice" bar stools, road cases & blacks for onstage use, 3 oriental rugs & an MDG hazer (which gets a lot of use).
5. renting is a great idea, only problem is that our local resources are small. But worth considering for maybe a 1/2 season rental time...Thanks for that idea!
6. staffing - good point on the experienced tour & design staff. Again, resources not that great in my neck of the woods.
7. to put purchases in perspective, we've got a little over $5k for budget.

So, if we take the lighting out of the equation & consider stage dressing more as "props," are there any more ideas out there?
And yes, the obvious Xmas tree for the holiday shows, candleabra when we use the grand have been put forth by staff already. ;-)

Judy
Playhouse

Thats great you did a lot of lighting upgrades and so on. Are there any lighting accessories you could use--gobo rotators or film effects, drop in iris or top hats? IMO you can never have enough flexibility in AC cables & accessories, rigging accessories, shop gear and tools (welder, steel stock, wood stock, screw guns etc). You can also never have enough stage decks, music stands/lights, music chairs, musician accessories--such as extra guitar stands, keyboard stands or benches.. Plenty of stools are a must have..and of course TABLES of all sizes (suggest the MityLite standard and the mobile buffet table--awesome for props use in the wings, catering needs, awards on stage and general repair use--its on wheels and the tier removes when not in use--the thing rocks for being versitile! Mobile Buffet Tables - Mity-Lite ).. But if you are looking for props and things to highlight--I really like our Fiber Optic scrim and so does everyone else. Your tech rider says you have in house video--got spare lamps and cases or flying cages, a switcher or vid mixer for effects--or extra playback enough to do what you always need? Just tossing out ideas...you know your set up more then I do..

If you have one hazer that you work a ton out of--could always use a backup hazer as well (we have 3...2 neutron and 1 radiance tour pack). And a LSG low smoke fogger is also a fun toy...and truss and motors and other stage items are always good too. Rigging cables and accessories are good to have on hand as are extra repair parts, repair bench upgrades and bulk cabling...? Perhaps you could find use for some Wireless DMX transmitters & recievers? One thing I know we ALWAYS need around here is pipe and drape--we never have enough for quick change booths and dressings backstage or the lobby..same for costume racks and sewing machines/steamers etc. We also decked out and improved our greenrooms with flatscreen TV for guests & furnature...we are working on adding a CCTV system of sorts for backstage monitoring...and updating a Cue Light system for backstage with control in the booth too (the ASL cue light system)... When we can we try to make things rather comfortable for our hard working crews and for guest artists with small mini-fridges & coolers, coffee service and tea service carts etc which we can then provide as an extra service... Really--if you think you are good on electriccs and cables and sound & tech gear--think about amenities that folks always ask for or wish they had available in the past that would fit and are reasonable to expect to have...


My two cents worth...

-w

 

[JudyJoe]

You guys rock - thanks for all the responses (sorry for my late thanks - crazy busy with local Theatre school's production of ANNIE).

There are great ideas and considerations in all your posts...lots for us to pull from.

Cheers,
Judy