Well, we did it. We finally got through the whole show without blowing any dimmers, circuit breakers, or other electrical elements.
You wouldn’t believe the sigh of relief I let go after the curtain call. This has been the longest week I can remember, and most of it shouldn’t have been necessary. But I learned some valuable lessons about doing in-depth research before leasing a theatre.
I forget the exact amperages, but we found out that although the dimmers can handle about 57,600 watts, the two legs of power coming into the theatre only total 24,000 watts, meaning that you couldn’t use the full capacity of the lighting system even if you wanted to (and boy, did we want to). It’s very deceptive. When you see 24 standard 2.4k circuits, you just assume you can use them.
Without Lonnie to recompute and redistribute the load evenly across the the two wires (which, of course, required repatching and reprogramming the lighting board) we would be so dead in the water I cringe just to think about it. Even now we’re on the bleeding edge, but I guess if nothing else it’s exciting there. If there is a lot of stuff going on around the theatre during a performance, we’ll have to run the system at 80%.
It’s been so amazing to see how much and how hard everyone pitched in to make this thing come together. Bryan and Lonnie really helped me keep my sanity. Jeez, the hours they put in! And eveyone else too. But we shouldn’t have had to work that hard.
I was re-reading what I wrote yesterday, and remembering something my friend Jon Lagerquist said: “It’s only a show”. He’s right of course. I love Jon. He is the epitomy of cool. In his job, every week is tech week. Of course, he has better resources. But he has more demands placed on him as well.