TECH TALK
This page will try to serve as an overview and in addition to the techrider, stageplot and pyro specs. All of which you can download and print.
PYRO- Such a difficult thing after what happened in RI and Chicago a couple of years ago. To make everything a bit more simple and stress-free on everyone ALL of our pyro effects can be cut without doing major damage to the show. Those are classic pyro effects that use open flame, flashpaper etc. BUT we have a hazer (which is liquid based and not a "burn" hazer) without which the lasers over the heads of the audience do not show up. So if anyone has a problem with the hazer do let us know in advance.
LASERS- All Air-cooled (8 of them total) so no messy water lines to run. These do 2 numbers in the show, 1 with animation on your cyc or our screen if you do not have a cyc. We even carry Ultimate Support System towers to set our screen up on if we need to. However we do need adequate electricity for these lasers. If the electricity goes out then so do the lasers causing possible damage.
ELECTRICITY- We carry our own 3 phase disconnect box which has tails and/or camlocks. This we can tie into a breaker box if you do not have a dedicated disconnect. Our box needs to live off-stage down-stage left or as close as we can get to it. The Box has 100 feet of feeder cable. Carter is an electrician and has re-wired from scratch 2 theatres and 2 houses over 100 years old during his life-time. So he can do the tie-in and deal with this when we get there. If all this sounds like gobble-dee-gook, relax. In the History of the show we have only NOT been able to tie-in once. We CANNOT use non-dims for this.
TECHNOBEAMS- We carry 3 moving lights and if you have a fly system we will use all 3 but if your space is dead-hung, ie the pipes the lights and curtains are on DO NOT move up and down, then we will set up 2 of them, 1 on either side of the stage which gives us a similar effect. These run off of our own control cable to our own controller with electricity out of our disconnect box. So all your crew has to do is unpack and hang them. We even bring C-clamps and safety cables.
SOUND- rack lives downstage left, off stage near our power distribution box. For speakers we bring in a pair of EAW LA 460s which we will put on the front of the stage on either side. These speakers are powered by a QSC PLX 3402 amp. We are running thru a Mackie 1642 VLZ pro Mixing board. Mikes are Senheizzer UHF switchable frequency lavaliers for the performers. All of the talking is comedy talking, no singing except for the pre-recorded blues song the dragon sings. We even have a wireless handheld mike of the same type for your presenter or sponsor to say a few words (no longer than 3 minutes-pass that one up the food chain). We run in true stereo from a laptop runing Stage Research SFX. The sound is all digital and an original soundtrak. We can give you 2 balanced out from our board if we want to patch into the house sound. It is usually not needed unless you have an extremely steep balcony. Also we ALWAYS set up our speakers, partly because they double as stands for our lasers. But also we are just paranoid after doing this all over the world since 1987.
LIGHTING- 4 stage washes, pink and blue from front of house, pink and blue over head, 2 cyc washes, red and blue. Each of these washes should be pre hung, rough focus and patched before we come in the door. Out of these washes we will create about 5 submasters and your person will be on your lighting board to run the show. We will provide typed cue-sheets for your lighting person and called cues over the headsets.
HEADSETS- We bring with us Telex wireless headsets. 4 for your crew, 1 for us. We have a talk thru from the mike on the board to the headset system which we use now and then through out the show.
CREW CALL- 1 lighting operator, 2 stage hands, 1 more stage hand if your fly system control is upstairs or up a ladder or anywhere else besides onstage level. ALSO 4 people for unload, reload. This can be THE SAME 4 people that run the show. ALSO if you have a
DIFFICULT LOAD-IN ie upstairs into the front of your theatre, down an aisle and carry onto the stage, then you will need to provide a few more people for the first hour of load-in and during the last half hour of load out.
LOAD-OUT takes 90 minutes absolute maximum on a 3 show day when we haven't slept for a month. Usually closer to 60 minutes. This is our stuff out the door and packed in our truck, This DOES NOT include any time for your people to do a restore.
FLY SYSTEM- If you have one we will use it, if not no problem. We can use 4 empty pipes anywhere you have them but mid-stage on downstage is preferred. We will add no more then 200 pounds to any one pipe. That is the pipe with 3 techno beams and cable. The other pipes are in the 35-85 pound range.
CYC- We like to have your cyc and back black traveler or fly piece hung all the way upstage. Cyc most upstage and black curtain just downstage of it.
We are very easy to work with and come in and out zoom zoom zoom. Packing lists, truck loading lists all quite well organized.
We like to load in 6 hours before a show so that we can unload, set-up, do our sound and light tests, and then give the crew a break for food while we finish our warm-up for the show. This lead time also gives us time to fix things if anything gets busted going up and down the road.
I hopes this gives you lots of information and some comfort. Any info you need in addition please call my cell 303-956-7527 or the office if we are not on tour 303-413-8116 or e-mail lazervaudeville@earthlink.net .
LAST MINUTE changes to any conversation we may have had, DO NOT DO THESE VIA E-MAIL inside of 48 hours from your load-in time, call me on the cell instead.
IF YOU ARE A TD and your executive director is thinking of hiring us, then give me a call if you want to chat about details or concerns.
Thanks
Carter Brown
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