You may have noticed a spurt in e-mail offers on used lighting equipment lately. In the wake of a trend toward more live performance and the shift to LED-based products, a combination of smaller, more regional lighting equipment providers seem to have sparked increased activity in used equipment. And used equipment in any industry is a kind of bellwether for where the economics are headed next.
Ed Sullivan’s famous catch phrase takes on a new level of import as the theatrical performance industry reaches for ever-more-complex produc-tions. Just loading in the paraphernalia for the new show Fuerzabruta at the Daryl Roth Theater in New York in October, it looked as though it would require the services of more than a couple of tractor trailers proceeded by cars announcing, “Wide load coming through.” It took a 45-man crew 15 hours to bring in a 20-foot flying curtain and an oversized treadmill, in addition to a 45-foot, clear-bottom swimming pool that, secured to the ceiling, would hover above the audience.
The idea of the one-man band has been with us for at least eight centuries, going back to the peripatetic flute and snare-like tabor players of rural France. My personal favorite was “Duster” Bennett, who toured with John Mayall in 1970, a bill I saw at the Fillmore East that year. The most fa-mous of this odd bunch was Don Partridge, who roamed Europe with a bass drum on his back and a guitar and harmonica up front, and who man-aged to snag a top-ten hit in 1968, possibly a first for any multi-instrumental busker. Technology has made it possible to approach the notion of a one-person orchestra, with battery-powered MIDI triggering all sorts of sound generators. And now, it’s also brought us the concept of the one-man stage crew.
In 2003, a musicians’ union strike shuttered Broadway for four days, causing the theatre industry’s flagship location to suffer millions of dollars in losses. The outcome was a negotiated compromise: Musicians, who were seeking to prevent producers from replacing too many live performers with computer-based music systems, accepted the fact that the pit would go forward with a few less live bodies and reminded their employers that Broadway was rebounding with record profits from the problems of 2001. The producers, for their part, acknowledged that they could not completely automate the orchestra and were satisfied with keeping just a little less of those enhanced profits.
The Fourth of July just passed, which is Christmas and New Year’s all rolled together for the pyro industry. But no sooner have the last em-bers of a glory star fallen to the ground, than the live special effects business starts figuring out how to make an even more complex magic act foolproof enough for Bon Jovi and Pfizer.
Are instruments shrinking? Or is bigger still better?
Does Moore’s Law, which dictates that all technology must inexorably move toward a smaller/faster/cheaper paradigm, apply to lighting? Less theoretically, are there dynamics that are compelling the footprint of lighting platforms to shrink, even while they’re demanding that they increase in power and decrease in cost?
Trade shows are the standing punch line of any industry — can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Or can you? LDI, the putative main show of the professional lighting and staging industry for the last two decades, is experiencing some significant turbulence this year. As reported a few months ago, Martin Professional and High End Systems have both opted out of the Orlando expo this year, the first time both have not exhibited, and Vari-Lite has announced that it will cut back its presence at the show. Syncrolite is expected to do the same.
High-tech users means the lighting industry can find profits in low-tech gear.
The National Systems Contractor Show (NSCA), which was held in Orlando in mid-March, reflects an industry trying to figure itself out. If you didn’t know what the show was about — putatively, commercial AV systems design and installation — and you were suddenly, magically plopped down in the middle of the hall, it could take you the better part of the day to figure it out from the hodge-podge of technologies that make up media systems these days.
Legislators from California to Canada are introducing legislation to either encourage or compel the migration from incandescent lighting to compact fluorescent bulbs. It could signal the most significant shift in the lighting industry since the introduction of the LED. According to an Associated Press report, a California legislator has proposed a ban on incandescent bulbs, contending that compact fluorescent (CF) sources are so efficient — they use one-fourth the electricity spent in an equivalent incandescent — that consumers should be forced to use them.
Corporations and insurance companies raise the bar for qualified techs.
Despite what Donald Trump might have us believe, the age of the apprentice is coming to a close. Training for technical stage skills continues to expand, from college programs to private skills schools. ESTA, in conjunction with other professional organizations including IATSE, and with private entities such as Live Nation and PRG, has established the Entertainment Technician Certification Plan (ETCP), a voluntary testing and certification program that grants enhanced status to individuals who have passed its examinations.
Last August, British airport security agencies announced a ban on boarding with musical instruments on scheduled commercial aircraft departing the U.K. for abroad, a restriction that applied as well to tours that stop or lay over in a U.K. airport and then move on to other ports of call. The move drew instant complaints and, proving that musicians — even drummers — can organize themselves when properly motivated, a groundswell of protest that ultimately got the restrictions eased…somewhat.
When staging company PRG launched its video division in September, it had an interesting impetus: Broadway and Wall Street. Tim Wiley, who is heading up PRG Video out of the company’s Orlando office, cited both domains as driving the addition of a video division, giving PRG capability across the entertainment technology spectrum that also includes lighting and sound. And he’s got company on this convergent road, as he readily acknowledges — OSA International did the same at right about the same time, just a few months after adding their own lighting capability to augment their core audio services. Others are doing the same.