Where are all of these sound people you speak of? Look at the jobs on tours, hell look at the number of trucks on tour and tell me what the ratio of lightingToday's consoles, if set up right with well thought out magic sheets or pallets are actually pretty easy to use. Again I am not talking about musician level gear, an X-18 air is not a sound board, I'm talking someone that can walk up to a CL5 or SD10 and make it work.
Where are all of these sound people you speak of? Look at the jobs on tours, hell look at the number of trucks on tour and tell me what the ratio of lighting to sound. Look at the rider for most Yellow Card shows, concerts, hell WWE and there are always more lampie jobs. Look at most university faculty rosters, there will be multiple professors that teach lighting and scenic design, there will never be more then one sound professor if there is one at all. At my little school there are two professors and a adjunct lighting designer who teach design on a yearly schedule. If they need sound design taught for the one student who wants to do an independent study they have me teach.
Mike while I agree that in secondary and higher education lighting rules I will argue that out of the AV market where lighting is not a normal part of the job that the rest of the industry also has more people comfortable on a light board. Today's consoles, if set up right with well thought out magic sheets or pallets are actually pretty easy to use. Again I am not talking about musician level gear, an X-18 air is not a sound board, I'm talking someone that can walk up to a CL5 or SD10 and make it work.
@macsound Optimistically the "handyman" 's a lady and she installs Lightolier 4 circuit track for 80 amps of raw power and wireless DMX. @jfleenor Thoughts?In hotel work, there was some corporate hierarchy that needed to be established and I was asked to be a specialist in a department. My boss said I HAD to be the lighting specialist because everyone loved audio, more or less ok in video but no one knew lighting.
We found this to be true when hiring union overhire as well.
As far as sales go, I think this is related to the past where lighting used tons of power.
Imagine a quote from an installer for a bar planning on having a small band.
2 speakers, 1 mixer, 5 microphones, 7 XLR, 1 small audio snake. 2 mounting locations, 1 conduit and 3 20A circuits.
Same space for lighting.
12 lights, 1 controller, 1000 feet of SJO, ETC Smartpack, 3phase 40A
The install itself is so ridiculous in comparison, they do what someone said above instead, have a handyman from craigslist install a single piece of track light.
@STEVETERRY Having only met you once for a day long breakfast, lunch and dinner meeting chaired by you in your then spiffy new Production Arts board room regarding the musical Tommy in Offenbach Frankfurt, Germany with three gentlemen from TUV, the German producer, his assistant, three others from our Canadian automation and scenery shop, Associate LD David Grill and a couple of others from 'Tommy'; PLEASE ELABORATE on your long story. I began in commercial AM broadcast maintenance with a six tower 5 Kw array and migrated into sound then eventually into lighting. I'd no idea you'd ever been involved with sound. PLEASE do tell more.Having been in both camps, I'll offer up a personal experience:
In 1975, I was responsible for the care and feeding of the first computer lighting control system on Broadway, for A Chorus Line at the Shubert Theatre. I went on to become an assistant electrician running the show every night. This went on for about a year. Then Otts Munderloh, the Production Sound Engineer, left to work on other Michael Bennett projects. I took over mixing the show.
After about three months of abject terror, when I was at last comfortable with the job, I reflected during a pause in the show. I thought to myself: "If you're in technical theatre, it just doesn't get any better than this."
I felt that I was an integral part of the artistic outcome of the show every night, and that had never happened in lighting.
Much later, after mixing "They're Playing Our Song" and "The 1940's Radio Hour" on Broadway, I got comfortable with both my strengths and limitations (it's a long story), and moved firmly into the nuts and bolts of engineering of lighting systems at Production Arts.
It was a fascinating trajectory that I would not change for anything.
ST
Unless it's theater, the priority is always audio. A band without lights is boring, a band with audio is mime.
"Nobody goes home after a show humming the lights."
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