4 kids in the city

Friday night.
The tran was full.
Broncos vs Bulldogs and someone getting married in England

First stop dinner

Shopping

Bling
While we were taking this photo, the security guard informed us that no photos without authorisation from the management.

More ..... Sugar

Looked all around for the security guard.  I don't see her anywhere....

More...... Cash

I think the little yellow thing is a extraterestrial hacking tool.

A rest from that shopping stuff











Art

Line up outside a night club.
As you do!

More F-A-T

And that my friends is the memory that I leave you with.

Easterfest Thank you

A huge thank you to all "The Circus" crew.  You were a great crew and I hope you would like to be involved next year.

A special thank you to the following people who really made an extra effort.

Matt & Reece for a great job stage managing and then for dismantling the set.

Chris & Ben & Jordan - For packing up Sound & light gear,

Red Frogs - For carrying all the aluminum poles and the fake marshalll stack set out to the edge of the park.

Genevive - For spending the whole of Sunday cleaning and packing.
Cameron Todd -  For spending the whole of Sunday cleaning and packing and driving the ute laden with gear back to Brisbane.

Marcus, Bella, James & Fergus - for firstly having the brains to put the wires up above the water level in the blue tent so all that stuff was saved and then for the great work in pulling down and packing up the sleeping tents and pack horsing all the stuff out of the park.

Graeme Hodgson - (Electrician) for electrical test and tag.  Keeps us legal.

Jono & Kath - For dropping off towels and blankets etc at mums old house so we could accodate some wet people.

Richard Hodgson - for a great Monday morning breakfast and helping to restart Lewis's car and pulling down a video screen.

Shoudl your name be here - drop me a line and remind me pls.

Easterfest evacuation and tent collapse

High drama at Easterfest 2011 as the rain came down and the floods came up.

(These photos actually taken after the power went off)

Soon after the rain started, some water began to drip down this 'king pole' (One of 4 that hold up our tent).  So I got a ladder and with assistance, quite some effort was expended in putting a cover consisting of cardboard and plastic over the moving light with the intention of continuing to use the light.  We then taped up a join in an extension lead and looked at the light on the second king pole.  Gave up on constructing an elaborate cover for it and just threw the plastic cover over it.  While we were busy doing that, someone came and told me that there was a creek flowing in back stage.

A quick reconnoiter back stage and indeed the creek was observed and reclassified as a river.

I figured that as the "Venue Manager" that we should shut down.  By this time pretty much everyone else on the crew was keen on a shut down so I hopped up on stage and tapped the talent on the shoulder, took the mic and asked the audience to leave while the lights were still on.  The guys back stage were very keen to cut the power but I wanted the audience out before the lights went off so as to reduce the likelihood of panic.
Early on when we though that the show would just go on, we lifted the power leads onto a row of chairs.  The video gear was on two tables sitting on plywood with the plywood sticking out toward the camera where we would sit.  Problem was the water was getting uner the ply and sort of tipping the table.  So we pulled most of the gear off and then when the tables were lighter, pulled the ply out from under the legs.  Derek's box of switches stayed on the table because we could not untangle the leads. Luckilly it is heavy and the table did not tip over.


 Tripod on riser.
The riser is made of MDF and now weighs in at about half a ton.

Back Stage

There was a huge effort to get road cases and equipment, especially musical equipment off the ground and onto the stage.

Audio Power Amplifiers.
So close.

The boys in uniform arrived with their holier than thou attitude and ordered me out of my tent.  Some time earlier, a colleague of mine had put their phone on charge in my car which was parked against the stricken tent.  I explained to the officer in question that the down side of leaving it like this was that should they need to move the car to drop the tent then having a flat battery would not help the situation.  However he seemed incapable of any logical thought and persisted with insisting that I move out and tried to tell me of the immenent danger of my tent collapsing.  The fact that both tents had been stable for several hours somehow escaped him and later also his boss.  They were more interested in standing around in their glow in the dark suits and presumably congratualating themselves on their power trip.  I suspect that they were somewhat on edge as a result of the deaths in the recent flash floods.


The next day it looked like this.










So between now and next year we shoudl think about what we should do better.
Initial thoughts include the following
1. Do nothing different.- No one died.  No serious gear damage was sustained.
2. Pick a high tide level and ensure all electrical gear is above this level.  The difficulty here is choosing an appropriate level and also deciding what to use to put things on.  Wooden pallets are a nice cheap option but they float.  The other thing is that all this is to no avail, it the mains power is under water outside our tent and gets switched off.
3. Pick a high tide level and build a floor to this height for all gear.

