Way over thinking it. Cable picks like sony put in are very common. Usually they are secured to a pin rail. In a space with movable electrics and no side rails its pretty much the best you can do.
...... Something involving tapatalk.......
The NEW NNHS, first year report.
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Way over thinking it. Cable picks like sony put in are very common. Usually they are secured to a pin rail. In a space with movable electrics and no side rails its pretty much the best you can do.
...... Something involving tapatalk.......
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
It may be over thinking but it allows for them to be moved during a show without much rehearsal time.
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Depending on how its picked, you could probably do that. You can at least get enough travel to have a high and low trim for an electric. However, I can count on 2 fingers the number of times I have moved and electric during a show. If it needs to happen, put a person on it, hes at a school... labor is CHEAP.
Sony
Active Member
Impossible for this system, that would require me to move an extra lift line to an arbor every time I want to move the cradle, this means I would need every one of our headblocks and loft blocks to have an extra groove since everything is underhung and also require me to have easy access to our grid, which I do not. In case you missed my previous post, I can only access our grid if I RENT a 40ft genie lift and a super straddle to go with it. I do not know the weight supporting capacity of our stage and therefore I cannot drive a boom lift over it for better reach. We do not have a walkable grid and our steel is at 49ft and therefore impossible to access with even the tallest of genie lifts. The Super Straddle gets my platform height to 45ft which puts the steel at head height...not fun nor easy.
Sony
Active Member
We have mid rails on both sides of the stage, do you have a better suggestion for having side rails? I'm up for suggestions, right now the cable pick is secured to a pin rail I constructed on the electrics mid-rail opposite of the arbors. You can see this electrics rail in one of the pictures I posted in my previous thread that I linked to at the beginning of this thread.
Sony
Active Member
Sony
Active Member
Yeah well...I can't say that they completely know what they are doing, but the key was they kept US (the employee's) in the loop throughout almost the entire construction process. This allowed us to personally make sure we got what we wanted, it also allowed us to fix NUMEROUS problems that would have destroyed us before they became major problems. Things like the particle detector being so low in the Little Theatre that a tall person on the top seating platform would have set it off when they walked to their seat, or things like the catwalk in the large theatre having full three level railings on ether side without an opening to hang lights on the side facing the stage which would have required us to lean over the top and yoke out every single fixture in order to hang ANYTHING on the FOH. It was a long process, but all the major stuff got fixed, we are now working on fixing a bunch of the little things.
I think it is important to note that the examples provided seem to be more addressing general issues that they are getting "what we wanted". While I think getting the input of the users is critical, I also think this also sometimes needs to be tempered with a dose of reality. What I mean is:
- The users today may often not be the users on 5 years or even next year. You often have to be careful of incorporating personal preferences that may not be shared by others.
- The Users are often not the Owners or the people paying and those parties may have differing goals and priorities. If a user wants one thing and the Owner or party paying for it wants something different, guess which controls?
- There may be practical construction and code issues that sometimes necessitate less than ideal conditions or solutions. Those are generally not open to being subrogated to personal needs or wants.
- Typcially, there is some party that will be ethically and potentially legally liable for the results and they have to have the final say in what is designed. That party should certainly be open to input from others but if they are assuming liability they also have to have the associated authority. I have terminated my involvement on projects where people seemed to believe my role was to assume the responsibility for their decisions or direction regardless of whether I agreed with them or not.
DuckJordan
Touring IATSE Member
while I agree with most of your post, I have to say you have a bit of a skewed outlook on things. I understand that while the people financing hold the money they most likely have never touched the equipment in their own building nor tried to adequately used said equipment in making a performance work.
Now I am not saying the employees should be allowed to make final decisions, I am just saying taking input from the people who end up using the equipment while understanding that some of it may be personal preference, (such as what I am trying to convince my AV friend from buying cheap DJ dimmers for their S4's in a convention center) it still should be noted that asking how the facility is actually used an not just what they see the goals of the facility being. (most people who are in charge of a building have no idea what the building needs to actually accomplish, just the clients that they serve).
Again this is not an attack at all to consultants but just a reminder that even though the money comes from the top, the top doesn't necessarily know what they need.
Is not this where the role of consultant comes in?
Generally consultants come into play when the people at the top recongise that they don't have the knowledge / skills / etc. to deal with a particularly specialised part of a project. Consultant are generally assumed to be competent and because of the way things work in the big bad world, because someone is being paid to give the advice, it's apparently more valid than anything that might come from existing staff.
The way I see it, the consultant is there firstly to help the big wigs work out what they want and to define the basis on which the systems are then designed and specified. Looking at what management want as a future vision is critical. Just because a facility hosts a certain spectra of events now does not mean that's what management want that profile to look like in a few years time... Does that mean you should neglect the current uses? Absolutely not. But if a minor inconvenience now is going to make it much easier to achieve management's grand dreams later is that not a small price to pay (financially and otherwise)?
I'd tend to think a good consultant will be acutely aware of the usability of the system, but they can only work on the information they manage to squeeze out of management and their own experiences. I don't know any consultants who have noteworthy skills in mind reading.
