Armed with nothing but a well worn pair of shoes and four days supply of anti-migraine pills, On Stage Lighting hits Earl’s Court in London for the 2011 assault on the senses that is the PLASA show.

If previous PLASA shows were an indicator of the direction of travel in style, visitors to the PLASA (Promotion of LEDs And Screens Ad nauseum) show 2011 were going to have to steel themselves. At past shows, in order to keep the nausea at bay, you simply had to pace yourself, avoid protracted stints on any stands serving beer and decline the strange coloured cocktails that Avolites might offer.

This year, the unsuspecting punter at Earl’s Court also had to deal with two halls full of exhibitors trying to induce various forms of visually stimulated ill health with their products. Despite being a few stands bit heavy on the sub, it actually seemed quieter this year in audio terms – light was the weapon of choice.

So what was it all about this year? Apart from getting yer retinas frazzled…

LEDs, LEDs, LEDs…Oh, and a fresnel

OK, so LED lighting technology has been developing rapidly in recent years and previous shows have featured an increasing number of LED based products. PLASA 2011 (the Chinese year of the LED, apparently) often seemed about little else. This is especially true when you take into account the fact that designers of digital audio desks are now stuffing them full of colour changing illuminated bits everywhere in an order not to be outdone by the lampies.

Don’t you wish you’d bought those shares in, well, whatever it is that they put in those chips that makes them light up, now?

PLASA shows have seen plenty of LED wash lights, moving LED wash lights, LED arrays and panels and this year was no exception. The improvements in colour rendition, the continuation of development of multi LED colour systems like the ETC Selador and others, the use of warm white, cool white and what the Americans call toonable white, continues.

This has led (ahem) to cutting edge LED driven fixtures being used in all genres of the industry and most notably in television. This is significant because TV lighting is particularly picky when it comes to things like CRI and colour temperature, multi chromatic shadows and the flicker on camera caused by fixtures that dim using Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) – as LEDs do.

The adoption of LEDs in the TV industry was demonstrated by the excellent LED Shootout area, organised by Paul Middleton and others from the Society of Television Lighting and Design (STLD) which had demos, seminars and the opportunity to see a choice of over 80 LED fixtures in use. While the title of “shootout” suggests a quest for the ultimate in LED product, the stand followed the STLD ethos of the free exchange of ideas between lighting directors and was more of an opportunity to consider the options, rather than find the killer fixture, and to share best practice. Useful.

The perceived holy grail in LED based fixtures was genuine point light sources, either multi coloured or not, in order to produce an LED based profile spot (lekos, in the US) and also an LED fresnel replacement. PLASA 2011 was where a clutch of these things came to the party and joined the few already in this space such as the Robert Juliat Aledin, and really showed us that LED and high quality optical systems were a reality and a long way from the horrors of El Cheapo units.

In terms of form factor, Coemar and Strong profile offerings seemed familiar in appearance if not quite light output of a 750w HPL loaded Source Four. In the “bright and sharp” stakes, the Prism RevEAL garnered a lot of interest due to it’s extremely punchy output and high quality optics – and not the fact that it’s large size and shape made it look like something that would make your average Ann Summer’s customer eyes water. Prism were showing in the ever expanding White Light Zone, confirming the WL strategy of partnering their way to the top with JB Lighting, iPix, Core, Coemar, W-DMX and Arkaos, with popular MD Bryan Raven smiling down benignly on the hub of activity that is the White Light bar.

Along with the RJ, Philips Selecon and others were displaying LED based fixed washlight / fresnel replacement fixtures either with familiar stepped lenses or not. Everyone had an cannon of LED wash lights, often moving yoke, aimed at a particular market – and more often than not, right in our eyes. Particular thanks go to Clay Paky, Martin and Robe for that, plus an additional shout out to Avolites who had managed to program a flying purple splodge that kept assaulting anyone that dared to try to study the demo screen in their AI media server area.

Anyone playing “Spot the conventional” might have stopped by the ETC stand to look at the Source Four fresnel, the answer to the question of how you mount a lamp designed to be used axially in a base-down fixture design. Like many lanterns past and present, the Achilles heel seemed to be the focus mech, that had only been on the stand a day by the time we tried it and was looking a little awkward in terms of design and snagging – not an issue with just this fixture I might add, but plenty of others from other stables. The overly complex colour runner door latch thingys were also bust by then.

Control and Media

Back at the Avolites stand, an excellent demo-er took me through the new pixel mapping features of their Titan control platform which also gave me an opportunity to see  Avo really getting there after a shaky start on their journey into modern control platforms.

The key to Avolites products is their simplicity, hands on use and visual nature and with Titan they finally seem to have managed to claw back some of the Avo Way while offering the things that a modern LD wants from their controller. Titan now looks more intuitive, complete and attractive (LD attractive, not just shiny graphics) than earlier incarnations and the hardware in the form of a working Sapphire Touch plus Tiger Touches and Pearl Expert were showing off it’s chops, along with Titan Mobile hardware and some posh touchscreens. Their solid dimmers stood stoically by, including the great Power Cube that has been around a little while, even though the mention of RDM induced a coughing fit.

The Avo Life didn’t yet seem to extend to the AI media server which Avolites have bought the rights in a strategic partnership with Immersive Ltd. which looks like a fantastic piece of software for the Aspergic but didn’t have an ounce of Avo ease of use stamped on it. Whether complex projection mapping and rendering is a good fit with the Avo brand isn’t totally clear to me. But it’s early days and in recent years, Avo have demonstrated that while they might falter in early moves, they are cabable of ironing out the wrinkles even though it’s done in public. The carrier bag pushing beauties didn’t seem to outnumber the number of Avo people that actually knew something this year.

In other stories of ever increasing complexity, the wonderfully visual Vista with it’s Bryon release software is beginning to look devilishly complicated to the untrained eye. Seemingly more menus, buttons, screen areas and sub layers to keep up with increasing features and tool sets, one can’t help but wonder if we shouldn’t be looking elsewhere for inspiration in our interaction surfaces. And keeping it simple.

This theme was touch on by self confessed data junkie Rob Halliday in his seminar on lighting control, who actually simply called for more intelligent use of data within consoles. A small element of this features in my own personal nemesis, the Strand Palette. Given his console history, it’s hardly surprising that Rob is at his most comfortable with a numeric keypad and a spreadsheet on screen and still many of our current forays into the multi touch environment only really augment what are essentially way of presenting data and manipulating it.

On other stands at PLASA, we saw the Emulator DJ software used with a large rear projected touch surface or the rather fun Interactive Visions media projection and interaction on a tabletop or floor. While maybe in lighting all we need is an iPad, the idea of giving the Lighting Designer the tools to create without data manipulation being so intrusive, is an attractive one.

The notion that technology innovation might be driving the design was a theme covered at an ALD seminar on the “The Next 50 Years” in lighting, held in a back room while out on the show floor that technology continued to assault the senses.

Future gazing and self contemplation was a feature which ever side of the fence you were on, certain quarters hankering for the good old days of Patt 264s (What???? They were horrible and everyone said so at the time!!!!). Certainly everyone was looking forward, whether vying to have the brightest, modernist LED fixture or discussing the Quality of Light. During a lull in the reminiscing and misty eyed eulogies for the Pattern 23, it was back to the floor to look at what the kit makers had brought us for “Going Back To School” in lighting control.

ETC were showing their new Gio console, the one that is more portable than the EOS but bigger than the Ion. It’s common for touring theatre shows to program on an EOS and tour with an Ion, gone are the days when the show just schlepped about the UK with a Strand 500 series show disk. The Gio looked attractive with a sensible desk footprint and is nicely made to stay together while touring. I can think of a few smaller theatres that would perhaps prefer something a little more than their recently purchased Ion, maybe ETC should run a buyback scheme!

If small was your thing, the Cham Sys M60 filled in the gap between their PC wings and a full size MagicQ console, with a familiar set of hardware including a smaller touchscreen that looked nice. Ham fisted programmers might see the benefit of the old fashioned “Hog Ops Pencil” (a pencil with an eraser at both ends) to help them with their prodding.

Along with the visual barrage from the waggly LED wash light brigade, more eyeball battering came from the large number of hi resolution module LED based screens – more than ever before. In the past, large walls of lower res stuff have provided colourful displays but PLASA 2011 was increasing about quality content rendering on panels made up of clip together modules.

The LED craze in screens too meant that the fashion for projected things waned, apart from a few small pockets where the media server guys showed off their projection mapping capabilities. If forced to predict something that would be a whole lot more evident next year, it would be the area of 3D projection mapping and larger scale displays of this. Along with the usual Hippotizer, Pandora’s Box and the aforementioned Avo AI servers, Earls Court 2 saw the commercial version of the well regarded D3 system used on many shows including running the central LED screen on U2s 360 tour.

Anything Interesting?

On Stage Lighting spent four days asking this very question of everyone, from some of the biggest luminaries in lighting to young BTEC students coming for a day out. For all the square footage of shiny toys, no single item or trend was cited as floating the boat of the punters, despite the leaps in technology and showing of “new” things such as a profile spot, albeit an LED based fixture. Perhaps PLASA goers will have to wait until next year for that life changing new thing.

