Clay Paky’s Sharpy lighting fixtures emit an amazingly bright light beam. Due to some serious optical engineering, they have developed a way for a 200W light bulb to blind you if you look straight into it. I’m talking retina damage. These things will auto-close your head’s personal shutters in record time. They come with a disclaimer. They actually tell the buyer that their fixture will burn holes in fabrics. That the beam emitted from this light will burn a performers skin. Right. Who’s going to believe this jargon from a 200W fixture? Well, now we are being tempted. Being rock ‘n’ roll guys, a few of my friends decided to take it upon themselves to test the Sharpy’s disclaimers. Sure enough, if you put one of these three feet from a sharks tooth scrim, it will melt a light beam-sized hole through it in five minutes. Impressive. Next they put a Sharpy three feet away from a Spanset, those cloth and fiber slings our industry uses constantly to attach heavy trusses to the rigging motors. It took 55 minutes, but the Sharpy melted the Spanset into some goo.

Nook Schoenfeld, from “LD-at-Large,” PLSN, May 2012

By watching other shows, you can be inspired by the creativity of others while gaining insights into what is possible through programming. Very early in my career, I saw a cool effect on a TV show that I just had to emulate - it created what looked like large, random raindrops hitting the stage.  The look, on a stage with dancers, was created using a combination of the shutter, iris and gobo wheels, with each fixture opening its shutter and then irising in from a large size to a small size. A gobo added to the drop effect. This was immediately followed by the shutter, which snapped shut so that only the movement of the “raindrop” was seen. With a large selection of fixtures doing this same action at various intervals, the stage was filled with these hits.
—For more on how Brad Schiller emulated this rain drop effect using newer and classic programming techniques, read “Feeding the Machines,” PLSN, May 2012, page 48.

The decision to cancel a show due to bad weather needs to be well-informed. Fortunately, there are a lot of resources available. Websites like livewxradar.com offer real-time moving Doppler radar images that can drill down to a matter of meters to show where storms are and in which directions and how quickly they’re moving. One thing I’d strongly recommend doing is not only consulting those sites but also taking screen shots of them as well. The Live Weather Radar site is time-stamped in both ET and GMT and can provide a record, not only of the weather at a particular moment in time, but also of the fact that you consulted it, because, given the amounts of money involved, even a decision not to go on can lead to litigation.

—Dan Daley, from “The Biz,” PLSN, April 2012

Media server usage is continuing to grow in our industry.  Automated lighting programmers should learn to diversify their knowledge in order to be more marketable.  By learning how to program and operate the GUI of media servers, you will gain abilities that will lead to more jobs.  Most media server companies offer free or reduced cost training that teaches the specifics of their GUI programming.  They will teach you the specifics that are needed to be proficient with their product.  Then you can learn to expand this knowledge to larger systems and apply the knowledge as your programming opportunities grow.

—Brad Schiller, from Feeding the Machines, PLSN, April 2012

Jim Lenahan, longtime LD for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, describes the 2012 tour, now underway, as a “super-simple scaled-down look…We’re basically turning arenas into a proscenium theatre look with classic red velour swags, legs and travelers.” Stanley Green, who will again program on this tour, notes some differences this year, including Lenahan’s use of “all hard-edge fixtures and no video behind the band — back to beautiful Old School beams of light!” The I-Mag will fly high, above the band instead. Green will control a few robotic cameras on his console, while Lenahan will be able to busk video, lights and cameras on the fly if the band performs a song that hasn’t been programmed. “It will be a lot more simplified,” Green adds.
—Debi Moen from “Designer Watch,” PLSN, April 2012

Last fall, I heard from my friend Missy. She manages the Chicago-based rockers Rise Against.  They had been on tour last year and were looking to revamp their look and wanted some ideas…They had some set carts that they would carry around the world this year, and they wanted a lighting package that could attach to the carts. They also wanted some “light boxes” that could spell out the letters, “R-I-S-E.” …As an alternative to the so-called light boxes, I wanted to add some video elements. A light box is simply a box with lights mounted inside of it, and a face that lit up when these interior lights illuminated. Similar to a beer sign in a bar. With a media server and four Martin LC 40mm video panels placed behind some rear projection material, I could build a light box that would change pictures for every song…We made the switch at rehearsals and never looked back. Of course, once the band saw the new video elements, ideas started flowing, and they found more uses for them.

