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Andrew Gumper: 20-Year Veteran at Age 31

Ultra Music Festival 2013 photo by Adam Kaplan

Andrew Gumper: 20-Year Veteran at Age 31

Andrew Gumper is only 31 years old, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have decades of experience in the live event industry. He has spent the last 20 years immersed in activities ranging from programming lighting consoles, designing the look of various shows and running a production company that took him from his parent’s basement to the helm of AG Light and Sound, one of the fastest-growing production companies in the U.S. PLSN caught up with Gumper to talk about how he did it.

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Full Sail Live

Learning the Ropes on the Stage

There are no shortages of schools, for-profit and otherwise, that offer professional audio education programs. The most recent listing by the Audio Engineering Society (AES) includes more than 600 educational organizations. They range from international multi-location ones such as SAE, which has outlets in cities including New York, Miami, London and Paris, to those based in community colleges in small-town America.

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Fig. 1: Typical meter readings for different lighting conditions

Measurement of Light, Demystified

The modern age of lighting has brought us many advances. Along with DMX and new light sources, there are new ways to measure and index the amount and quality of the light that those light sources produce. Measuring light output is pretty easy.  Grab a light meter (or download one for your smart phone), point the light source at the eye of the meter (or camera of your smart phone) and look at the measurements.  You will see a bunch of numbers come up — the mathematical computations of certain values that make up your light source.

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George Travis with Bruce Springsteen

George Travis Honored with Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award

George Travis knows who the real boss is. “You end up being part of this little touring group that can be a tight, dysfunctional family that shares one goal: putting on a good show,” he says. “We have to remember that when the music starts, we have 8,000 to 80,000 bosses who are the audience. The biggest excitement in this business is when the concert starts. Then you have your immediate reward… or you can also have your immediate judgment!”

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From left, Gustavo Alsina, Melissa Gonzalez, Lara Alsina, Julio Fuentes and Franky Couvertier

Entertainment in Motion

Many businesses go through ups and downs as they grow and change. Puerto Rico’s Entertainment In Motion (EIM) has overcome one of the biggest hurdles any company will face — the death of an owner and founder.

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REDMX Lighting Console

REDMX Lighting Console

The REDMX is a new lighting console from Italy-based RED Lighting, a manufacturer of entertainment lighting products. It provides a new approach to entertainment lighting control with the absence of a command line and numeric keypad. The manual is an easy 65-page read with color screen shots and a quick start guide.

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Chauvet Professional Legend 230SR Beam

Chauvet Professional Legend 230SR Beam

With their intense beam, fast pan/tilt and dramatic aerial effects, fast-action beam fixtures have drawn notice from designers in recent years, not with just the aerial effects but the ability to make the stage itself look bigger. Chauvet Professional’s Legend 230SR Beam, launched earlier this year, is positioned as an affordable and versatile fixture that gives designers the tight beam looks they crave.

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PRG RH+A UV Wash

PRG UV Bullet and Wash

PRG’s RH+A division now offers the Ultraviolet series of lights, including the UV Bullet and UV Wash. While developed with architectural lighting installations in mind, these fixtures can also be used for entertainment industry applications, ranging from amusement parks and haunted house attractions to “cosmic” bowling and nightclub dance floors.

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Adafruit Industries' Flora NeoPixel hardware can be integrated with a performer's costume.

LEDs for Costumes

LEDs are widespread within the entertainment industry. From video panels to lighting fixtures, LEDs are showing up everywhere. And lately, the scope has grown even wider to include costumes. Recently, I turned on the television and stumbled across a performance by the famous Rockettes dance troupe in which they were all dressed in black jackets covered with LEDs. As I watched, I realized that video images were being pixel mapped onto the dancers; and of course I was instantly intrigued!

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PLSN Video World, Nov 2013

A Word About Moiré

Back when I worked in broadcast television, the first thing they told the on-camera newscaster was “never wear a striped.” The skeptic who disregarded the message was shown his air-check the next day (along with a nasty note from management), and his jaw dropped when he saw the patterns of geometric lines crisscrossing his shirt. From that point forward, a solid-colored wardrobe was standard issue.

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VC-Dot Series from Martin

Martin’s VC-Dot Series

Creative LED products are becoming more and more popular, especially in the installation and touring markets. Designers are looking for unique ways to design with light and video while also bringing to life their artistic visions. However, in order to be able to design freely with LEDs, products have to be easily manipulated and flexible in order to be shaped into virtually any design; this means that LEDs have to be available in configurations other than linear strips or matrices like those found in LED video panels. The VC-Dot series from Martin meets these demands and excels in ways other LED strings stop short.

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Ergonomics: The Right Position

One of my favorite things in life is being behind a lighting console in full control of a lighting rig. Whether programming or operating, I find true joy in pressing the buttons and watching the lighting change. Through the years working as an automated lighting programmer, I have found it very important to consider the ergonomics involved with my FOH setup. Working with a console for many hours can be very draining mentally, but it also takes a toll on your arms, wrists, legs, and more. This is why you should always plan accordingly to ensure that you are in a position to perform your very best behind the console.

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