The NEW NNHS, first year report.

[Sony]

So the year is over! Our season was long and stressful but also wonderful and filled with great shows! See this thread for pics!

Now that we have finished our first season in the new space I am at more liberty to divulge details that I wasn't able to before!

Unfortunately I do not have more pictures as I haven't had time to take any, we were going full bore throughout the entire year and therefore we didn't have much time. Somewhat expected when you have to cram 13 separate full length shows into one school year.

Stuff I've learned this year about the new spaces...

NEVER hire Signet to do ANYTHING, they were the ones who did our audio install here (install, not design)...they have screwed up more things than they have fixed. They were caught stealing from UMass Amherst and are now in litigation with the state and banned from submitting any more state bids, they are terrible.

However the people who did the acoustical/audio design are amazing, AcenTech has been nothing but the best. The system they installed sounds freakin crystal clear and holy crap does it have balls. 12,000 watts of speakers in the large theatre alone, all completely Renkus-Heinz with an M7CL-48 feeding it all. AcenTech's acoustical design is great as well, you barely need to mic anyone in the large space, and with a full orchestra the music is VERY loud. For our large musical this year it was too loud and we had to install curtains and soft goods in our pit in order to help reduce the orchestra volume. We didn't mic a single instrument in the 22 piece orchestra and you could hear every single instrument crystal clear. The people from AcenTech have also been wonderful! On multiple occasions the people from AcenTech have taken time out of their own busy schedules (without us even asking them to) to come and see our shows, including some of our rehearsals and give us suggestions on how we can make things sound even better!

ALPS has been wonderful as always! Their install has been virtually flawless and problem free other than two tiny issues which were resolved pretty much immediately. We have problems with one of the small Sensor+ 48 racks getting stuck in Straight 3-Phase mode for some reason instead of balanced. It required a software reset of that entire rack to fix. The other was a weird glitch with the ETC Paradigm system software where the Paradigm control system would crash after a period of 90 days or something like that and require a reset. This was fixed with the latest software upgrade. Paul has been awesome as well, he often comes in when he can just to upgrade all of our ETC software and firmware to the latest version for us.

We really tested our rigging system this year as well. For Curtains: The Musical, we hung a 1300lb fake brick wall off our number 19 lineset and it took it like a champ, no problem. I had 12 beefy lift lines on the thing to distribute the weight, it didn't move during the show, but it could have if we wished it to. For Sunday in the Park with George we had 6 Portals, 3 white and 3 painted which weighed around 200-500lbs each which flew in and out during the show. As well as two trees which also flew in and out with ease. SECOA installed a great system, it works great and the only thing I could wish for that we don't have is a walkable grid so I could hang chain motors and spot lines, or even a way to access our high steel without a boom lift, but alas you can't have everything.

Our equipment inventory is huge, with over 400+ Source 4's now in our inventory, we had no shortage of fixtures for any of our shows. We did however have to rent more dimmers for Curtains! as our 137 were not enough. We rented 2 supplemental 24 Packs to our extra 24 Pack that we already own, giving us 209 total dimmers. We easily ran socapex to our electrics, allowing us to place the needed dimmers exactly where we wanted them, something that would have been impossible in our old space. The 400 amp and 200 amp company switches both saw use this year during that show. Our electrical distribution is great, we have 800 amps in our dimmer room for all those dimmers, plus a separate 400 and 200 amp feed for our company switches. This gives us a total capacity of 1400 amps of 3 phase so 4200 total amps. (Over half a megawatt of capacity!) This is all fed by a 1600a Air Actuated Breaker and a 500kVA transformer that is dedicated to just our wing of the building.

The smaller theatre had a great run this year, we worked out all the problems we were having at the beginning of the year, and other than the lack of adequate dimmers (48 is NOT enough.) We hung curtains around the edge to provide sound dampening to kill off standing waves and we reconfigured the seating into an L Shape to give us more play space. Built some pretty awesome sets, my favorite being the one we built for Eurydice, some pics follow.

All in all it was a pretty awesome year, I couldn't ask for better students, they are amazing and I will deeply miss those who graduated this year.

Please feel free to ask questions! I will try to answer as best I can/if I can!

 

[emac]

wow!


I want your school.

BADLEY!!!!!


great pics of your show too!

 

[DuckJordan]

I'm glad things are working out so well for you, Right now my old high school is in the process of getting the research done for a bid process to update their lighting. Unfortunately the people in the area who are doing the installs aren't accustomed to theatrical spaces. I'm sure more things will come up along the way in which you'd wish you had gotten done but it, sounds like a couple of great spaces to perform and tech in. Just a word of caution about your flies. Secoa isn't very nice at coming back after 6 mo or so, at least in my area and tend to say "well, you signed off on the system its your problem now". Granted it was in a university space and it was partially installed by a professor there.

