Dear Santa Dewey,
I know you are very busy around the holidays, so I thought I’d write in July with my Christmas wish list. I hope I’m not interrupting your beach vacation in the Seychelles!
Jim, Judi, Amber, Katie, Amy, Melanie, Greg and Emily all say I’ve been very good this year! I’ve kept up with the Reif’s busy schedule with a smile on my lips and a song in my heart! I’ve designed the sets and lights for multiple shows to wide acclaim, and I’m even doing better at getting my time sheets in on time! And, I’m truly sorry for being naughty and scaring Melanie all the time! I’m working on it!
Santa Dewey, as Development Director you’re so great at finding money for operations and programs at the Reif! Please Santa, could you write some grants for us to upgrade our lighting? And, if it’s not too much to ask maybe a hazer, cable covers and barricades?
This is my Christmas wish list this year, Santa Dewey. I’ve even priced my wishes out so you’d know how big of a grant we need!
ETC Source Four LED lighting upgrades ($650-$15,600)
Santa Dewey, we have over 150 ETC Source Four fixtures at the Reif Center. ETC introduced this fixture in 1992 and by 2017 they had sold over 3.5 million of them, so you know this is quality equipment! Greg, Melanie and I have been very good at keeping them maintained and they will serve us well for many years to come. But, most of our inventory was acquired in the 1990’s, before LED technology was widely available in the entertainment industry.
Luckily Santa Dewey, ETC makes an LED retrofit for the older Source Fours! All you have to do is change out the base from the old incandescent lamp to one with a LED lamp. The most exciting thing about LED technology is color, lots of color! I’m sure if you’ve come to a show at the Reif you’ve seen our LED Pars, we use them over our stage for a down wash of light that can be any color of the rainbow!
Now Santa Dewey, I’d like to bring this technology to our Source Fours. Besides all the different colors, it also means less time and money spent on replacing lamps, and LED’s are so energy efficient!
I’m not asking to retrofit our entire inventory, that would be over $100,000, and I know Santa Dewey can’t afford that! The nice thing is that we can do a few at a time. You know our moving mirror I-Cue units in the Wilcox and Ives? I use them all the time in shows as roving spotlights, or moving them around the stage for lighting specials.
I’d like to start by retrofitting those 8 lights with moving mirrors. Then, if I could get 16 more we could put them in the side light in the Ives and in the gobo wash in the Wilcox! I think I could really step up my lighting game with these!
ETC Color Source Cyc ($18,480)
I don’t mean to harp on LED’s Santa Dewey, but LED color changing technology is just so versatile. LED’s would be a huge upgrade for our cyclorama (cyc) lights. I think I’ve told you about the cyc before, it’s that large white background at the rear of the stage that we use for musicals and concerts. Currently we have a 4-cell cyc light, meaning we can put a different colored gel into each cell to have 4 different colors. 4 colors sounds like a lot, but with LED’s we could choose from millions of colors! And, we’d save time and money by not needing incandescent lamps and colored gel! Unfortunately, we cannot do this piecemeal, we’d need to replace them all at once.
Side Wall Projectors ($20,000-$25,000)
Santa Dewey, you are very familiar with the fine businesses in Grand Rapids that underwrite our performances. One of the ways we recognize their contribution is to project their business logo on the side walls in the Wilcox Theater.
We’ve been using a Rosco I-Pro Image Projector inserted into a Source Four holding a custom made plastic slide. The quality isn’t very good sometimes and the slides burn out easily, also the I-Pro units have been discontinued and we’re not sure how much longer we’ll be able to get new slides made.
And Santa Dewey, this wouldn’t just be for underwriter logos! Remember during our recent production of The Little Mermaid how I projected waves onto the side walls during the underwater scenes? I did that with an effects scroller, but if we had projectors we could project all kinds of scenic elements on the side walls to enhance the set design on stage!
Recently the Itasca Orchestra and Strings Program held a concert that featured a movie that accompanied the music. That would have looked much better if we could have projected the film onto the walls!
Hazer ($1500-$2000)
Santa Dewey, did you know that light is invisible? You can’t see light until it hits something! That’s usually the set or the actors, but sometimes you want the beam of light itself to be visible. A hazer puts out a fine particle fog and makes the whole beam visible, without blocking it from lighting the performers! It lets you create some amazing looking lighting effects, so that’s why I’m adding it to my wish list this year!
Barricades/Cable Covers/Wheelchair Ramps ($3000-$3500)
Now Santa Dewey, I’m getting to the socks and underwear part of my wish list. Sometimes you need equipment that isn’t as exciting as LED’s and hazers! Cable covers and barricades aren’t as sexy (can I say sexy in a letter to Santa?) as LED’s but they would be very useful for the increasing number of outdoor shows we do at the Yanmar Arena Pavilion.
Sometimes we need to run cables where the public has access or where heavy gear moves over the cables. Cable covers would protect the cable and be less of a trip hazard for the public, and make it easier for wheelchairs to cross over the cables.
Santa Dewey, do you remember that show at the pavilion where the audience was so close to the sub-speakers that they set their drinks on them? I’m sure those people are already on your naughty list, but if we had some barricades we could prevent rowdies from getting so close to the stage and sensitive equipment.
Santa Dewey, thank you for all you do at The Reif! I hope I’m not asking for too much. I will keep working hard at being a good Technical Director and staying off your naughty list!
Little Johnny