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ETC Gio Console

ETC Gio Console

ETC Gio Console

Lighting control is an evolving proposition. As our demands for control and functions increase, so must the flexibility in our control solutions. If you have spent any time in the lighting industry, you know the acronym, ETC. Electronic Theatre Controls has been one of the top lighting control manufacturers for the past 30 years. Throughout the company’s existence, they have released control products aimed at controlling lights that users required and requested.

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City Theatrical SHoW DMX SHoW Baby

City Theatrical’s SHoW DMX SHoW Baby

City Theatrical, the industry’s go-to company for innovative accessories, has also been working for more than a decade to develop its WDS and SHoW DMX wireless technologies. Last year, the company introduced SHoW DMX Neo, and the new SHoW DMX SHoW Baby is built on the same wireless technology.

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Chauvet Legend 412

Chauvet Legend 412

Recently, I worked with Chauvet’s latest contribution to the world of small LED moving heads, the Legend 412. It is a 10-pound fixture that could easily fit inside a one-foot cube. But to me, the most exciting feature is the price tag. They are selling one heck of a moving light for $949. That is not a typo.

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Load cells have been used at Olympiapark Munich...

Load Monitoring Usage is On the Rise

Rigging for  live entertainment production has become more complex. Along with the growth in the sheer weight of all the lighting, sound and video gear now suspended over performers and the audience, other rigging complexities range from flying human performers to moving truss.

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Foo Fighters tour photo by Steve Jennings

Foo Fighters “Wasting Light Tour”

Foo Fighters may have been touring in support of an album produced in a garage using nothing but analog recording gear (which didn’t prevent Wasting Light from garnering four Grammy nominations and the award for best Rock album). But if the retro techno approach underscored the value of the human element in creating music, the visual design team wasn’t limited to PAR cans. Along with the latest lighting and video technology, the designers teamed up with the seasoned professionals from supporting companies including Epic Production Technologies, Show Group Production Services (SGPS), Chaos Visual Productions and Control Freak Systems.

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Cherry Hills Community Church, Highlands Ranch, CO

Cherry Hills Community Church’s Rock Concert Lighting

For the faithful, balancing secularism with spirituality is the source of constant confusion and soul-searching. It’s a dilemma that’s existed for millennia and even pops up in the Bible, prompting a certain teacher to impart the cryptic wisdom, “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.” The Cherry Hills Community Church, affiliated with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and located in Highlands Ranch, CO, may have just discovered the secret.

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Dr. Oz

MB Productions Helps Health Summit with Dr. Oz

NEW YORK – MB Productions, in association with USANA Health Services,  provided the lighting, video and audio package for the Health and Happiness Summit with Dr. Oz on Feb. 25 at New York’s Radio City Music Hall. Working in collaboration with LD Brendan Grey, the plot featured moving lights including 21 VARI-LITE 3500 Wash and seven VARI-LITE 3500 Spots, controlled with a pair of Wholehog consoles.

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Bullet Proof...I Wish I Was

Bullet Proof… I Wish I Was

Christopher Scoates’ New Book on Radiohead LD Andi Watson

I have always been an avid fan of the lighting, video, and stage designs of Andi Watson, and I’ve been lucky enough to have spoken with him on a few occasions about his work and the cutting-edge new products that he often uses in his designs. To me, he belongs on any list of the groundbreaking concert designers working today, and when I saw that there was a book about his work coming out, I had to get a copy of it.

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Vickie Claiborne used the DMX merge capabilities of a PRG Series 400 power and data distribution system to extend a video clip’s reach from LED panels to the lighting fixtures used for a recent show.

Merging DMX

Recently, I took on the task of incorporating DMX merging into my lighting control system. “Why?” you may be asking.  Aside from that question (I asked myself this too, along the way), I also thought of a few other questions that programmers and LDs might ask themselves about merging DMX. For example, “What does DMX merge mean?” “How do you combine two sources of control into one stream?” “Do you get something usable?” “What gear is necessary to set up a system for merging multiple sources of DMX?”

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Resolume Arena 4 Media Server Software

Resolume Arena 4 Media Server Software

Ever since the venerable Icon M made its LDI debut nearly nine years ago, the lighting folks have wanted to have a piece of the video action.  The industry has made some great leaps forward, and now just about anyone with a big enough piggy bank can own a media server to hook up to their lighting console and “make video happen.”  But the legions of LDs quickly learned that video has a lot going on, and just because you can program a rig with 100 moving lights doesn’t necessarily mean you can just pop a video in and make it work well, or look good, for that matter.  Likewise, the video people can’t just expect to grab a piece of software and start controlling the light rig — it’s a different language and vibe altogether. For quite some time now, the lighting folks have had the upper hand when it comes to control, but the application of content (not to mention the production of content) is still squarely in the video realm.

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W2 vs. 1099

By the time you’re reading this, you’re already deep in to prepping your information to ship off to the accountant in anticipation of April 15. But there’s a big change that took place last year regarding one of the trickiest aspects of tax law, and it’s one that affects those in the staging business directly.

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Tools of the Trade

Working as an automated lighting programmer, there are many tools that have been extremely useful to me over the years.  Of course, the very nature of my job is to work with technology, including computers, consoles and automated lights.  As technology evolves, the tools I carry with me continue to change.  However, there are some essential tools that I always have with me on every gig.  The use and maintenance of these tools helps me to achieve top-quality lighting programming.

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