I do have one question, do you use many automated fixtures in the space, or at least have the option to add them in at a future date?

 

[museav]

NEVER hire Signet to do ANYTHING, they were the ones who did our audio install here (install, not design)...they have screwed up more things than they have fixed.

I can't speak specific to that particular firm and it sounds like there may have been some other issues involved, but looking at their web site I would guess that this was another case of lumping the audio and video in theatres in as part of a single "low voltage" contract that also encompasses paging, access control, clock systems, life safety, etc., something I have seen numerous schools do and have yet to see be successful.

I had one school where they contracted a company that may have been very qualified at those other aspects, but that had no experience with theatrical type audio systems. Making the situation even worse, the Contractor was apparently a dealer for very little of the equipment specified and bid on the work assuming they could substitute brands for which they were dealers, literally proposing Dukane and Rauland products in place of Shure, Sennheiser, Soundcraft, Clear-Com, etc. They quickly realized that with a Consultant involved they weren't going to get away with that and they ended up subcontracting another company that was better qualified and that could provide the specified equipment. We luckily did not have to be part of this aspect but that cost much more than what they bid so they apparently started introducing Change Orders into all their work to try to compensate for the added cost, which eventually led to they and the school going to court.

Just something to consider for others that may find themselves in similar situations.

 

[Sony]

I'm glad things are working out so well for you, Right now my old high school is in the process of getting the research done for a bid process to update their lighting. Unfortunately the people in the area who are doing the installs aren't accustomed to theatrical spaces. I'm sure more things will come up along the way in which you'd wish you had gotten done but it, sounds like a couple of great spaces to perform and tech in. Just a word of caution about your flies. Secoa isn't very nice at coming back after 6 mo or so, at least in my area and tend to say "well, you signed off on the system its your problem now". Granted it was in a university space and it was partially installed by a professor there.

I do have one question, do you use many automated fixtures in the space, or at least have the option to add them in at a future date?

Not too worried about SECOA, we have already contracted with ALPS to do our annual rigging inspection each year.

As for automated fixtures, we would have to purchase a distro as well as socapex to run more than about 4 or 6 120vAC or 208vAC constant power circuits onto our electrics for automated lighting. We do have 6 Right Arms and 36 Apollo Color Scrollers but other than that no we do not own much automated lighting, nor do we really feel we need it. If we do use automated lighting we usually rent Mac 700's from ALPS.

 

[Tex]

As for automated fixtures, we would have to purchase a distro as well as socapex to run more than about 4 or 6 120vAC or 208vAC constant power circuits onto our electrics for automated lighting.

R20 relay modules are a pretty inexpensive and efficient way to get constant power to your electrics.

 

[chausman]

I can't speak specific to that particular firm and it sounds like there may have been some other issues involved, but looking at their web site I would guess that this was another case of lumping the audio and video in theatres in as part of a single "low voltage" contract that also encompasses paging, access control, clock systems, life safety, etc., something I have seen numerous schools do and have yet to see be successful.

That happened at my middle school. No, they don't have a theater, but the choir/band rooms, large commons, and both gyms systems are used regularly...and have several limitations. Our gyms still have random popping/buzz/whatever whenever we want to use it. I have called the installer, my teachers have called the installer, the principle has called the installer, and nothing has gotten fixed.

 

[venuetech]

the Contractor was apparently a dealer for very little of the equipment specified and bid on the work assuming they could substitute brands for which they were dealers, literally proposing Dukane and Rauland products in place of Shure, Sennheiser, Soundcraft, Clear-Com, etc. They quickly realized that with a Consultant involved they weren't going to get away with that and they ended up subcontracting another company that was better qualified and that could provide the specified equipment.

every theatrical project should have team of consultants. things come out so much better.

 

[Sony]

R20 relay modules are a pretty inexpensive and efficient way to get constant power to your electrics.

I know all about R20 modules, unfortunately the shows we use movers for are also the shows where we need extra dimmers and therefore no 2 dimmers can be spared for an R20 module. I only have 48 stage circuits over ALL of our electrics so we are really limited. Thats why we have the extra SP12 and usually rent 1 or 2 more SP12's for the larger shows with extra socapex to give us up to 72 more electrics circuits. When we do rent, our rental budget is usually pretty large and therefore renting a distro is not usually a problem for us.

 

[zmb]

Can you post the tech specification packet and talk more about the black box yet?