That isn’t to damn the show as a waste of time, as there was plenty of opportunity for networking and future gazing which leads to the shaping of our industry. And hey, it’s fun once you’ve found a quiet corner away from the strobing to recover and just talk to good friends. A lot of those friends were wondering what the future in performance lighting might look like, and despite the stands telling us that they were it, many didn’t seem that sure.

Others talked of disconnect between manufacturers and users, even between the needs of distinct genres and the production of fixtures that are supposed to please every market. TV seemed happy with their LEDs in the studio, the Rock and Roll guys will be loving the new iPix colour mixing LED ACL bars while many theatre users just seem to wish it would all go away and stop making so much noise so they can dust off the 264s. That doesn’t include the RSC, who have embraced the modern lighting world and even invented a solution to their specific problem – the RSC LightLock, which was there again.

A particularly big trend that is interesting to me, following on from PLASA last year, is the use of batteries and wireless DMX. Initially what I would call the “Plonk and Play” wall washers from GDS, Core LED, iPix et al, the totally portable market is growing to integrate push up stands (GDS again) and features that make a wireless way of life more possible. The start of a trend for modular (different heads, same power base), “come to pieces” kit that allows for the light source to be sited separately from it’s normally attached power and control station, give the LED/Battery/Wireless DMX solution a load more flexibility.

Add this to the fact that, despite it’s challenges, all the major players in Wireless DMX solutions (W-DMX, City Theatrical and Lumen Radio) seem to have cracked the timing issues associated with sending RDM DMX over a wireless system – it’s all very interesting in the truly portable market. Perhaps our shows will be a lot less wire heavy in the future, particularly at ground level where cable management can be an issue.

Once the brochures had been put in the recycling and the last motor had been boxed in Earl’s Court, the key take away from PLASA 2011 was how tiring the show is becoming to attend on a sensory level. I’m sure exhibitors found it more tiring than ever, I certainly did. It’s worth the exhibitors remembering that the kind of lighting, sound and media that you reserve for a few hours of spectacle during a single show is not a good environment to do business in over four days.

Next year, I’ll certainly be planning more quiet time, seminars and spend more time exploring the darker corners that West London might have to offer, possibly from under the duvet of the hotel. If there is anything interesting to see, I’m sure someone will tweet me

Did you attend PLASA 2011? Got anything you’d like to add, stuff you liked or hated? Comments in the box as usual, we’d love to hear your thoughts.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

You May Also Like:

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Following the recent news of several stage and event structure collapses, On Stage Lighting looks at where we have come from as a fledgling industry and where we might look for a path in the future.

This last month or so, it’s been a regular event: The reporting of a temporary structure failure at a show, leading to serious injury and loss of life. In recent years this kind of news is no longer unheard of, either during a build or a show, something in a roof support or rigging system fails and sets off a chain of events that is putting people in danger.

There has been, and will be, a lot of speculation about specific recent failures, much of it temporal conjecture and even more of it political wriggling, blame and avoidance. Once the bereaved have been comforted, scapegoats cited (like the Weather Gods), legal proceedings done and lip service paid to future event safety, there is the horrific possibility that the “show will go on.”

My hope is that there will be some actual lessons learned and disseminated throughout the industry – but how?

We Are Toddlers

The live event business has grown up fast, now calling ourselves an “industry”. Not long ago it was nothing more than a collection of individuals putting on shows with whatever they could hack together. Look around you at the tools and systems we have now, many of them nicked from a wide range of unrelated industries, construction, lifting, cargo, shipping, military, telecoms, rescue – the list goes on.

Not so long ago, we were using electric hoists in vibrant colours with the decals “upside down”, the casings sprayed black to make them less obtrusive in a show environment. Spansets only came in a range of colours based on their working load. Now they come in black and are sold by sales reps that actually know which way is “out”. We design structures using things we already use, added to other things that we already use with some custom fabricated items. And then put a roof covering on it.

We have a short history of finding ways of doing things quickly, cheaply and to satisfy the needs of the show for the short period that it runs.

What we don’t have is a long history of shared design standards and practice. The industry has just started, in relative terms, we have the beginnings of all these things and have come a long way in the last 40 years.

The Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) was founded nearly 200 years in a London coffee house and continues to provide a platform for the sharing of knowledge, as well as being a qualifying body and promoting the profession. We have PLASA (encompassing ESTA), which produces things such as “ANSI E1.21-2006 – Temporary Ground-Supported Overhead Structures Used To Cover Stage Areas and Support Equipment in the Production of Outdoor Entertainment Events”, written by industry professionals and currently under review. It is, however, important to remember that PLASA describes itself as a “pro-active trade association”, which means it rightly represents the interests of it’s members.

On the structures guides front, there is also the “Temporary demountable structures. Guidance on procurement, design and use” from the Advisory Group On Temporary Structures at IStructE (see, another professional body).

This continuing professional body model, like the ICE or IStructE, is surely vital in our future and hopefully still doing great work in 200 years time.

A professional body should be able to collate and disseminate design or implementation failure information, outside of the politics, lobbying or blame investigations, and make recommendations specific to the industry that it understands.

The Show Must Go On

It’s a badge of honour in our business. No matter what, by hook or by crook, the audience will not be disappointed and the show must go on. It’s a great way to galvanise the highly committed individuals in show business, getting the best out of people against the odds. But it leaves a legacy.

The idea that someone would dare to put their head above the trench and say “Stop” isn’t entertained. Stop, it’s dangerous. Stop, this person is too tired. Stop, this needs to be done in a way that costs more time and money. Stop, it’s just not possible. Sometimes, someone needs to have the conviction to walk out on that stage and say “Sorry, 20,000 people. We just need to stop.” I’m not talking about the automation tripping or the show Mac locking up and stopping the show, I mean saying “OK, things might seem fine right now but there is a risk…… And we can’t continue.”

The transient nature of live events is that, unlike a permanent building, it only has to get us to the end of the show – not last 50 years. This leads us to bodge perfectly safe solutions when a smoke machine duct hose goes missing or we need to use a road box as a table but it’s that same culture can lead to holding out and hoping that things will be ok for the next couple of hours. This is obviously not acceptable when it comes to serious stuff like the stability of structures.

Pseudo Safety

Sometimes people like to feel safe, so they do things to make themselves (or someone else) feel better. That might be using some form of under-spec’ed secondary safety bond, or attaching it to a point that is not actually going to take a decent shock load. It could be fitting an anemometer to a PA wing and occasionally checking the Met Office website first thing in the morning.

Say you have a structures guy with your gig. He clears the standing water regularly, keeps an eye on how the rig is loading the roof and generally sorts stuff out with 5 ton ratchet straps. The anemometer spins away on the PA wing, telling somebody that things are “safe” – it’s there reading wind speed after all.

What is the procedure if the wind speed reading gets to a certain point? Does he mention it to Production and what is their response? Is there a system in place to quickly remove the coverings to reduce wind loading? Now the structure is fully loaded with kit, can he even get to the coverings? Are the stage crew briefed on how to do this? Will anyone even entertain the idea that the covers need to come off, despite the thousands of pounds worth of moving lights and other kit that will get soaked by the rain? At what point will someone make the decision to systematically clear the stage area and crowd and stop the show? Who will make that decision? Will anyone actually do it – especially if the weather is not even on site yet?

Without all the following questions answered BEFOREHAND and the system in place, the anemometer is pointless.

I’ve seen many instances of pseudo-safety and box ticking in my career, things that don’t in themselves make life any safer but reassure you or others that something is being done. Luckily, most of the time this pseudo-safety isn’t actually tested.

Design Standards

Safety procedure is about having systems in place and actioning them. But we are also responsible for designing and erecting these structures.

Looking again at engineers in other industries, if you designed or built a structure that flat packed after a few 70 mph gusts that would be the end of your career and rightly so. Being responsible for a permanent structure that couldn’t stand up for it’s lifespan is unthinkable and even then the unthinkable happens, it’s because of a genuinely unforeseen set of parameters that were not understood at the time (like the collapse of the WTC.) These events change design standards for good.

Engineers design things to withstand certain conditions, in some disciplines this might be a weather event that occurs once in one hundred years, or once in five hundred. If you designed a building to withstand a 100 year event, if the building was going to be useful for 100 years then you would assume that such a design standard would be prudent.

Our temporary structures might not be up for more than a weekend. Does this mean that a 1 in 50 year weather event isn’t going to happen in that time? Of course not.

A lot of the catastrophic failures of temporary alloy structures in our business play out as a cascade of events. Something fails and the rest of the system follows. We are using lightweight, portable and demountable components that seem to be nearing their limits as a system without a more fail-safe approach. Let’s not forget that in recent years we are asking so much more of our temporary structures – the average moving light weighs 10x more than a PAR can. In the 70’s if a bit of tarp blew off the meagre scaffolding structure, it wasn’t a big deal. All of a sudden, we are putting more in terms of weight overhead than we have on the deck.

A fail-safe design takes into account the possibility of individual component failure, without jeopardising the rest of the structure as a whole and seeks to avoid further damage or injury. So many entertainment rigging failures have caused additional failures, rather than behaving in rip-stop fashion.
Another design standard that should be considered is the time it takes to avoid injury and loss of life. This is not somehow coming up with a design that is never, under any circumstances, going to become unstable and collapse – that would be uneconomic if not technically impossible.

