Best way to programme a concert?

[samcoombes]

Ok, we have a 'Christmas Concert' coming up, which basically involves hundreds of students doing singing, dancing, comedy acts etc. a bit like pop idol...

 

I'll be using about 50 generic lights, and various macs, smoke etc...

 

Basically I want to know the best way to programme each act, for example when there is a dance, i hit the go button and the macs go mental, everything in time with the music etc.

 

I'm not sure on the best way to approach it though... :?:

[K-Nine]

You can try programming chase memories with a bass drive and plug an audio input into the back of the desk. The chases when running will then step on the bass beat of the music.

 

Alternatively, you could set the drive modifier to beat, and then use the corresponding step button to tap out the beat of the chase live when it is run.

 

You could set the pan and tilt (and any other parameters if you wish) to FROG, and set the mode to sound to light.

[samcoombes]

ok i'll give that a try and see what happens.

 

Cheers

[sam.henderson]

The other way I would suggest is as follows:

 

Set the board to Partial Programming (for really detailed instructions on how to set it and how to program using this sort of programming look in the manual RTFM!!).

 

On Each sub page record a different thing. For example:

 

Sub Page 1: Generic Colour Washes of stage

Sub Page 2: Generic Specials (gobos etc. etc.)

Sub Page 3: Positions for macs (and any other mls)

Sub Page 4: Shape Generator Movements

Sub Page 5: Gobos (macs/ mls)

Sub Page 6: Rotating Gobos (macs/ mls)

Sub Page 7: Colours for macs/ mls

Sub Page 8: (Should really be at beginning but forgot!!) ML/ Macs brightness

 

So basically you busk the show:

For example the first part you have a host/ presenter come on and introduce the show so i would put up a nice generic colour wash of the stage, then put up the sub with the position information for where he/ she is standing, then put up that mls brightness. Therefore I would have a nice wash accross the stage and a spot on him.

 

Next scene is a fast jazzy dance number, so I put in a nice red or something from the colours i have stored on page 7 then put up a movement effect (elipse/ figure of 8/ etc.) from page four and then select the fixtures i want to do it by putting their brightness up sorted on page eight.

 

What if you want to say put up a red which is on sub 4 on page 7 and a figure of eight from page 4 sub 4?? Then put up the colour change the page to movement effects with the fader still up, take it down and back up again quickly and the movement effect will be played (and it will stay red) because all channels/ attributes for moving lights work on a LTP (Latest takes precedence) level so until told to do otherwise (ie back to open white or another colour) it will stay red. If you are clever however you could plan it out cleverley so if say one colour really doesn't go with one particular gobo and the you would put them on the same sub number (on each of there pages). I hope this makes sense to you.

 

Another option if you just want the lights to go mad is the FROG FUNCTION (Fixture random output generator). This just makes them go mad and can be used with s2l.

 

HTH

 

Sam

[sp]

What you could do with the 'presenter' is to have a scene that makes the stage look good while they're talking, and have it easily at hand (i.e. regardless of submaster page).

 

I do the following:

 

1. Create a scene that dresses the stage while the presenter's talking. You could also add the presenter's spot to this. Set a nice fade up/down time (3 sec). Put this scene on memory 300 (or somewhere out of the way).

 

2. Now on memory 301 put no generics at all (and take your presenter

spot down), and again put a nice fade time. Set the Jump to memory 299.

 

3. Set the Next memory to 300, and put the Playback X up.

 

4. Now it's a doddle to use. When you want your presenter, just hit the Go button. They'll fade up, and you can forget about it - no worry finding subs or anything. Meanwhile you can plan your next act, set-up presets, whatever.

 

Then when the presenter's finished, just hit the Go button again. They'll fade down and you're ready for the next act. Setting the Jump to 299 means that when you want the presenter again, you can just hit the Go button again - no hassle.

 

The outcome - Go puts the presenter on, Go turns 'em off again, everytime.

 

sp

[samcoombes]

thanks for all of the ideas - i'll ry them all and see which I get on with best