BOO1: Schecknology goes Intelligent
Stage lighting at Boo has often been somewhat hit or miss. One year, when the party was at the Emerald Forest, Clark provided a single 500 Watt Par Can, illuminating a parachute hung from the tree canopy. Great ambient light, but not particularly dramatic.Stuart Rooney and John Alt have done lightshows at Boo parties for several years, including most of the parties held at Tuskawilla. Their gear consisted of lots of Par 38 150 Watt fixtures and some pencil spots, all controlled by a manual switching keyboard.Setting up this gear was a labor of love, with emphasis on the word Labor! Lots of zipcord, extension cords, and occasional sparks and smoke. Stuart could easily spend a couple of days setting up the gear, right up to the band getting onstage, and then spend the night performing with the band. Pretty exhausting.
B00 2K
In 2000, I decided to get a small rental system from Kellights. Since we were on a pretty tight power budget of less than 15000 watts for everything (lights, laser, sound, band), I spec’d out a system of 24 150W parcans, 3 2400W dimmers, and a small 16 channel light console. The lights were arranged in 6 groups of 4 cans on small bars, which were hung directly from the canopy. 4 circuit multicables ran power from each dimmer to each rack.My idea was to get all the lights up in the air, hung from the canopy. This gives a more professional look, and is better for any videotaping or pictures that people might take. Also, by going with a normal dimmer pack/lighting console setup, fades and subtle light effects were possible, rather than flash-flash all night long.Stuart and Rob worked hard setting up all the fixtures, particularly fighting with the boneheaded clamping scheme I had thought up. However, once the fixtures were hung, the rest was pretty easy. The console even had a built in chase.With 12 dimmer channels, this allowed for 4 lighting positions on stage ( 3 in front, and drums in back), and three color changes per position.This rental package cost about $250, plus we had to pick up and return the system to Kellights, on the other side of town.
B001
I was thinking about what we could do for B001 that would be even better and (hopefully) easier. Most modern lightshow are based on intelligent lights that respond to commands to change color, position, gobo pattern, etc. I thought this might be the way to go.After searching the internet, I found some discount lights that looked pretty good. I selected two types of fixtures, one type that could just change color (eight possible colors) and one that could do a lot more. The Synchro-Spot was a 250 W fixture that had a DMX controlled color wheel. The second fixture type is called Mighty Scan, also with a 250 W lamp. However, it boasted 21 colors, 21 gobo patterns, and full XY positioning capability, all controlled by DMX.DMX is a digital control scheme that is pretty universal in modern lighting. Nowadays, each fixture gets a power cord and a DMX control signal. The signal tells the fixture what to do. No more dimmer racks and buzz in the sound system. The DMX signal is sent over standard mic cable, daisy chained from fixture to fixture. There are up to 512 channels of control under DMX.Eight fixtures for a four piece band is pretty minimal, but with intelligent fixtures, you can dynamically change the position or focus of the lights. I set the four Synchro-Spots on the front truss to provide a front key light for the three - four positions on the stage. With a stage only 16 feet wide, this worked okay. The four Mighty Scan fixtures were set on the back and sides of the canopy, providing back and side lighting that could be positioned anywhere desired. Moreover, they could be any color desired as well.To provide lighting for the drum position at the back, I provided a DMX controlled 4 channel relay box. Stuart and John provided two of their four lamp fixtures, which we gelled with red-green-blue and white. The Mighty Scan fixture could not only provide back and side light to the frontline, they could also sweep to the drum position for additional lighting.
To control all this, one needs a DMX lighting console. However, the laser show program I use also has DMX outputs. Instead of buying or renting a DMX console, I brought another computer, and used that to control the lights. I preprogrammed about 10 sets of "looks" at my studio (colors, gobos, and positions) using a set of global variables for position.Once all the lights were hung and powered up on Thursday night, I did some programming to set the final positions for each light. Since we had four moving light fixtures and about 10 looks, this took about 2 hours or so and several beers.One other main difference is the use of a performance console to play the lights. Back in the days of the lighting keyboard or the console, each button activated one or more fixtures. To get several fixtures to turn on, you mashed a bunch of buttons. Using the performance console, all this has changed. Each button represents a cue, a specific selection of colors, patterns and position, which could also change during the time of the cue.Clark and Stuart took turns running the console for the bands, and it took a bit of adjustment to learn this newer way of controlling what was going on onstage. Since there were several looks and different combinations, it took a while to learn the pre-programmed functions.The end result was probably not as bright a stage as we had on previous years (2000 Watts versus 3600 Watts), but there was a lot more variety in color and certainly motion. Most of the professional gigs I do have at least 8 or 12 intelligent fixtures, and many have nothing but intelligent lights. I figure that this is the 21st century, might as well make use of it!Since I had purchased the fixtures, they just had to go back in their cases, no rental fees and no returns. I expect that this year I will probably get a few more fixtures so that all the lighting is intelligent. Maybe a DMX console too.- Laser Greg