Given that failures occur, how long can a building remain in an unstable state without complete failure, in order for the occupants to be alerted and evacuated to safety? Back in our world of temporary event structures, time between the initial failure and the catastrophe is unreasonably short at the moment.

The Future?

It is important that us toddlers are grown up enough to realise where our tiny industry is and how far we still have to go, including in areas of safety procedure and design standards. We need to continue to follow any good examples set by more established professions in terms of the sharing of knowledge and qualifying.

We also need to ensure as an industry that we make our own investigations and are realistic about the facts when things go wrong, it would be too easy to go along with the idea that it’s just “one of those things” and walk blindly into the next catastrophe, muttering “The Show must go on..”

Image based on a picture from helixblue on Flickr

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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An introduction to the Compulite Vector lighting control, a guest article by UK Vector trainer Joe Bleasdale. If you don’t really know much about the Vector, a favourite in control for TV lighting, read on.

I’ll keep it basic. I’m Joe, I am a Freelance Vector Trainer & Programmer and this article is an introduction to a great console. I run Training on request and look forward to bringing some more Vector knowledge to the stage lighting community. Enjoy.

Image from Craig Finch at Shock Solution

The Desk

In 2002, Compulite introduced a new console to the lighting control market. This new console, Vector, ran two separate systems “under the hood”. The idea behind this was that one system processed the DMX output and front panels of the console, whilst the other system (Windows XPe) run the GUI. This way if Windows was to fail, the output of the console would remain unchanged and the operator would be able to continue firing cues and commands until it had rebooted.

Vector is in fact a product family, not just one console. There seven console solutions in the family, Vector Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Ultra Violet, Violet and Node. Red being the largest and most expensive and the Node being the smallest and cheapest. The family of console have been used in a wide range of production applications. Credits to the console include Trans-Siberian Orchestra, X-Factor (UK), Guns ‘N’ Roses world tour, Strictly Come Dancing, Got to Dance (UK), Britain’s Got Talent, Royal Wedding, Royal Variety Performance, Bundevision Song Contest and many more.

Compulite have a world wide distributor network of people and companies pushing the Vector consoles. I used to be the UK Distributor with a colleague of mine. Nowadays I reside as a Freelance Programmer and Vector Trainer in my own right. The consoles are not massively common, but once you have been behind one it is a programming experience you will not forget…

Using The Compulite Vector

The consoles have two modes and two syntaxes. This means, almost any programmer can walk up to the desk and have it working how they like it in a matter of seconds. Firstly there is Tracking Mode and then “Compulite Mode” – the latter is effectively Cue Only Mode. The first Syntax is Action and the next is the Enter syntax. In my opinion, Action syntax is the best to use, it allows most flexibility and fits the desk functions perfectly, however Enter works just as well.

The action syntax allows super fast programming and as you guessed it is based on your direct actions with the command line. For example selecting a channel would consist of [CHANNEL] [X] then you can go straight to altering parameters of that channel without having to confirm the selection. In fact, the Vector has tools to enable programmers to split fixture types up. It has 4 Sets. Channel, Spot, Matrix and Media Server.

Channel can be dimmers and dimmers with accessories such as Scrollers or Apollo Right Arm type devices. Spot is effectively Compulites name for “Fixture” it does not mean a hard edge fixture; you can patch anything under Spot.

Matrix is designed for patching large amounts of LED fixtures to use with the Matrix (Bitmap) feature of the desk.

Finally Media Server is for putting your Media Devices in. Spot, Matrix and Media Server are “cross compatible” so you could (if you wanted) put a VL 3500 in the Media Server set if you so wished. Each set also has its own “live view” (Programmer). This makes for easy show layouts and navigation during programming. It also helps the Programmer number crunch within the desk because Channel 1 just relates to “1” in that set. You can then have Spot 1, Matrix 1, and Media Server 1 – all their own fixture types.

By now your probably thinking, nothing special… other desks can do similar things. You would be correct, but Vector has more powerful features up its sleeve. Built in bitmap capability, Desktop, Media Server integration (Hippo V3, Catalyst V4, Arkaos), Contextual Displays, Attach Files to Objects, Parameter Pickers, Macros, Softkey Colour Coding, and an Effects Engine ™ a Programmer would die for…

Parameter picker for the Rotating Gobo wheel on a Mac 500. Pickers are available on all Parameters that have “steps” in them, I.e. Gobo Wheel, Colour Wheel, Shutter etc. For linear parameters such as Dimmer, Pan, Cyan there are no pickers.

The main tab of the Vector Effects Engine™. The advanced tab contains other Effect Primitives, and functions such as Sync which allows you to sync effects together quickly so they run in perfect sync with each other.

Vector Effects Engine

One of the most sought after features of the Vector is its Effects Engine™. It allows simplicity and power in one package, which nowadays is rare. Deep down, Effects are applied to parameters with Effect Primitives or Curves that apply mathematical functions (such as a Sine wave) to values against a set time. However you don’t have to be a maths wiz to understand this Effects Engine™!! By looking at the image above, you can see that the layout is very simple and graphical making for easy selections and quick Programming.

For example… If I set my dimmer level to 50% then hit [EFFECT] then press {STEP} set the direction to {UP} and then set the size wheel to {50%} then hit {WAVE}. In these few simple steps, my dimmer is now stepping between 50% and 100% in a wave type offset. How easy was that!!

The only down side to this console is its availability, not many exist in comparison to other consoles out there. Most of the consoles I work with in the UK are owned by individual Programmers – not hire companies. This shouldn’t put you off however, Compulite distributors run training on request, and people like me run tailored courses to teach Vector on every level. Once you know who has them, hiring then becomes easier!

I hope you have enjoyed this little introduction to the Compulite Vector. I am hoping to write tutorials on the subject here at On Stage Lighting.

The Professionals – On The Vector

Reliable, Faithful and does everything we need it to do.
Roger Williams – Lighting Director & Moving Lights Operator UK.

I’m using Vector because it provides professional features in a fast easy-to-use way. Its stable, offers a lot of networking/backup features and customer support is very good.
Matthias Schöffman – Vector Programmer

When specking a lighting console for a tour, there is only one clear choice. The Compulite Vector series of consoles are ideal. Quick, Powerful, Reliable, and all any Programmer needs.
Greg Shipley – Lighting Designer & Programmer. Guns ‘N’ Roses World Tour

1) Its ability to do Automated Lighting as well as conventional equipment with ease and not take a ton of time to Program it.
2) When I use them on rentals, they are easy enough for a beginner lighting tech to operate them, but still have amazing power to create any show you desire.
3) The extensive fixture library and ease of Programming make it a great console for any LD to set up for any type of show.
That’s just a few things I like about the Vector console
Nate Ross – NJN Productions

What I like about Compulite desks is you get a lot of desk for your money. The new Ultra Violet is ideal for me with twenty playback faders and two internal touchscreens all in a package that is easily carried and easily fitted into a cramped lighting area.
Bernie Davis – Lighting Director. Royal Wedding 2011 – UK

Thanks Joe – Rob

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Our guest is international LD, Paul Smith as he shares his dream of a revolution in lighting control and asks if we aren’t stuck in a timewarp of cue stacks and faders. Should we continue to use a style of control that hasn’t changed for the best part of 20 years, or is there a better alternative?

Somewhere out there, right now, somebody exists that is going to create the next revolution in Lighting Control. I couldn’t say whether they are in their 60’s, or still in the womb, but I think we can make an educated guess that at some point in the next couple of decades, there will be a revolution in Lighting Control that will be so huge that it will change the way we work, and in the process, make somebody a lot of money.

Image by Danilo on Flickr

Why do I say that then? Well, while we have lots of controllers, from the best of the most expensive consoles, to the cheapest of the PC Based ‘Virtual’ desks I get the overwhelming impression that we are on the cusp of something better. These days, no matter what control device you use, the process of creating a ‘look’ on stage is much the same no matter the manufacturer. At the top end pro level (and let’s face it, if there is going to be a disruptive innovation, it is going to begin at the top end – they always do) the basic cue creation process is generally a case of physically pressing Intensity, Focus, Colour, and Beam Presets, or moving an encoder of some sort, hitting a key along the lines of ‘Record’ and dumping it to a cue stack or sub-master. No matter the console, it’s been that way for more than twenty years now, time for a change then? I think so.

I venture that too much time is spent looking at a desk, not at the picture in front of us, on stage. I think that the time is coming whereby we won’t have a physical console, as we know and love them today, in front of us at all. Maybe something along the lines of a Minority Report style screen, between us and the stage, where we can manipulate fixtures by waving our hands around a la Tom Cruise; maybe that day isn’t that far off. The company that developed the screens used in Minority Report are a real company that are actually developing products that do the job of manipulating data across just such a screen. Gaming consoles exist now that are capable of monitoring your position in a room, and reacting to your movements, with no gloves or magic wands required to capture your movements.

Image by jurvetson on Flickr

Granted there is still a hardware requirement with my scenario, and no doubt there would be a number of hurdles to overcome, but never say never. I would go so far as to say that the companies that would deliver such a magical device wouldn’t even be the console manufacturers that we know about today, more likely, I would humbly suggest, would be the likes of WYSIWYG, Capture, and ESP, the pre-vis specialists. The whole device in my head essentially resemble a large scale HUD (Head Up Display) as used in fighter jets and some civil airliners, something that would overlay a CAD Drawing of our lighting rig, and then allow us to manipulate the fixtures such that what would these days be the ‘pre vis shaded view’ could, looking through the glass, be the actual look on stage.

