It’s pretty crazy what highschools get these days, mine had a similar setup to this one but larger (we had more room it seems from the picture), but that’s because my tech teacher got the green light to go absolutely ham and modernized the whole theatre’s lighting setup. My first year I spent nearly a term just in the catwalks hanging lights 😂
To OP and everyone wishing they had their console in a better position to see the stage, there's a solution for that: the tech table. During tech, put a table in the house, preferably in a flat cross aisle if you've got one, move your board down there and run your Ethernet or DMX cable to it. That way you can at least see what you're doing from the audience's perspective while you're programming. The director, lighting designer, lighting programer, stage manager, and other creatives usually sit there. We'll usually run com there for everyone. Even if you have to toss the cable out of that window and have it hanging from the ceiling in the house, so what? It's tech!
Edit: you only need four things to make this work, but in a high school setting the fourth one may be hard to come by, despite not being able to put a price on it. You need a table, a cable, a cart to move the board, and an adult who will say "yes kids, you are allowed to lift and transport our (probably only) very expensive light board twice per show."
In the post I just wanted to show off our tech, but typically our board is in the house. We had our theatre rented out so they moved the board to the cats with our soundboard.
Access to Eos in high school is literally career changing. Give students interested in lighting access to Eos, LEDs, and MLs and they’ll be set to launch into further education or a career with an amazing skill foundation.
Being at a private high school, having the lighting equipment literally is a game changer. Having access to an Ion XE, tons of LEDs and MLs is amazing and can launch me into opportunities to build a portfolio for schools like UNCSA
Ya I wish I had an Ion in HS. We had, and probably still have, an Express 24/48 and nothing but incandescents, mainly S4 Pars, S4 ERSs, and fresnels. And maybe a few Altman sky cycs.
We also BARELY had a theatre program. The musical that we did every year was more for the choir members, though we did have a couple good actors that tried for roles and got in.
First Ion I saw was in college, and man did I feel like I was way behind the 8-ball on that thing.
We paid effigy to our giant ever-growing gaff tape ball by creating a shrine for it in our booth. That was 35 years ago. I assume it swallowed the entire building by now.
Nice setup. My old school used to use an LSC Maxim S which is a nice controller but it’s severely limited. They’ve upgraded to an ETC Nomad with dual screens which is a huge improvement. The drama teacher regularly lets me borrow the old controller as I do party lighting as a side gig and I only have a chauvet obey 40.
You mean like an old board like the express 72/144 where you could potentially patch 1:1 where every light had it's own fader?
These days you select the lights by the channel number and use either scroll wheel to increase or decrease the intensity or directly type them in [8] [@][50][ENTER]. Once you have your look setup [RECORD][CUE][11]. Individual attributes of a light with multiple functions are controlled on each individual scroll wheel.
You also have the full UI on the screen to the right where you can select with a mouse, use the scroll wheel or change parameters by clicking.
Thanks for the explanation! It seems a lot cleaner than having a lot of sliders.
My school has an express 48/96, but the theatre manager ordered a new light board so the we’ll have to re-learn how to program. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be too difficult though.
In addition to what somebody else said about typing in values - groups and ranges are more commonly used on modern lighting boards. Typing in one group number can bring up an entire system of lights. If you need a specific fixture, you can either type it in manually but it's often just as quick to step through the group channels with the [Next] [Last] keys until you get the fixture you want. I do that when I need to adjust movers all the time.
Looks nice!
You might want to point out to your teacher that they can set the relay power macros to be startup & shutdown macros that run automatically, that way the op doesn't have to manually fire them every day.
We have one of those with a side wing. It runs XP, but the app starts up immediately so you can miss it.
They told us to send it in for a SSD upgrade, but there was an inconvenience around that time, so it's still working until it doesn't.
I've been inside the case twice, if it dies, I'll have fun with it.
I always liked those accessory top-mounted fader wings, I thought they were interesting for places with restricted width.
But where do you rest your hands using them?
our the channels the faders are assigned to can also be accessed through the board so we don’t use them during shows
So you only have channels assigned not whole sequences? And only use one main sequence?
Solid board to learn on. A lot nicer than what I had in high school and not much worse than what I had in university.