—Nook Schoenfeld, from “LD-at-Large,” PLSN, April 2012

Canceling a show, or “pulling the plug,” is the concert equivalent of the triple-dog-dare in the playground. Often used as a threat to coerce payment from promoters, the threat of cancellation, especially with the audience in place, is the trump card, and is never played lightly. Pulling the plug is a no-win proposition with a set of expensive downsides, including the refund of thousands of tickets and the real risk of crowd insurgence. For good reason, it’s a last resort that has to hold up to an intense post-mortem from the many aggrieved parties. With so many stakeholders, who has the ultimate power to determine that conditions, typically of weather, warrant the cancellation of an event? This decision will stop the revenue stream without stopping the expense stream. This is the moment in the seminar when all insurance agents in the audience sit up and pay close attention. They have now become the income stream. As showtime approaches, the storm clouds building on the horizon are nothing compared to the storm brewing in the production trailer. Will the band, the promoter, the engineers, local police and fire marshals sit down like grown- ups to make good decisions, or will panic set in? With his newly-formed Event Safety Alliance, John Brown [of Brown United, who moderated the seminar, The 10 Commandments of Live Event Safety and Pollstar Live] wants to make a dress rehearsal for this type of scenario as commonplace as a sound check.

—PLSN, March 2012, News Feature by Marshall Bissett, page 18

Safety Pro v. 1.2, a new app from Select Equipment Inc., is tailored to the needs of warehouses where lift trucks or forklifts are in use. Forklift Safety Pro promises as an efficient and secure way to complete pre-shift inspection requirements and OSHA Daily Inspections. It also keeps that information electronically secure for future reference, compliance audits, accident investigations, etc. Also included in the App are several other useful reports with more scheduled in future updates. Users who operate the same lift truck each day or each shift can store that information permanently within the App to speed things even further. Forklift Safety Pro can save the user’s data and that of the lift truck and automatically email the completed inspection report to any email address. This serves as a date/time-stamped record of truck inspections. Contact information for your local lift truck service provider is also stored within the App. Also, since OSHA requires re-certification of specific types of machinery every three years, Forklift Safety Pro issues an alert counting down to that deadline. Another useful feature is the Daily Safety Question. Upon startup, users can view a safety question taken directly from an OSHA Approved Forklift Operator Safety Test. It can be downloaded from http://plsn.me/safetyproapp.
—PLSN, March 2012, App of the Month, page 20

For an industry as international as live entertainment, it’s not surprising that the load monitoring practices now common in Europe are also being seen more often on this side of the Atlantic and beyond. Venues and rigging companies that have adopted load monitoring technologies include Kish Rigging, The Orange County Convention Center, The Boston Symphony Orchestra Center, The Seattle Opera, Hall Associates, and tours for top bands such as AC/DC. The reason load cell monitoring technologies have become more prevalent around the world is because they can replace guesswork with real-time data — and that becomes particularly important for anyone working with a large grid with dynamic loads. “There is no way that you can just level it by using tape measures,” notes Martin Gehring, an owner at Dart GmbH, a German rigging company that has supported tours for Rammstein’s world tour using load cells from Ron StageMaster from Eilon Engineering. For one of Rammstein’s tours, the rig included 20 truckloads of gear weighing close to 40 tons, and each of the 15 2-ton motors on the journey were equipped with the load-monitoring devices.

—PLSN, March 2012, page 43

Each of the Androids, iOS and other computing devices all require a certain amount of logic.  The main tool in my kit is also based on logic: my own mind.  I must keep my mind sharp and focused when programming.  I also continually feed new information to my mind to ensure it is well prepared for every gig.  This might require reading scripts, listening to music, reading manuals, studying lighting specifications and more. In order to ensure my mind is always as active and available as possible, I avoid toxins such as drugs and alcohol.  I also try to provide my mind with plenty of rest and sleep.  This is not always possible on every gig, and sometimes I do have to experience some sleep deprivation.  There are, however, many foods and natural supplements that can assist when the mind lags due to lack of rest.  Consult with your physician as to which is best for you.  Meditation, a healthy diet, puzzle solving, reading, and other brain exercises will keep your brain fresh and alert. This will certainly aid you in the middle of long programming session when you are fully tasked.  Keeping my mind in superb working order is key to my success as an automated lighting programming. It helps with data management, conversations, creativity and all other elements of programming

—Brad Schiller, from "Feeding the Machines,” PLSN, March 2012