 

[Sony]

Can you post the tech specification packet and talk more about the black box yet?

I already posted most of the tech packet in the other thread. If you have any specific questions then feel free to ask! I will answer all I can.

The black box is a small 60ft by 40ft room with a standard 6ft square grid system. I don't have new pics that I can post yet, the only pics I have are from construction, there really isn't much fancy about it. Dark grey cinder block walls, and a seating system from SECOA which is far to heavy and hard to move. The only thing that is a bit funky is the booth is on the side of the space which how they configured it would be 90 degrees to the play area, and how WE have it configured makes it literally behind the play area/above the play area. We set up a camera feed from above the seating in order to help the stage managers call cues.

Feel free to ask questions, I'll answer what I can!

 

[Tex]

I only have 48 stage circuits over ALL of our electrics so we are really limited.

Wow. I can't imagine building a new space like that and not doing dimmer per circuit.

 

[zmb]

Oh, how has it worked out to have movable electrics with the socapex breakouts?

 

[TheGuruat12]

To say I'm jealous would be a gross understatement.

 

[ScottT]

This is a high school?

:O

 

[Sony]

Wow. I can't imagine building a new space like that and not doing dimmer per circuit.

It is dimmer per circuit, we only have 48 dimmers and circuits for all of our electrics. It works out to 8 total socapex runs. We get 4 more socapex runs from our extra SP12 and we can add on top of that whatever we need through rentals from ALPS.

Oh, how has it worked out to have movable electrics with the socapex breakouts?

It actually works freakin amazing, originally our cable cradles were attached to specific pipes. I fixed that however by cutting the cradle free and then hanging 4 spare 5/8 rope loft blocks from the steel and attached the cable cradles to the 5/8 rope. That was fun...had to rent a 40' Genie and a super straddle for it which gave us just barely enough height to make it to the steel. (50') Unfortunately I'm not sure if our floor can support a boomlift so we went with the lighter genie option.

So now we manually raise and lower our cable cradles, which is not a problem, we setup some cleats on the electrics rail using some 1ft lengths of schedule 40 and cheeseboro's so we just tie off to those.

It's been working wonderful so far, we moved 2nd electric to 8 pipe from 10 pipe for Sunday in the Park with George and had no problem. For Curtains!: The Musical we moved 4th electric from 17 pipe to 18 pipe and had no problem ether. It's a truly flexible system, it's wonderful. It does sometimes take a little more time to hang and cable things because you do have the socapex to deal with as well as the regular cables, but it's honestly not any more difficult. I love it, it's wonderful!

 

[DuckJordan]

what about using some carabeaners on the ends of the lift lines for the cable craddles, and putting a loop on the top of each batten line, giving use to every pipe to be an electric but not requiring an obscure procedure.... we just did that in our new updated space. (although our boxes cannot be detatched from the cable, this whole oh you can use any batten as an electric... but wait you have to figure out a way to get the boxes where you need them...

 

[Edrick]

I still hope to get down there sometime to check out a show. Been booked solid so didn't have a chance to get down there this season. Alls I can say is boy oh boy haha.

 

[Sony]

what about using some carabeaners on the ends of the lift lines for the cable craddles, and putting a loop on the top of each batten line, giving use to every pipe to be an electric but not requiring an obscure procedure.... we just did that in our new updated space. (although our boxes cannot be detatched from the cable, this whole oh you can use any batten as an electric... but wait you have to figure out a way to get the boxes where you need them...

I do not understand exactly what you mean, might just be I'm having trouble visualizing it. Do you mean place carabiners on the cable cradle then attach them to the end lift line on the batten we are using? That would be really pointless since then the cable cradle would just be at the end of the pipe where it does no good. The problem was the cradles were on their own lift lines attached to a specific arbor and the cradle lines dropped off a double loft block at the end of each batten. The only difference was that the cradle line ended 10ft above the batten which meant the cradle was 10ft higher than the batten, preventing full travel of the batten but keeping the cable from being too slack. This meant they were attached to and came in and went out with the arbor that was attached to the batten. Only 4 battens had these extra lift lines and therefore they were the only places the cradles could be attached.

This way is not really obscure, it just requires one extra step, it's not difficult. Also we usually leave enough slack in the cables on each side of the cradle that bringing in the baten to the floor does not require a re-trim of the cable cradle. They don'e move for the most part, they just keep the slack in the line from hitting the floor or getting caught on tall moving set pieces coming on or off stage.

 

[DuckJordan]

I'm talking about attaching the carabiners to the ends of the lift lines for the cable cradles, and then using the carabiners to attach to your arbors. sorry. I used batten line instead of arbor which caused a major headache.