Technology & MSG

Art Attack XXVII was yesterday at University of Maryland College Park.
This is the fourth year that I’ve been involved in this production in some form or another. While I keep busy during the load-in, sound checks, in between bands, and load-out, during the sets themselves I get to sit back and enjoy. Except for a [...]

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Listening to my RJD2 station on Pandora, I’m feeling upbeat and slightly introspective.
Learning by example — by doing, really — is my favorite way to learn, and that is how I learned most of what I know about the technical side of theater. I’ve sat in on a few classes at Towson, but that’s the [...]

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Last night I saw The Diary of Anne Frank as performed by The Pikesville Players. It’s a two act play based on “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl” recently re-adapted by Wendy Kesselman. Set in the hidden rooms of an Amsterdam office building between July 1942 and February of 1944, this adaptation depicts [...]

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On Friday I worked Art Attack XXVI at College Park.

Compared to last year, it was more of a concert than a festival. There were only three bands before the headliner, compared to the dozen or so in the past. Bands went on from 5ish (instead of 2ish) until 10pm, at which point the stadium lights [...]

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I lent a hand yesterday at the Art Attack XXV at University of Maryland College Park. This year the show was part of MTV’s Campus Invasion 2008 tour, which no doubt brought a handful of larger acts to the show: Wyclef Jean, The Bravery, Simple Plan, Cobra Starship, The Spill Canvas, as well as local [...]

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I worked a quattrocelli concert the other night. It’s a four-piece cello quartet based out of Germany. Cellists — and most other artists who play while seated — are picky about their seating, particularly the height of the seats. Not having numerous adjustable piano benches, we managed to strap several stacked chairs together with gaff [...]

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Six RNR shows were completely sold out this year. An extra was added due to popular demand. No tickets being sold in advance for the extra show, it only took a few hours for 600+ to be sold. Two months worth of stage and set preparations, mostly torn out in a twelve hours over three [...]

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As of early last week, all tickets for Rock ‘N Roll Revival XIX — which opens this Friday night — were sold out. That’s six shows seating around 1,000 people at $12/ticket, grossing over $70,000. That doesn’t include merchandise, concessions, flowers, or another of the other things that people will buy. Not too shabby for [...]

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Saturday, anyways.
On Saturday afternoon I’m going to a subwoofer shootout at the IDS-Shoreline shop. It should be an interesting (if not thunderingly loud) display of various sub cabinet designs and pairings with various amps. Think home theatre or car audio, but large enough in size and quantity to fill a stadium rock concert. Turn the [...]

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We loaded in for the Battle of the Bands on Thursday night but I neglected to bring my camera. I remembered it last night and took a few pictures which I was able to post after fighting with the computer for what seemed like an hour. Many of them are more tech-like, but there are [...]

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It’s been over ten years since I first heard Third Eye Blind on the side stage of HFStival 1997. Yesterday I had the opportunity to do so again at UMD College Park’s Ritchie Coliseum, this time while working on the show providing support to the Technical Director. As usual, I got a kick out of [...]

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I was reading Maxim and saw that you can buy an Airbus that seats 900+ passengers for the low hundreds of millions of dollars. Talking to a buddy in the production services industry (read: a company that provides big ass speakers for concerts, among other things), we thought it would be cool to have a [...]

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Went down to a beach on the Magothy River to do some slacklining on Saturday afternoon. I setup a 30 foot line between two trees with a blanket below the center point but lacked the coordination to stay up for any period of time. I set up another line between two trees about 15 feet [...]

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A group of students from Severna Park High School are convening on Facebook (in an AACC group, oddly enough) with the purpose of “[making] some crucial changes in the directing staff” of this year’s Rock N’ Roll Revival XVIIII. Led by the kid who played the hydraullicly-enabled Billie Jean last year, the group claims that [...]

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We installed an ETC Sensor+ Touring Rack for Severna Park High School last weekend. It was the double wide touring model, half populated with dimmer modules. It was (obviously) less expensive than buying a full rack and it leaves adequate room for future expansion. The dimmer racks that were in use were getting rather antiquated [...]

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