For quite a while now, ‘Convergence’ has been the consumer tech buzzword du jour, and something that has only really been mumbled about in the world of Lighting Tech. No matter your console of preference, I believe that while control of LED’s, Moving Lights, Media Servers, and Dimmers has, no doubt, improved significantly over the last ten years, we are still tied to twenty or even thirty year old technology in terms of the basic methods of control. Is it not time then that the software we use to draw the plan, the software we use to program the show, the software we use to drive the media servers, and the process of manipulating all of that data was ‘Converged’ into a device that could happily take care of it all?

Maybe I’m discussing nothing more than a fad then? Is it all nought but a pipe dream? Maybe.

Maybe we all at heart are so comfortable, and dare I say, cynical about new developments, that we mostly wait for the rest of us to take up the mantle of something new; such that it would instantly be dismissed as a gimmick. But then, there were many that said the same of Vari*Lite when the VL-0 was unleashed on an unsuspecting world. In fact, about 15 years ago, I had a discussion with a Director of a well known console manufacturer where we were both in agreement that three, and maybe for the really, really big gig’s four DMX lines would be more than we would ever need. How wrong we both were. On a recent production I had fired 30 universes of the stuff out the back of the console without event thinking about it.

Perhaps we should all start bugging our favourite manufacturers to start really pushing the boundaries with their next product. In an industry that thrives on creativity and innovation, are you not surprised to consider that our basic control interface has hardly changed over thirty years?

I’ll leave you with that happy thought, and maybe, just maybe, the creator of that next innovation is reading this and inspired…

Thanks Paul, really great food for thought. Make sure you have your say about the future of Lighting Control in the comments section. – Rob

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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To bring you a PLASA Show round up for 2010, On Stage Lighting braved the crowds and sensory assault that is two exhibition halls stuffed with the brightest and most efficient light sources in show business.

If you’ve been reading OSL for more than a year, you’ll know that part of the publishing calendar is our popular report from the UK’s biggest industry get together, the PLASA show. Four days of techie talk, shiny new kit and no doubt a certain amount of alcohol, PLASA is more than just an opportunity for the black t-shirted inhabitants of the underworld to emerge into the light. Apart from the opportunity to collect swag and run into people, PLASA is also at the heart of the industry in this country, where kit makers and users all converge, deals are done and contacts made.

Recent developments in my own career, added to the usual motive of getting down and dirty with those that service the entertainment industry, I attended PLASA this year wearing more than one hat. Four days of product demos, seminars and walking miles around Earl’s Court 1 and 2 takes it toll but it does give the OSL readers the inside track on what’s happening in the world of stage lighting.

Is it easy being green?

Sorry, Kermit, apparently it’s easier than you seem to suggest so long as you can at least tell everyone how green you are. Wandering among the exhibits, there was definitely a green theme to the show this year.

Aside from a number of seminars focussing on the industry and how we can reduce our impact on the environment, it seemed like every other stand had something to tell you about their product’s green credentials. And it is a genuine issue that we need to address, not least because of new carbon emission legislation and targets on the road ahead.

With the ever developing LED market, plus other lamp and optical improvements, many exhibitors seemed to want to emphasise their green streak. After last year’s success with an award winning Robin plasma lamped fixture, Robe were showing a range of super efficient moving head fixtures with more conventional discharge lamp technology. Their claim on the green tick was that the new fixtures were similar in brightness to older heads that previously required twice the power consumption, saving not only power but weight, space and materials use. A fashionable spin on the time old “well, this year, we made it brighter” trade show line but there is no doubt that kit makers always find a way to make things chuck more light out.

The furious rate that LED technology is evolving, with not only brighter sources and better optical quality but also better colour rendition, it seems like everyone has a green story to tell. The Phillips family (Selecon, Strand, Varilite et al) were showing non moving light units with light sources using the Varilite VLX engine with decent colour mixing, rendition and beam quality. iPix also showed improved LED fixtures, ETC brought their ever expanding Selador range, Wybron had a new LED wash light, everyone wanted to tell you about the latest gen of their coloury splat lighting. Evidence of real LED improvement was everywhere.

Speaking of Phillips Selecon, I had to check out the new SPX profile spot. The fixture that it’s creators hope will provide serious competition for the ETC Source Four ranges that are still making up a large part of the industry inventory. Reports of a shoot out between the spot and it’s competitors were apparently favourable and interestingly the fixture incorporates a number of parts made from a polymer rather than the traditional metal, similar to other Selecon fixtures. Features included interchangeable lens assemblies (both zoom and fixed), easy access for cleaning and a shutter lock off and the familiar 3 way Selecon lamp adjustment which, let’s face it, is a lot easier to deal with than the traditional S4 setup. The fixture seemed to tick a lot of boxes and perhaps could gain some traction in venues, despite being a newcomer in a worldwide hire stock rammed full of the famous ETC lantern. Wasn’t completely convinced by the SPX tilt lock off but…

As usual, there were new/improved lighting fixtures from manufacturers too numerous to mention, but PLASA this year seemed very much about light sources, with a return to the importance of traditional lighting values, such as colour rendition, along with the whizzy techno stuff. Several stands had mannequins dressed in colourful clothing, in order to demonstrate the capabilities of their fixtures, something can be forgotten : we spend a lot of time lighting people on stage, not just produce waggly light pollution and squirting media clips in every direction.

The second big theme at the PLASA show 2010 seemed to be something less obvious to the average audience member…

Control and Infrastructure

While some years, the industry seems to be producing endless shiny new fixtures or announcing flagship consoles, PLASA 2010 was much more about integrating systems and control progress.

A special RDM stand, featuring manufacturers dedicated to that implementation of bi-directional lighting communication, was just one part of a whole show floor full of networked this and integrated that.

The Lumen Radio and W-DMX wireless systems took the cable out of control signals, computer based lighting control platforms such as Cuelux and Trace Lighting’s LimeLight had their own take on controlling lighting systems. Several USB – DMX output devices were displayed as well as neat RDM hardware and software from James Embedded Systems Engineering.

GDS showed us that it is possible to network almost anything with their new cueing system of prompt desk, nodes and cue light outstations all with centralised control and the ability to program and manage a cue stack of Standbys and Gos. A one-off underwater cue light unit design with standby acknowledgement plunger (for a show using divers) reminded us that GDS are at their best designing solutions to unusual problems.

Every media server prided itself in the various systems of integration and compatibility with control surfaces (and improved mapping and image tools) while the pre release Byron build of the Jands Vista software (apparently really nearly ready this year) boasted even better “stage picture” building using it’s single point of contact with both lighting and media with their interface, which could be said to be extremely well suited to shows of the future.

Other companies decided to pull together disparate control systems, such as the Midiator surface which aims to provide a single cueing point for a range of other controls such as lighting, media and motion.

Cast Lighting offered a software solution to the integration problem with it’s Black Box engine that takes data from a number of other manufacturers controls and in turn instructs different elements to create complex, coherent shows with 3D motion control, lighting, media and IR tracking.

In the traditional lighting desk space, probably the biggest shift for any one manufacturer was the roll out of a whole range of touchscreen versions of their most popular consoles after the first glimpse of the Tiger Touch last year – all based on their Titan platform. Even though plenty of older Avo fans have still not quite got over the early versions of their Titan, the stand was crawling with eager button pressers all trying get themselves an Avolife. Apparently the latest Titan releases are much more coherent and stable and I know plenty of LDs who are pleased with the result of Avo looking to find their way over the brick wall that their great classic hardware was creating in the new world.

In the last few years, I have found it hard to engage with the Avo stand despite being a regular user of their products. In days gone by, you could quiz Steve or Richard about their latest offerings and get some informed opinion, bounce ideas around while learning more about what they were trying to achieve with their controls. These days, if you can face the bun fight of fan boys and carrier bag hander outters, you might get lucky and get a demo from a teenager who seems to know a whole lot less about lighting programming than you do. This year was no exception and at the first mildy challenging question relating a console to former products (which they had obviously no experience of), the poor guy struggled and I started to lose interest in the fact that you could draw a picture on the touchscreen. I also spoke to a pretty big name in the moving light world who was pretty shocked when he asked during a demo at Avo about RDM and the poor unfortunate could only say “What’s that?”. Anyway, I think that there is something to be said for having demos from people with a lot more experience than two weeks in the warehouse with the latest product.

Coolux were showing a great interactive tool for screen media, alongside their very good media server. Called AirTouch, a scanning head recognises gestures in front of a screen for interactive displays. Because the system is based on motion sensing rather than touch screen technology, it has the advantage of being able to scale to pretty much any size and use either projected media, led panels or plasma screen arrays. The stand had an interesting combination of panels with a single plasma screen in the centre.

Sooooo much more…

Away from the shiny products, the PLASA show continues to grow as a centre of industry knowledge and education. It’s National Rigging Certifcate training, rigging and AV conferences as well as some great seminars and masterclasses, particularly from InfoComm this year, make attending for all four days even more of a must. This year the new Skills and Qualifications Zone housed a handful of the UK’s most popular theatre production courses and many interested parties from the world of education and employment came together to discuss the future of industry training at a seminar hosted by the National Skills Academy.