One of the best projects in recent times was a theatre in Melbourne. Over time, the producing company had developed a specification of sorts for what they wanted in their space. It ended up forming the basis for all the consultants' works on that venue. It had been built up over 20 odd years and was 600 pages. The key here is that the ground level people in the organisation had created an easy line of communication with the consultants. Management didn't have to need to understand each thing in that document, they could just hand it over...
Above all else, remember the golden rule...
He who has the Gold makes the rules...
Generally consultants come into play when the people at the top recongise that they don't have the knowledge / skills / etc. to deal with a particularly specialised part of a project. Consultant are generally assumed to be competent and because of the way things work in the big bad world, because someone is being paid to give the advice, it's apparently more valid than anything that might come from existing staff.
The way I see it, the consultant is there firstly to help the big wigs work out what they want and to define the basis on which the systems are then designed and specified. Looking at what management want as a future vision is critical. Just because a facility hosts a certain spectra of events now does not mean that's what management want that profile to look like in a few years time... Does that mean you should neglect the current uses? Absolutely not. But if a minor inconvenience now is going to make it much easier to achieve management's grand dreams later is that not a small price to pay (financially and otherwise)?
I'd tend to think a good consultant will be acutely aware of the usability of the system, but they can only work on the information they manage to squeeze out of management and their own experiences. I don't know any consultants who have noteworthy skills in mind reading.
One of the best projects in recent times was a theatre in Melbourne. Over time, the producing company had developed a specification of sorts for what they wanted in their space. It ended up forming the basis for all the consultants' works on that venue. It had been built up over 20 odd years and was 600 pages. The key here is that the ground level people in the organisation had created an easy line of communication with the consultants. Management didn't have to need to understand each thing in that document, they could just hand it over...
Above all else, remember the golden rule...
He who has the Gold makes the rules...
Sony
Active Member
Thats what you would hope...but the school didn't use their consultant past the value engineering stage. So when we came in there were some major redesigns that were not discussed with the consultant.
Also MuseAV, please don't take what I said so literally... not being able to hang lights on an FOH bar is not a matter of personal preference, nor was having particle detectors that would have been set off during EVERY show. 90% of the problems we had addressed were problems with useability and not personal, although there were a few of those too but those were mainly in the shop area and storage. Things like there being only one 20amp power outlet in the followspot loft which would be incapable of running two 1200w Robert Juliat Topaze spots. The electrician more than happily installed a second 20 amp outlet when we told him about the problem. In all honesty I would have loved to have him install some 208v outlets up there too, for movers but that was a personal thing and not necessary.
Your comment actually seems to support the point I was making. Consider that a Consultant is generally not a decision maker on a project, their role is typically to provide input and recommendations to allow the actual decision makers to make informed decisions. Even detailed drawing and specification prepared by a Consultant have no real authority except as assigned them by those who do have such authority. At least in my experience, the actual decision makers with that authority are typically the administrators, backers, etc.
In addition, your comment seems to go right to the difference between defining the problems and goals versus developing solutions, addressing how to achieve the goals versus defining the goals. The general issue is what in the design profession would be viewed as programming versus design. Programming is defining the needs and goals for the project, in effect what the project goals are and the desired result, while design is developing solutions to meet and support those needs and goals. To develop any effective design solution requires first sufficiently defining the problem and goals. At least for most projects, the definition of a successful project is not the hardware and its application (the a particular solution was applied) but rather what the venue can do and how effectively it can do it (that the defined goals were achieved). And it is generally parties such as administrators, executives, etc. that establish the overall goals and their relative priority.
This can be important as virtually every project will have numerous often competing aspects. There may be differing goals or desires between users, between different trades, with the budget and so on. When such conflicts occur the resulting decision is often a matter of how everything relates to supporting the overall project goals and vision. What it often comes down to is that something that makes the operation easier or better is not seen by the decision makers as being as critical in the overall picture as something that impacts the ability of the venue to support the defined uses and goals. And thus one must consider the perspective of the decision makers in order to effectively serve a project.
Sony
Active Member
Beginning of the second year update!
Starting a little side project we have desperately needed since last year.
Lighting Rack for some of our 400+ Source 4's, mounted on the wall 20ft up on the electrics rail. Until now this was wasted space. Waiting for 30 90° Cheeseborough's to come in before we can finish this project.
In the process of cleaning up the rail and installing pipe.
A small part of our inventory, which was up on that electrics rail on the floor until now making one hell of a trip hazard and hard to navigate.
Schedule 40 getting ready to ascend, temporary cheeseborough was placed on the end before ascending to prevent the rope from slipping.
Starting a little side project we have desperately needed since last year.
Lighting Rack for some of our 400+ Source 4's, mounted on the wall 20ft up on the electrics rail. Until now this was wasted space. Waiting for 30 90° Cheeseborough's to come in before we can finish this project.
In the process of cleaning up the rail and installing pipe.
A small part of our inventory, which was up on that electrics rail on the floor until now making one hell of a trip hazard and hard to navigate.
Schedule 40 getting ready to ascend, temporary cheeseborough was placed on the end before ascending to prevent the rope from slipping.
Last edited:
Sony
Active Member
I meant Rota-Lock, most people don't know the difference so I just used the generic cheeseborough name. Already have a 5/8" Rope loft block up there with 75' of nylon rope for lifting fixtures up and down
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