If you are moving outdoors, I would like to make some suggestions that you may or may not have thought of:
I have extensive experience as I was a ME for a Shakespeare Festival for many years.
1) Make sure that your fixtures are protected from any chance of water, if using a stand make sure the fixtures are covered. This is important as water and electricity do not mix.
2) You will want to make sure to cover all cables so no one trips over them. Or you might want to have wireless to transmit signal.
3) You will need to verify all of the power circuits available to you, different plug locations do not mean different circuits.
4) Verify how many of the fixtures that you are using can be put on a power circuit.
5) Your tech week will need to happen outdoors and at the time your show will occur, the sun can have a major impact on your lighting. expect your tech to be there late to fix things nightly.
6) Make sure you have power for sound, test early to insure there is no cross contamination from the lighting power.
7) If you are doing multiple shows, have security to make sure your equipment does not walk away, there are lots of sticky fingers out there.
8) Program your show basically inside then refine it at dry tech outdoors.
9) Make sure that all items are secured to the ground for safety, you do not want actors or patrons knocking over a lighting position mid production.
10) Protect your lights nightly, bag them or cover them, open during the day if possible to let them air out any moisture.
Other suggestions...
I have in the past illuminated a production of using the search lights for cars hand held by the performers that moves around and acted as portions of the lighting.
Traditional PAR 64 fixtures fare better in the outdoors as they are just a energized lamp and you can rent aluminum units that wont rust.
You will want to have a procedure created for bad weather occurring before or during the show.
There may be more but please start there
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Jerry Onik
V.P. Theatrical Supplies and Equipment
Omaha NE
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Original Message:
Sent: 08-13-2020 20:29
From: Andrew Miller
Subject: Doing Theatre performances outside LIGHTING?
Hello everyone!
We are moving our fall show to the outdoors, and I am lucky enough to have access to some programmable LED Pars, but am trying to figure out if there is a program that I can use to program and run them from a laptop.
This is my fourth year teaching and luckily I have been able to use our auditorium light board and equipment always in the past, but Tech is definitely my weak point so I am at a total loss as to what to use for our fall show, and have also been able to program fades and cues in the past, but did not know if there was a way to do that on a program through a laptop.
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Andrew Miller
Peachtree City GA
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