As the PLASA show continues to evolve in other directions aside from providing a large space to flog shiny toys, it will also continue to become ever more important in our business calendar.

If you looked past the banks of waggly LED washlights and big screens, PLASA 2010 was crawling with little widgets and wires that made shows happen, education and training, industry discourse and deliberation alonside innovation and recognition.

Oh, and everyone had an iphone app…

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Taking common lighting complaints of our readers, On Stage Lighting looks at the really vital skills you will need to succeed as a stage lighting professional and finds a surprising place to learn them. We also bust a myth about life on the professional side of the fence. No wobbly buckets, PC console emulators or LED based duvet covers were used in the making of this article.

Through this site and my professional life I have a fair amount of contact with lighting beginners, many of whom are starting out in stage lighting and some of which hope to make it into the business as fully fledged lighting professionals. When discussing their own lighting set up, be it a small theatre, school or church, there is a common theme:  Dissatisfaction.

Opening with “we currently have crappy old lanterns” or “the rigging positions are bad because..” or “If we had some more kit and a few moving lights…”, there is a general assumption that lighting would be better or life easier if only there were access to the comforts of the modern stage lighting professional.

The Myth of Professional Lighting

Last week I was doing a show of the type that I generally call a Scrapheap Challenge. Take one lighting professional, a pile of lighting kit of questionable standard and see if you can get a show together in time for rehearsals in a few hours time. It’s a reasonably common occurence if you work in commercial event lighting and something that I assume I must display some talent for, based on the number of times a month I seemed to be booked to do such a gig

Notable negatives of this particular situation included:

• A lantern inventory that only partially resembled the one put together by the original Lighting Designer
• Equipment that has probably not heard the phrase “maintenance schedule” uttered in it’s presence
• Cracked lenses, missing focus controls, floppy barndoors.
• A mixture of Source 4 and Strand SL profile spots with a mixture of beam angles not necessarily ideal for the task – all with iffy optics.
• Socapex multicore spiders that were not all marked correctly
• A generic rig that was a bit too big for the 18 channels of dimming that turned up, meaning pairing and plugging up all channels at (and over) capacity
• 2 dimmer channels of the 18 were unusable for various reasons, making the above situation more tricky.Missing infrastructure that meant it was not possible call up more than each 6-way dimmer without repatching the control lines, making the focus a PITA.
• Not enough colour frames and other shortages that really make your day longer.
• I’m sure there was more, I just can’t remember what it was.

The marking and infrastructure issues also made fault finding longer than it needed to be but otherwise things were done, problems were solved and by rehearsal time, we had a show and the quality and suitability of the lighting was never in question.

The point of telling you this unremarkable story of yet another gig is to bust the myth that, in a professional lighting situation, life is easier because we all have better kit, newer toys and a whole host of other comforts not available in school, churches and village halls. We don’t. What professionals do have is the experience of dealing these things and a lighting experience nearly always started the aforementioned schools, pubs and village halls.

A lighting professional is paid to turn in the goods, not to complain about the kit. We also have the professional imperative to get the job done.

But I Don’t Have Enough…..

In Stage Lighting on a Budget, we found out that even the biggest shows suffer from contraints such as not enough channels, fixtures, control availablility etc. The article also runs through common solutions to the problem of not having enough of something, take a look.

My Stage Lights Are Too Old

Lately I have spend some of my time working in a school environment to get their stage lighting up to scatch. We go in, strip their rig out, maintain and fault find before re hanging it for general use and giving every lantern a decent focus. More often than not the lighting kit is old and a small amount of it may be electrically dangerous so that gets fixed up or very occasionally condemned. The rest get a check up and a rub down and are good for another few years yet – the solution is very rarely that they need to buy much new gear. The equipment is old but probably hasn’t been actually used a great deal unlike modern hire equipment that has usually seen a lot of use in its short life.

By the time we leave, a whole new lease of life has been breathed into the rig with a small amount of maintenance and an understanding of how to get the best out of what is there, the focus in particular. Despite great leaps in lighting techology, a conventional lantern is basically a metal box of some kind, with a lens and a reflector and a bulb. Sure, some are better than others but the essence of good stage lighting isn’t the date stamp on any fixture – light comes outta the end, we do something with it.

We Have The Wrong Fixtures

LIke “bad” weather (vs. the wrong clothes), you could question whether there is such a thing as having the wrong lights. There are fixtures that suit a particular purpose, purposes that suit a particular fixture and rigging positions which may or not suit both of those. The thing is these are the fixtures we have, what are you going to do with them. A common complaint starts along the lines of ” We only have PAR56s so….”. A normal PAR 56, last time I looked, spewed light from the end of it like anything else so in my book that’s a perfectly good fixture, especially if you are trying to pretty up a pub band.

If the director wants a tight spot and you only have cyc floods, there could be a problem. It could be resolved by trying to find out the required end result of this spot and suggest a lighting alternative you can do. Or maybe not being able to have a tight spot could be flagged as a must-have in which case the Production Manager will have to be approached for the budget to hire one.

It’s their call, all you can do is the best you can with the equipment you’ve got.

Our Rigging Sucks

This is a common one: “We’ve only got a couple of wind up stands” or “We only have two bars over stage” etc. I’ve done a ton of lighting using wind up stands and still do in the events market. They are quick and very flexible as you often have a number of options of where to put them and half of the lighting design equation is where each fixture is placed (vs. where it points). Only two bars over stage? How about zero bars overstage, then? That’s not a far fetched scenario, last year I lit an 8 metre stage presentation using the only viable positions in the venue which were crosslighting from either side of stage at about 5ft from the deck.

In every rigging situation there are things that you can do, things you can’t and things that “it might be nice if..” In lighting, it’s part of our job to dream up innovative and safe ways to get light sources where we want them or, quite often, to think up an achievable lighting alternative.

My Venue is Special Because…

Everyone likes to think they are special. Equally, everyone likes to think that their venue is the only one in the world that has x, is only as high as y, or you can’t do z lighting in. While every venue is unique, it’s not an option to throw hands in the air and exclaim that everything would be alright if only we were somewhere else. Even purpose built venues seem to come with their own purpose built foibles (which makes them even more frustrating), so the thought of one day walking into the perfect venue for lighting might have to be put on hold for now.

There is a common theme developing: this is the venue we are working in, this the kit we have, this is where we can put it. THIS IS IT.

The Solution? Good Lighting Skills

The solution to this ghastly world of the wrong kit, in the wrong place at the wrong time is lighting experience. The knowledge of what and what isn’t possible. What’s important and what’s not. What works and what doesn’t and having more than one answer to every question.

Basic lighting skills such as a familiarity with lighting angles such as side light and back lighting, the effect of different positions, shadows / reflection and making decisions when you don’t have enough of something are what really counts. While it’s tempting to overdose on finding out about automated gubbins, ethernet control, pixel mapping and learning software version 16 of the GrandHog MaxMA Pro Expert VII, light is still light and (we assume) always will be.

Where Do I Learn Good Lighting Skills?

I can remember the first stage lighting rig that I played with when I was very young. At my local village hall, under the supervision of my dad, there were two bars over stage, a couple of low perch positions Front Of House. Oh, and I think we had one push up stand. Control was done using two banks of domestic light switches (at least it was electric). I can even remember the lantern inventory: 8 x Patt 137 floods, 1 x Patt 23, 1 Furse  fresnel (in Hammerite blue with an orange mains lead) and our new pride and joys, 2 x Strand Minim fresnels (no barndoors). There weren’t too many different things you could do with this rig so Dad kept things pretty simple but always managed to work some creativity into the productions, perhaps the odd gobo hire.

After that, I went on to learn lighting skills in youth theatres, schools and other places associated with a general lack of lighting wonderfulness. All of my current colleagues in professional lighting did the same, finding out how to deal with lighting situations in an often simple environment, without the aid of sizeable budgets, shiny toys or fantastic kit inventories. Instead of deciding that your lighting kit is too old, point your attention using all your available skills to get the best from what equipment you have.

Maybe one day you hope to be in the exhalted(!?) position of a professional lighting tech or designer, getting paid for your own personal contribution to the lighting Scrapheap Challenge that is life day to day gigging.

If you are looking to learn good lighting skills to prepare you for such an undertaking, you’d better hope your learning enviroment encompasses shoddy equipment, lack of facilities, ridiculous deadlines and the general feeling that this time it really is going to be impossible. If you look around and find yourself in such a pitiful situation already, congratulations.

Welcome to the best place to learn stage lighting skills, have a nice day.

Before you complain about old lights, poor rigging positions and the wrong kit, think what wonders it’s doing for your lighting education.

Image by Toholio on Flickr.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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On Stage Lighting returns from two days of too much walking, too much talking and a certain amount of beer to bring you the essential features of the the PLASA London show 2009. We take you to the places on the floor the industry publications don’t reach and look behind the smoke and mirrors.

A year seems to pass so quickly. This week, it was time for scores of backstage ferrets to emerge from the darkness and make the journey to Earl’s Court for PLASA once more. Techies don’t go to shows if they can help it but the promise of free beer and nibbles, and maybe the odd LED to be blinded by, is usually reason enough to get out of show blacks and into a different darkened room for a few hours.