Easterfest 3

Check out Megan and Matt Nix's fake Marshall speaker stacks and a real Marshall at the right to compare to.  Megan spent quite some time refining the word "Easterfest".  Do you know that there is no "Marshall" font.  Not that we could find anyway.

Chris on sound,  Josh & Zac on lights.
Megan supervising (of course)
:)











DJ's ontop of the video screen.

In the foreground we have Andrew Gentle (White tee shirt) on roving camera and Genevive on the 325.  Her camera is locked off pointing at the judges so not much for her to do when this photo was taken.



The DJ tower

 Behind every fake marshall stack is ... well ... not much

 What to do when toomuch light gets in the door onto your screen.  Bash in 2 star pickets and prop up some ply.

Easterfest2

This is our video set-up at "The Circus".

Bella is operating the remote control cameras and Marcus is switching.  One of the two video screens is visible far right.

Half a Neale Hall is visible at the left and Reece ( one of our Stage Managers) is centre left.  The video replay is on the PC with the blue squares on the scree.  We are using Screenmonkey.  This is a free video presentation manager program.  (But I can not get it to handle DVDs.).

The tripod blocking our view of the stage has one of three remote control cameras on it.  We also have two cameras at the back of the audience ponted at the stae.  One is a fixed wide shot and the other (Sony 325) has an operator.  There is another 325 at stage R.  There is also a PD150 raving camera.

 Jemma Beautiful Butterfly  :)

Easterfest

Construction of main stage in the middle of the night

These photos taken Friday night a week before the festival.

I always wanted to gain entry the the "Green Room" that secret place that only the artists get to go.  Well while no one was looking I nipped in with my camera.

DVD Replay from PC

The objective is to find a way to replay DVDs from PC.
Needs to reliably go out the second monitor output.

For testing purposes, using a commercial copy protected disk as the test source although I expect that normally I  would be given "home made" DVDs to replay.  (So that the replay was legit)

Show Cue System $60 to $150 written right here in Brisbane.
Gets the second monitor right.  Right from the start.
Will play ripped VOB files but no audio.  Gets the widescreen wrong
Could use something to convert to AVI and then this may be a solution.

Zoomplayer V7.00    inmatrix.com
Well this actually plays on the second monitor. and I can even put a couple of files in the play list and select between them and they play in the second monitor.
Cant specify in and out points.

Songshowplus   www.songshowplus.com   $300 basic $450
This is a do everything presentation program.
To evaluate it, I have to send my name and address.  OK done.
License code arrived by email a few seconds later
Once I entered the license code, SSP ran and woohoo it sees the second monitor right away.  Amazing!
BUT  It appears no DVD playback.  Have to install an extension I think  T^he word "DVD" does not exist in the help system.  Slack.



Mediaplayer Classic
Comes as part of K-lite codec pack.
Will not play the copy protected DVD even straight from the DVD drive.
Gets stuck on the menu part of the DVD but opening the VTS_02_1.VOB file seems to work.

VLC  V1.19
Can not get it to automatically open on the second monitor.
Plays the ripped dvd OK
Plays direct from the DVD drive OK
To detach the controls.  Tools>Preferences>Interface> Clear check box "Embed Video in Interface"
Then Close VLC and restart it!

Don't use the F11 full screen interface as this seems to always have the controls docked.
Still can not get it to open on the second monitor.
Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.  Inconsistent and frustrating

Powerpoint 2007pro
Can't insert DVD or VOBs

Screenmonkey
On my toshiba laptop it will not load DVD VOB files
On Chris's M9V it crashes with a message that "Screenmonkey has encountered a problem and has to close"
A real pity because this program has such a clean user interface


sprintbit media player  2.13  15 day trial  Normally $20 (I think)
http://www.sprintbit.info
Claims second monitor support but I can not get it to work.
No sound either.  Yes I did try both output devices that it offerred and rebooted a couple of times to try and get it to work.  Sent them an email. 

KMPlayer V1434
Well it plays on the second monitor but I can not detach the controls. SO the controls are on the second monitor.

http://www.easyworship.com    $399
http://www.mediashout.com   $429
http://www.propresenter.com/    $399

http://www.songscreen.com/     $US400
http://www.worship-him.com/   $200

http://www.resolume.com/index.php  Euro 300

Easterfest preparation

Megan & Jemma painting fake Marshall stacks for the backdrop of the circus stage.  Imagine these rotated 90 degrees with the word easterfest written on them in the Marshall font.  Also it may be obvious but the masking tape comes off before they get used. :)