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Practical tips for going on stage

When considering doing a show in a larger venue for the first time, there are a few of those practical tips we wished someone had given us. We try to keep a collection of those tips on this page.

Venue context​

Before considering a gig with a custom lighting approach, there is some context that you and the venue may need to agree on. The usual approach for stage acts who care about lighting is to bring an operator who uses the existing lighting desk, pre-configured for the in-house lighting set. Bringing lighting technology of your own deviates significantly from this, so you need the venue on board.

Some tips on what to discuss prior to agreeing on a gig:

  • Which fixtures to use, yours or theirs. On tours, bringing your own lighting set is usually easier than taking over the house rig, to avoid miscommunication about the available fixtures and to reduce the need for coordination, for example with the lighting requirements of other acts.
  • The venue needs to provide enough time to test your custom setup. A custom lighting rig or controller takes significant stage check time, two or three hours may be a minumum assuming you come prepared (see below).
  • It is good to be in touch with the person who will be managing the lighting technology on site during the gig from the get go and getting his or her blessing on the plan.
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Not all venues allow for smoke or haze, because of fire alarms. Without smoke, compositions made for any light will look very different from what you see in a visualizer.

Testing​

For every new lighting project, it is highly recommended to test compositions on a representative real lighting set well before the first public performance. When connecting to a real lighting set, you can run into surprises like:

  • Differences in how a fixture looks compared to its virtual counterpart in a visualizer
  • Small differences in fixture channel allocation that result in very different visual results, for example due to firmware differences
  • Practical limitations related to fixture sizes and positioning

Preparation for the gig​

Here is a preemtive list of practical things to check before doing a performance at a venue:

  • If you bring your own fixtures, make sure the venue meets the power requirements. See hardware and power.
  • If you use fixtures provided by the venue, did you receive the patch list (addresses of all fixtures) and did you prepare and test your composition with the same addressing in a visualizer?
  • If you use fixtures provided by the venue, make sure you know what channel mode they are set to and that this matches the fixture profiles you used in Beam. Chances are you can't change the modes on the fixtures in the venue.
  • If you are renting equipment, don't forget to get the necessary DMX and power cables with the appropriate lengths. Sketch out the positioning of fixtures on the floor plan of the stage to find out the required cable lengths.
  • It takes time to connect to the lighting set of the venue, and others may be needing the set as well. Make sure to have a time slot for sound and stage check pre-booked with the venue. Depending on the size of your lighting set and whether you bring it yourself, you will need riggers and/or in-house technicians to assist during buildup and stage check.

Be ready to improvise​

With lighting, there are many variables, more than with video. The position of a light may be different than you hoped for or a color may look different from what was specified. Also, fixtures can break 30 minutes before the show. This means no lighting rig is ever fully like you expected.

Beam makes it easier than ever to make changes to your fixture setup without changing your composition. Still, when composing you can make choices that make you less dependent on a precise amount or type of fixtures. Ideally the greatness of your composition lies not in the use of specific fixture features but in timing, since timing doesn't depend on fixture types.