Exhibitors stands spread from EC1 to a large part of EC2, but the “whose got the biggest stand” competition seems to have taken a back seat – for this year at least. What doesn’t seem to have waned is a tendency to fill your stand with vast high power LED arrays, making it much harder for the punters to examine the goods. Perhaps the stand designers need to revisit Lighting Design 101 – Contrast and it’s importance for visibility.

Whether less visitors attended PLASA 09, it’s difficult to say but the atmosphere was a lot less hectic and the stands not so crowded. There were also a number of “regular” exhibitors who were notable by their absence.

So what was there?

LED Trends for 2009

It may come as no surprise, but LED lighting technology continues to feature heavily in the world of fixture making and each year we seem to have a different mode. OK, so this isn’t London Fashion Week but a few years ago we had LEDs on drapes/webbing and LED backlighting systems such as the Martin EvenLED and Schnick-Schnack-Systems.

This year, there were definite themes to the latest “naked and in yer face” LEDS

Panels built on the concept of semi tranparent arrays for media content replay (such as the Martin LC panel) by bending strips and tubes into curved formations and creating 3D LED surfaces. So, curvy arrays – everyone seemed to have one.

Heads have also turned toward improved colour output, with many LED fixture makers boasting better colour rendition. Studio Due showed a new version of the ArchiLED, with improved 4 cell LEDs replacing the individual RGBA ones. Many other high quality LED “bosh” lights were given pride of place including the i-Pix range and the Selador / ETC wash light. I don’t think that the Selador made it to PLASA last year but I was lucky enough to see an early model in the UK round the back of some grotty industrial estate – it featured on the plush ETC stand this year. The feature of the Seledor is that it uses 7 different LED colour sources instead of the common RGB / RGBA (with amber) / RGBW (with white) giving the colour range a boost.

Lighting designers have a requirement for in better colour rendition in LED fixtures and the manufacturers have definitely worked hard in this area.

Other things of note in the LED area were the Vari*lite VLX high power LED wash light and a great little LED moving spot with excellent optics. The Highlight Showtec features a 27 LED array which is (somehow) focussed down to a spotlight capable of projecting gobos and is bright enough to compete with a standard 250w discharge sourced moving spot.

Console Improvements and Departures

At the control end, console creators have been busy refining their current offerings. Not too many “brand new shiny things” rather more backend changes that make real users happy. A major version upgrade hits the Jands Vista software AKA start the code from scratch. Jands decision to start again was to enable them to take the console where users wanted it to go and includes some improved timline editting and media server support. The development is the work of a structured team, part of a growing situation where lighting control developers emerge from the garden shed and embrace a more grown up approach to producing software.

Changes at Cham Sys were even more subtle – moving toward using a solid state hard drive and Linux ProX which apparently is a “good thing”. Not really knowing much (or caring) about operating systems, I didn’t ask too many more questions.

I also decided I wouldn’t ask Avolites whether the “new” thing this year was that the Pearl Expert / Titan software combination was finished and would now be making more friends among Avo users than it has since launch at PLASA08. Issues with hardware and software has currently left the Expert off many operators Xmas list, a situation that can take time to recover from as a manufacturer.

Avo had a genuinely new toy to look at, which made for a more amicable discussion. The Tiger Touch and other associated touchscreen gubbins for the Expert are a major progression/departure/addition/choice (delete as appropriate) with regard to trad Avo User Interface. The new hardware removed many of the buttons and faders from a Pearl Tiger and replaced them with a touchscreen, additional encoder (now 3) and utilises the Titan software which now powers the Expert / Tiger Touch as well as the Diamond 4. It is also possible to create cue stacks on the playbacks.

The more desk savvy of On Stage Lighting readers will be thinking “Touchscreen? Cue Stacks? So, is this Avo finally going down the Hog / GrandMA / Everybody else route.” While Avo says that the Touch concept represents control surface choice for the user, the more skeptical might say that they can see an user interface brick wall coming up with the traditional Avo hardware. In fact, this has been seen as the “elephant in the room”, to those of us outside of the company. How Avo users will react to the lasted hardware is not clear. The amount of choice in the desk market has created a certain amount of unseemly scrambling in recent years and history tells us that hasty releases by manufacturers often lead to woes further up the road.

At the top end, MA Lighting was showing a more complete version of the MA2. Last year, the 2 on show was a lone trial desk. This year at PLASA, the MA stand was dripping with the black and yellow livery of the next generation Rolls Royce of lighting consoles. OK, Mercedes. While the old GrandMA was always a top end piece of kit, the Full size 2 gives the impression of German engineering in which no expense has been spared though I understand that the price ticket remains reasonable for a console of this quality. This is the single most comprehensive lighting control ever: Three 17” touchscreens, quicker responsive faders, lots of software additions, the list goes on – I think you would call it “feature rich”.

Many of the features may provide a glimpse into the future of control surfaces, particularly the fourth touchscreen which is situated below the encoders and integral to the direct control of everything from attributes to FX ramps. A particularly good use is a draggable representation of beam shaping shutters that speeds up the control of modern fixtures. Endoders are great for some things, but this tactile/visual style must be at least part of the future .

Wireless and Batteries

PLASA09 was also about all things wireless. Not only did a number of wireless DMX proponents command their own stands on the floor, a feature of many fixtures is inbuilt wireless capability. Coupled with LED light sources and battery power, wireless control featured in a number of LED products notably CORE Technolgies IP rated (water resistant) LED uplighter and Global Design Solutions Battery LED kit that includes in-flightcase smart charging and even a pack that enables charging via 2 solar panels.

Wireless solutions for both power and control of lighting fixtures is an exciting development. Issues related to the availability of power is rarely to do with a lack of juice, more often difficulty in getting in power the right place – trailing cables everywhere is often not an option. Cable management aside, the time taken to install cabling constitutes a significant part of overall build time. Being able to sling out a load of uplighters and instantly have remote control of colour mixed light for the next twelve hours plus, is a plus in many situations.

CORE and GDS (GDS using the same LEDs as the i-Pix) have the aformentioned high quality of colour output that is important to specifiers.

On the wireless front, the L&SI sponsored Innvoations Gallery contained a number of wire free products including a motor hoist control and wireless RDM (Remote Device management) DMX traffic system. Wires are so last century.

Other interestings

This year was the first opportunity for OSL to have a good look at the ( award winning, as of last night) Robe Robin series of moving heads, the key feature being a Plasma light source. The compact spot and wash lights are similar to 250w MSR/MSD powered head with a pleasing colour temperature and some nice optics. I am not sure I understand how a plasma lamp really works, but the unit was bright, cool and quiet. It also featured a touchscreen menu control for adjusting settings and an internal battery to enable a hire warehouse to set and address the fixture without having to plug into a mains supply. Look, no wires again.

After the prototype debut at PLASA last year, the RSC sponsored Lightlock has found a manufacturer in Total Solutions. The Lightlock was designed as a means of solving the specific problem that moving heads create when attached to a small hanging structure such as a trapeze or pantograph. The unit is electrically powered and senses movement, attempting to eliminate it by creating an opposing force via a moving mass inside the unit.

Although the problem seems pretty specialised, it does allow moving lights to be rigged in ways that have not been possible before and is particularly of interest to designers of TV studios, who use pantograph systems for easy overhead fixture suspension. The cost per unit, in relation to a moving light or pantograph for instance, does not look too outrageous if it allows a specific design problem to be solved.

The unit that Total were showing looked totally different to the original show last year. As well as being a neater unit, I understand that a major revisit of the internal components was necessary to make the Lightlock a commercially viable piece of kit. Apparently, the production version is significantly more kinetically efficient too.

It was good to see the Morpheus, granddaddy of “men in sheds” intelligent lighting, at PLASA for the first time. Showing their established multi stream CMY scroller system, they also brought the Pacific Fader CMY and dowser design specifically for the Selecon Pacific. While the world seems to be full of the ETC Source Four, the Selecon Pacific continues being a great profile spot which has either incandescent and discharge light sources. The Pacific Fader fits the gate of the Pacific, providing CMY and CTO graduated dichroic filters that are DMX controllable creating a wide range of high quality colours. Using a discharge light source, dimming is provided by a further graduated dichroic that a demonstation showed a really beautiful dimming quality. Sure beats mechanical shutters.

On Stage Lighting readers unfamiliar with dichroic colour filters should know that rather than absorbing colour wavelengths, dichroic filters reflect them while the desired colours carry on through. A dichroic dimmer works in a similar fashion, reflecting different amounts of the whole spectrum.

Anytronics were showing the AnyScene 2 which now boasts more DMX channels and the ability run up to 8 panels in tandem. For the unitiated, the Anyscene is a great little panel that allows you to record DMX information via an input and then play it back by pressing one of the playback buttons on the front. This is ideal for installation where you want the end user to have limited control to your highly complex DMX controlled environment, having used the tools of your choice to set the scenes. Anyway, being able to slave up to 8 panels and give any panel control is a really useful addition.