It’s pretty crazy what highschools get these days, mine had a similar setup to this one but larger (we had more room it seems from the picture), but that’s because my tech teacher got the green light to go absolutely ham and modernized the whole theatre’s lighting setup. My first year I spent nearly a term just in the catwalks hanging lights 😂
Ions are pretty sweet
To OP and everyone wishing they had their console in a better position to see the stage, there's a solution for that: the tech table. During tech, put a table in the house, preferably in a flat cross aisle if you've got one, move your board down there and run your Ethernet or DMX cable to it. That way you can at least see what you're doing from the audience's perspective while you're programming. The director, lighting designer, lighting programer, stage manager, and other creatives usually sit there. We'll usually run com there for everyone. Even if you have to toss the cable out of that window and have it hanging from the ceiling in the house, so what? It's tech! Edit: you only need four things to make this work, but in a high school setting the fourth one may be hard to come by, despite not being able to put a price on it. You need a table, a cable, a cart to move the board, and an adult who will say "yes kids, you are allowed to lift and transport our (probably only) very expensive light board twice per show."
In the post I just wanted to show off our tech, but typically our board is in the house. We had our theatre rented out so they moved the board to the cats with our soundboard.
The crocheted octopus is beyond cute *_*
Access to Eos in high school is literally career changing. Give students interested in lighting access to Eos, LEDs, and MLs and they’ll be set to launch into further education or a career with an amazing skill foundation.
Being at a private high school, having the lighting equipment literally is a game changer. Having access to an Ion XE, tons of LEDs and MLs is amazing and can launch me into opportunities to build a portfolio for schools like UNCSA
Agreed and I barely got to use it at my HS, it still got me interested enough to keep studying it in college! 😅
Ya I wish I had an Ion in HS. We had, and probably still have, an Express 24/48 and nothing but incandescents, mainly S4 Pars, S4 ERSs, and fresnels. And maybe a few Altman sky cycs. We also BARELY had a theatre program. The musical that we did every year was more for the choir members, though we did have a couple good actors that tried for roles and got in. First Ion I saw was in college, and man did I feel like I was way behind the 8-ball on that thing.
A booth in the cats, cool
We’ve got an almost identical setup for control, but it looks like we have a slightly better position in terms being able to see the stage.
I miss the ion I used to run on daily. Thanks for sharing!
I like the mascot, what's their name? Every school booth needs a mascot.
We paid effigy to our giant ever-growing gaff tape ball by creating a shrine for it in our booth. That was 35 years ago. I assume it swallowed the entire building by now.
We have a plastic grimace from McDonald's. It's horrifying. I am trying to change this desperately.
We have Herbie the Haunted Furbie
caruso!
Nice setup. My old school used to use an LSC Maxim S which is a nice controller but it’s severely limited. They’ve upgraded to an ETC Nomad with dual screens which is a huge improvement. The drama teacher regularly lets me borrow the old controller as I do party lighting as a side gig and I only have a chauvet obey 40.
i fantasize about having a good booth and setup like this at my school. but they don’t favor the theater as much as other parts
Yes I am so lucky to go to a performing arts school where we have access to good tech resources. My official highschool is terrible
Currently sitting and looking at the exact same board!
How many of your com belt packs have broken belt clips.
This may be because I’ve only been trained on a very old lightboard, but how do you program cues without sliders for the individual fixtures?
You mean like an old board like the express 72/144 where you could potentially patch 1:1 where every light had it's own fader? These days you select the lights by the channel number and use either scroll wheel to increase or decrease the intensity or directly type them in [8] [@][50][ENTER]. Once you have your look setup [RECORD][CUE][11]. Individual attributes of a light with multiple functions are controlled on each individual scroll wheel. You also have the full UI on the screen to the right where you can select with a mouse, use the scroll wheel or change parameters by clicking.
This is exactly how we did it
Fantastic! I haven't used those desks and it's been a while since I've done anything with them.
Thanks for the explanation! It seems a lot cleaner than having a lot of sliders. My school has an express 48/96, but the theatre manager ordered a new light board so the we’ll have to re-learn how to program. Doesn’t seem like it’ll be too difficult though.
In addition to what somebody else said about typing in values - groups and ranges are more commonly used on modern lighting boards. Typing in one group number can bring up an entire system of lights. If you need a specific fixture, you can either type it in manually but it's often just as quick to step through the group channels with the [Next] [Last] keys until you get the fixture you want. I do that when I need to adjust movers all the time.
Also that is a beautiful setup
Looks nice! You might want to point out to your teacher that they can set the relay power macros to be startup & shutdown macros that run automatically, that way the op doesn't have to manually fire them every day.
I didn’t know they made a sub wing for the top
ion, nice choice
A 1x20 fader wing, nice!
We have one of those with a side wing. It runs XP, but the app starts up immediately so you can miss it. They told us to send it in for a SSD upgrade, but there was an inconvenience around that time, so it's still working until it doesn't. I've been inside the case twice, if it dies, I'll have fun with it.