Pittsburgh Arts, Regional Theatre, New Work, Producing, Copyright, Labor Unions,
New Products, Coping Skills, J-O-Bs...
Theatre industry news, University & School of Drama Announcements, plus occasional course support for
Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Faculty, Staff, Students, and Alumni.
CMU School of Drama
Tuesday, September 04, 2018
Genny, Genny, Who Can I Turn To? A Primer On Small Stage Generators For Audio Applications
ProSoundWeb: Back in the day all generators for stage productions were large, diesel-powered beasts. Pulled in on a trailer, the good ones were quiet, had a large enough fuel tank to last through a show (and then some), and offered single-phase 120/240-volt or 3-phase 120/208-volt power.
2 comments:
DJ Lesh
said...
Back in LA, starting in about 2013, I started running a private event production company. It started off as primarily a DJ services company but slowly grew into more of a lighting company. Now, we are a full-service event company. We see events from the very early planning stages all the way through strike after the event. While most events my company has worked on have been in event venues and theaters, we have done our fair share of outdoor events as well. The hardest part of an outdoor event can be finding enough power. I recall one event in particular where this was our biggest issue. We were putting on an after-party that was going to be in a large tent on a helicopter pad at a ranch in the hills of LA. The only thing right near the pad was a water tank which only had on circuit run to it to run the pump and the house was about 150' away. Our first idea was to run two Socaplex lines to the house where we would put an Edison breakout and run smaller extension cords all over the house to get 12 circuits of power. This didn't make sense, so we decided on spending the money to rent a medium size entertainment generator. While noise wasn't an issue because we were always playing loud music if it was a band it would have been an issue. Reading about this new style generator, it seems like it would have been a great option for us at this event and similar ones as well. I will definitely be keeping these in mind for future events.
Although it is bad practice, but power is usually one of the last things I tend to think about when I am working on a show. In South Carolina, there is a yearly music festival called "Drift Jam" where hundreds of boats full of people pull up to one island in the middle of the lake for an all day concert. It is a really cool experience but I always wondered about how they got the power out to the island to support the massive sound system they were operating. Generators are not something I have had much experience with renting or depending on because, for the most part, all of the productions I have been a part of have been in a traditional theatre setting or even in the case of outdoor theatre, there was always power nearby. Generators, understandably, can be very helpful in other situations but the one problem they have always had is the noise to power generation ratio. Usually when I think of a big generator, I think of a loud diesel engine that is powering it. It is nice to see that those days may be coming to an end with new innovations in the generator industry.
2 comments:
Back in LA, starting in about 2013, I started running a private event production company. It started off as primarily a DJ services company but slowly grew into more of a lighting company. Now, we are a full-service event company. We see events from the very early planning stages all the way through strike after the event. While most events my company has worked on have been in event venues and theaters, we have done our fair share of outdoor events as well. The hardest part of an outdoor event can be finding enough power. I recall one event in particular where this was our biggest issue. We were putting on an after-party that was going to be in a large tent on a helicopter pad at a ranch in the hills of LA. The only thing right near the pad was a water tank which only had on circuit run to it to run the pump and the house was about 150' away. Our first idea was to run two Socaplex lines to the house where we would put an Edison breakout and run smaller extension cords all over the house to get 12 circuits of power. This didn't make sense, so we decided on spending the money to rent a medium size entertainment generator. While noise wasn't an issue because we were always playing loud music if it was a band it would have been an issue. Reading about this new style generator, it seems like it would have been a great option for us at this event and similar ones as well. I will definitely be keeping these in mind for future events.
Although it is bad practice, but power is usually one of the last things I tend to think about when I am working on a show. In South Carolina, there is a yearly music festival called "Drift Jam" where hundreds of boats full of people pull up to one island in the middle of the lake for an all day concert. It is a really cool experience but I always wondered about how they got the power out to the island to support the massive sound system they were operating. Generators are not something I have had much experience with renting or depending on because, for the most part, all of the productions I have been a part of have been in a traditional theatre setting or even in the case of outdoor theatre, there was always power nearby. Generators, understandably, can be very helpful in other situations but the one problem they have always had is the noise to power generation ratio. Usually when I think of a big generator, I think of a loud diesel engine that is powering it. It is nice to see that those days may be coming to an end with new innovations in the generator industry.
Post a Comment