Our favourite product in the non lighting camp? We call it the Tape Trundler and it was an interesting piece of gear for the application of tape to a stage floor. Like a big parcel taping gun with a wheel and a long handle, the dispenser seemed like the answer to the prayers of anyone who had spent hours on their knees taping down Marley (AKA known as dance flooring). Now if you could incorporate laying cables and taping them down into that, I’m in.

So that’s if for another year. The PLASA show is the accepted way to show off your latest innovations and is surely has to be given credit as a part of the engine that drives technology at the current manic rate.

If the smoke and mirrors all get too much, there is always the option of stopping off at the AC Lighting stand and watching someone else make cables.

So, did you get to PLASA this year.  What really caught your eye?  Comments in the box below as usual.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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A quick look at the past, present and future of user interfaces (UI) in lighting console design with the question “Are we actually doing it right?”

So, there we were in the middle of a series of tutorials on the Cham Sys MagicQ when something unexpected happened. Something totally out of the blue. A rumour went around that some students in Bath had used the MagicQ PC and PC Wing as part of a recent show – and didn’t like it! They didn’t get on with it and eventually gave up and swapped it for another controller. The other controller was (wait for it) a Pulsar Masterpiece! (Igor, I thought I told you to round up all the DisasterPieces and crush them?) How could this happen?

At first, this seemed like a case of youthful exhuberance vs. RTFM but I was assured that the User Manual was consulted on this occasion. A further conversation on Twitter brought up the whole question of what makes a good User Interface (UI) for a lighting control. I realised that current console interfaces that work so well for me were evolutions of desks that I already knew, with concepts that are rooted in lighting control history. What if you didn’t have a lighting console history?

What if you had never used a Strand Galaxy or a Celco Gold? Or even a Hog II? What if you only ever used a computer with a Windows style GUI? Would any of these flippin’ desks make sense to you?

What do you want from a lighting control?

• Speed – You want to be able to do as much as possible in the short time available.
• Flexibility – You want the console to give you the flexibility to control your specific show, and there are many kinds of show with different control needs.
• Control – Well, duh.
• To Spend As Much Time As Humanly Possible Looking At The Stage And Not Fumbling With Buttons And Other Input Hardware – Er, like I said.

There are two types of lighting controller: Those you know. And those you don’t.

The first type ticks all the boxes because you can use it’s many functions quickly, mostly without looking at the thing. The second kind is what makes you question the UI and can turn you off that console early on.

Modern consoles have evolved from older consoles and older operators have evolved with them. In stage lighting control we have some versions of our own standards, but they are incomplete and not always obvious to the newcomer. And first impressions count.

Long term vs short term usability

The new generation of techies have grown up in a world full of standards. Across software apps, the File menu has always been Top Left and it’s contents are pretty predictable. Standards are great because they allow the new, the lazy and (let’s face it) the stupid, a better chance of being able make at least some progress. Most PC apps give three or four ways of doing something in an effort that you will find at least one of Keyboard Shortcut / Right Click Menu / Top Menu / Toolbar.

The trouble with these standards is that they have led the world to believe that anything technical can be used, if you just “have a go”. Someone recently asked me to turn the ring tone on their phone off but I had never seen this phone before , how hard could it be? After a couple of unsuccessful attempts (I hung up on their mother and probably deleted at least one of their Contacts) the ringer was sorted. I could use the phone but only to the low standard.

When you become familiar with a UI, your muscle memory tunes into it and things happen automatically. Speed and accuracy are increased, freeing your mind up to concentrate on the end result while forgetting about process. Looking for functions vs. looking at the stage.

Who is the UI working for, the casual prodder or power user – or both?

A Cham Sys problem?

Cham Sys seem to have a great idea – Make a good console with loads of familiar features, add some more and create a platform with possibilities for the future. Make a PC software version that is compatible with cheap DMX output devices and hope to build a fanbase, proficient in your console and specifying the top models in your range.

But…

The first time I saw the MagicQ it was real and was accompanied by the man who designed it. And I had a history of using the Hog II, which the MQ shares many concepts. I liked the Cham Sys as a lighting desk and the fact that it came as a free PC app was a bonus.

Perhaps you and I had a different experience of the MagicQ UI. Perhaps you downloaded MagicQ PC, read the help, tried to make sense of an already alien world. No one can pretend that a lighting desk plonked on a computer screen is the ideal UI for anyone. Hell, I defy anyone to download Grand MA onPC and work out that it’s a half decent lighting console. However, the MA has the kudos of being “the” desk on those shows you read about in L&SI, it doesn’t have to introduce itself to you via a PC screen.

The trouble is, many people encounter tghe MagicQ via the PC version and perhaps with little console history. Is this the best first impression? Is there the tiniest possiblity that what seemed like a great idea to spread your message might actually backfire when you can’t put your best UI face on to the newest users?

Where are we GUIng now?

(ok, enough UI puns for today)

While trying to empathise with the guys struggling with an alien interface, I started to question the future of lighting interfaces and their ease of use for all kinds of users – casual and dedicated.
A lot of my initial thinking on this subject was centered around the physical aspects and I asked a question over at the Blue Room that provoked some interesting opinions. Are we using the right hardware and software? Do current lighting controls only work for me because they were designed by my contemporaries? Would it be better if all UI were further standardised?

So what do you think? What kind of UI do you think would take us into the future of lighting control and cater for all users?

Image by Zach Klein on Flickr

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

UK based touring LD Mark Wynn-Edwards takes time for a chat and to tell us why, despite years of being an Avo man, he now owns and uses a Jands Vista.

The Jands Vista has been around for quite a while but isn’t one of those consoles I see regularly on the road, at least not in the UK. With no particular incentives or word from other LD’s, I have to confess to have left the Vista on the list of ” Oh, yeah. Saw that once at PLASA” desks. Let’s face it, until all your mates start raving about a desk or one turns up in every control position, things remain on the backburner. Maybe I would take a look … one day.

Mark Wynn-Edwards has toured as LD/Programmer with many acts including Grace Jones, The Klaxons, Jamie Cullum and As I Lay Dying (quite a mix, then). Finding out that an LD like Mark had spent his own hard earned cash on a Jands Vista T2….well, it needed investigating! Time to find out what the Vista is all about and what better way than to ask Mark himself.

Mark in the office with his Vista T2

OSL: Mark, people occasionally mention the Jands Vista to me but I don’t know a lot about it. Give me a reference point relating to other desk manufacturers and console types – where are the similarities?

Mark W-E: There are similarities as all desks are controlling the same thing. Running the Vista is like no other – it has more in common with Apple Imovie. I am led to believe Imovie was an inspiration, with the idea of having little “clips” that you place on a time line …..its a great way to work.
Some people have issues with the desk but once you have shed all the console baggage and assumptions, it suddenly makes a lot of sense and you realise that it’s very powerful.

OSL: Most consoles and their associated press releases tell us they are equally at home in any lightng control situation. Do you think that the Vista has a kind of show that it really lends itself to controlling?

Mark W-E: Over the years I have had the desk I have used it for touring Pop, Rock and metal bands , corporate work and TV work – I have yet to use the Vista for Theatre . The console is equally capable in all situations and with a bit of use and thought you can even busk on it ….. contrary to what people think. You can create looks very quickly with just a few touches of the tablet. Very handy for corporate and Tv work when people are wanting and demanding instant looks.

OSL: You have a background in Avolites Pearls, Hog II and others, why did you decide to buy a Vista T2 for your personal desk?

Mark W-E: When I went shopping at PLASA I was looking for a desk to cover all the varied work I do so it would have to be happy in a TV studio or FOH at a gig. At the time I had a Pearl 2000 so I considered moving to a D4 and after a few hours at the Avo stand I was convinced this was what I wanted.

But …..

I went for a walk to think about it (spending a lot of money ) and also took a look at Hog as the III had just come out but we all know how the hog III was in the early days…. Then I saw the A.C lighting stand and this desk called the Jands Vista. Neil Vann gave me a demo and it just clicked – no more number crunching, just working and staying in the train of thought of what I am trying to do with the lights. Simple as..

A week later I was down at AC for training and picking up a Jands T4 …I couldn’t get home quick enough.

Never looked back ………and with each update the desk improves and you get fantastic support from Jands. They also listen to the operators when they ask or suggest options for the desk.

OSL: Like a lot of lighting controls, Jands have a PC version for learning, pre-patching etc. How does the interface compare with the real thing?

Mark W-E: The PC/Mac version is identical to the real desks. I have a version on my Apple that I use to try ideas out, or after a show make changes while they are fresh in my mind to reload the next day. I also use the Apple version to test fixtures with the USB –DMX cable that Jands do. Its a very handy little thing. With the addition of a DMX dongle and one of the many playback wings, you have a fully working Vista desk

I plan to build a super portable version of my desk for those gigs where you fly out do the gig and fly back. And for touring and festival use where you have to use some sort of hell desk at times.

OSL: It is possible for a beginner to make a good start learning on just the PC version?

Mark W-E: The PC/Mac version is an ideal way to learn the console or brush up on what you know.

OSL: Jands highlight two features of the Vista in particular – less keypad style entry and the timeline. I left number crunching behind in the theatre, but timeline has been around in various forms for a while. Tell me why I should fully embrace the timeline as a Lighting Designer?

Mark W-E: The timeline has numerous uses depending on how you use the desk. Its great way to work as you can see precisely when things happen and what the lights are doing .- very handy if you get a rogue fixture doing something it shouldn’t.

If required you can set moments for a show to happen bang on time using the time line. You can add MP3 tracks to the time line this is great as you can program to the mp3. You have to remember to put pauses in there to allow for the band playing it differently.
You can get the desk to Cue other Cues – load media on a server so its ready to go or get fixtures into position so you don’t get that classy moment where lights go woosh across the stage.

Having the desk do all these things make operating a show a great experience and help make the show be quite fluid and live.

OSL: You work on a lot of live music touring. What’s your typical programming and playback style and what kind of notes are always on your programming To Do list?

Mark W-E: How I run my desk varies from contract to contract but normally it’s a page for every song – then each page has the elements of each song on a fader or a button
On the screen I have the control of colours and position or other stuff required -I try to keep it as simple as I can . And a page for the local tech to do the support bands, as always.

OSL: As well as the Vista, your CV mentions Avo and Hog consoles. Do you have any thoughts on the MA and Cham Sys desks?

Mark W-E: I don’t know much about the Cham Sys desks but the MA is very impressive. I have used them a few times at festivals . I love the networking function where you have a master and slave desk. I saw that used to its limit on Chemical Brothers which was impressive.

But now I have the Vista way of doing stuff I get tripped up mentally when I have to go back to number crunching – I am used to doing a drag and drop or a simple click . But I would like to learn more about the MA.

OSL: For anyone just starting out in lighting and hoping to make a career of it there seems to be a lot to know nowadays. The skillset is growing rapidly and I am not sure that I could learn this complex trade in the space of a few years. Do you think that specialists will rule the lighting world of the future or do we just need to start changing the way we train lighting professionals?

Mark W-E: I think there will always be a place for the freelancer who can generally do stuff but high end shows will require and demand specialists as it can get quite technical at times.
The business has been headed in this direction since moving lights first came on the scene, starting with the VL techs . When not working as an LD, I work as a moving light tech, staying up to date. Modern fixtures cost so much to hire and generally you get one spare – you need people who can look at a fixture, know what they are doing and make it work . Not just the crew member who has some tools and is willing to have a bash.

Thanks, Mark.

So, I have resolved to try to make some time for the Jands Vista and maybe follow it up with another article. Perhaps On Stage Lighting readers would like to give the Vista a try – download the PC or Mac version and post your Vista experiences in the comments below. We’d love to hear ‘em.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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Media Servers and Digital Lighting was a quick introduction to “convergence” and the technologies involved in using digital media for stage lighting. Current lighting trends include the use of arrays of fixtures such as RGB LED units to replay images and effects, using Pixel Mapping. This article looks at the basics of pixel mapping and asks if it is possible to re create some of these effects on a budget.

What is Pixel Mapping, exactly?

Pixel Mapping (in the World of Lampie) is the use of software to map and replay media such as bitmaps or video on an array (AKA grid or raster) of lighting fixtures. The fixtures could be anything; moving spots, PAR cans, Birdies but the use of colour mixing LED kit (inc Pixeline, Versa Tube or Color Web) is a common and appealing technique. You effectively get a low resolution screen to display your goodies, made from “pixels” of red, green and blue LEDs. In this article, we will refer back to the RGB LED model as it’s easy to understand.

Displaying the image on the screen is the job of the pixel mapper. Professional lighting media servers have mapping functions, pixel mapping software (like PixelDrive or the Arkaos Pixel Mapper) is available to run on a laptop and some lighting consoles can cope with a degree of mapping all on their own.

Pixel Mapping isn’t projecting media content using a projecter and firing it from the lighting console. The main brief of mapping is to turn your array of “simple” fixtures into a giant telly. The “screen” doesn’t have to be rectangular or even one complete surface – using pixel mapping, you could create some great effects with a long single strip of RGB LEDS or play a huge image across a number of different elements.

How does pixel mapping work?

The pixel mapper treats each fixture as an individual pixel and sends the correct information (usually colour and intensity) to the array.

Lighting fixtures are still commonly controlled using different implementations of DMX. With our LED “pixels” using up at least 3 DMX channels, you can see how even a small surface can use up hundreds of DMX addresses. Some control systems and media servers have their own proprietory network protocol to talk to each other, but talking to the fixtures themselves requires a standardised approach. Currently, the most common control signals are sent using ARTNet, the open source protocol for sending mulitple DMX universes. This can be split down at the surface or go straight into a proprietory control box for the LED sytem.

Pixel mapping is only an interface tool. It lets you create complex effects the easy wasy – with digital media. It certainly beats programming a 1000 step chase of complex RGB levels. It doesn’t have to be a full colour “screen” of LEDs. There is no reason why you can’t send the output to dimmers connected to a grid of PARS.

What information does a pixel mapper need?

Take the simplest system – a 3 x 3 grid of PARs (yes, you can’t display hi res video on this but it’s a good starting point). The pixel mapper needs to know that your array or grid is 3 pixels by 3 pixels – 9 PARs in a square.

The system also needs to know that PAR 1 (DMX dimmer A/001 for example) is top left and that the number runs from Left to Right, Top to Bottom. This means when media pixel 1 is ON, the correct PAR (Top Left) fades up.

If we had a 3 x 3 grid of RGB leds, it would need to know that DMX 0/001 was Red, Top Left; 0/002 Green, Top Left etc. When media pixel 1 needed to be Yellow, it would send 100% ish to 0/001 and 0/002. (If you are wondering what 0/ is, it’s just the numbering system we are using to identify DMX universes this time. The first ARTnet DMX universe is 0)

So, the pixel mapper needs to know the number of fixtures and the shape of the surface plus the positioning (ie. DMX addresses) of the fixtures. Media server pixel mapping software can have the fixture personalities of particular instruments to help with the DMX channels. The personalities are handy for the quick set up of large arrays using common fixtures such as Color Web or Pixeline. In our examples, we’ll just think in terms of a few simple RGB elements.

Pitch or Offset

Many products and layouts have a set pixel “pitch”. This is the distance between each pixel, vertically and horizontally, and is important when mapping onto surfaces where the pixels/fixtures aren’t jammed up tight together.

Mapping a screen image onto a surface with a wide pitch, the image ends up stretched all over. Digital media usually has a 1:1 pixel pitch ( the horizontal pitch is the same as the vertical). If your fixtures were 300mm apart sideways but 1m up/down from each other, the resulting image is stretched and squashed all over the place. Distortion of media might be a nice effect but only if you intended it to happen.

Some mapping layouts consist of a number of different “bits” of surface, spread apart from each other across stage. Getting an entire image to work across all the surfaces requires the actual positions of each piece being entered into the pixel mapper. Getting the heights and offsets correct, in the mapper as well as in the rig, can be time consuming. The final effect is worth it.

Content for Pixel Mapping

The suitability of content for pixel mapping depends on the arrays they will be replayed on. A really low resolution grid like our 9 PARs isn’t going to look much with an XGA full colour image across it. Although it is not always necessary to create media content at exactly the right resolution, understanding how the images will actually look is important. Great effects can be created with a low resolution array and some carefully chosen higher res media but think of the result of 16 million colours on those 9 PAR Cans. A bit of a dimmy, flashy mess. I don’t recommend trying to get those colours using scrollers – heh, heh!

Pixel Mapping on the cheap

We bet that you want ways to experiment with pixel mapping without going the expense of full on media servers or Grand MA’s. Quite a few cheap lighting control software has some form of pixel mapping function including the OSL favourite – Cham Sys MagicQ PC (some tutorials on pixel mapping the Cham Sys are in the pipeline). The onboard array control on the Cham Sys is similar in nature to the system on the Grand MA – creation of grids, applying fixtures and mapping images, text and other effects to them. The MagicQ also has the facility to preview the resulting output in a window, so you can see the result.

Previewing your pixel mapping is ideal when you are looking for a cheap solution to experiment with this kind of digital lighting. Even if with some free pixel mapping software, the chances of being able to set up a vast array of real RGB LEDs to work with are slim. Even getting hold of 9 working PAR cans is a struggle in some places

What cheap pixel mapping options are there?

I have done some hunting around on behalf of the On Stage Lighting readers. Many of the software mappers have free trials but some genuinely free pixel mapping software is .Matrix, a project developed by a student from Tulsa. Although not in current active development, .Matrix maps Quicktime files to an LED Matrix,.outputs ArtNet ArtNet and developer Landy Bible, tells us that current features are stable and show ready:

“.Matrix is stable in my experience, and none of my users have reported any problems with it.
The biggest problem that anybody wanting to use .Matrix will have is getting it working the first time. It relies on Java and Quicktime to do its magic, and Quicktime doesn’t always like to play nice with Java. Typically, reinstalling Quicktime after Java is installed will correct the problem. “

Landy also says that he has currently put extra features on hold ( more I/O devices like the Enttec Pro USB DMX) but hints that if enough people are interested, he would continue working on the software. So, why not download it and let us know how you get on.

On Stage Lighting readers always want to know how they can learn this kind of technology without huge budgets. Do you have experience of any free/cheap solutions for pixel mapping? Tell us about your experiences in the comments box.

If this has helped you, consider buying me a beer and CLICK HERE to donate a few bucks to On Stage Lighting (why should I donate?). Thanks, - Rob

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