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Sound Reinforcement - Forums for Live Sound Professionals - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Live Sound Forums => LAB: The Classic Live Audio Board => Topic started by: jason misterka on July 02, 2014, 10:33:02 AM

Title: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: jason misterka on July 02, 2014, 10:33:02 AM
Happy Festival Season, everyone.

Friendly reminder to make happy stage plots.

This is the worst plot I have received as yet.  32 bands at this particular festival.

Originally a MS-Word doc instead of a PDF (I made it JPG for the post).  I am guessing 4 positions or is it 6?  No monitors?  No more ink in my printer?  Come on...  At least they had the band name on the paper, I removed it to be discrete.

Jason 
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: TonyWilliams on July 02, 2014, 11:15:03 AM
But those gradients look so stylish!
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on July 02, 2014, 01:02:23 PM
Don't forget to anchor the stage at the USL corner, as per the rider...
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Bob Cap on July 02, 2014, 06:08:40 PM
Looks pretty straight forward to me.

I wish I had at least that for a stage plot for most of the shows I do...

43 years in the business and loving every minute...:)

Bob Cap
Advanced Audio Inc.
Gilbert, MN
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Ray Aberle on July 02, 2014, 06:27:45 PM
Don't forget to anchor the stage at the USL corner, as per the rider...

You know, that would almost be worth the trip to a prop/supply store... buy a cheap-o anchor and hang it on that corner of the stage. When everyone else asks you why it's there, "Oh, it's for BAND NAME who requires an upstage anchor."

-Ray
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: frank kayser on July 02, 2014, 06:46:59 PM
A poorly made, accurate stage plot is much better than a perfectly made and annotated wrong stage plot.  I've had MANY more of the latter...


frank
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Tim McCulloch on July 02, 2014, 06:53:05 PM
A poorly made, accurate stage plot is much better than a perfectly made and annotated wrong stage plot.  I've had MANY more of the latter...


frank

"Oh, you got THAT plot..."

There is a story that gets repeated when this topic comes up... the band arrives and the production company has the stage pre-wired and set per the plot.  "Something wrong?"  "Yeah, we can pull that stand over; it was for our XYZ player, he died 3 years ago."  Old stageplot syndrome.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Jason Glass on July 02, 2014, 07:38:59 PM
Happy Festival Season, everyone.

Friendly reminder to make happy stage plots.

This is the worst plot I have received as yet.  32 bands at this particular festival.

Originally a MS-Word doc instead of a PDF (I made it JPG for the post).  I am guessing 4 positions or is it 6?  No monitors?  No more ink in my printer?  Come on...  At least they had the band name on the paper, I removed it to be discrete.

Jason

It's funny, now that I do only wireless full time, I ask for four very specific pieces of information from the acts bringing RF gear to shows that I work:
Manufacturer
Model
Frequency band/group
Number of units of each

I get this exact information back from them far less than 50% of the time.  Often the entirety of their response, if I get one at all, is something like, "518-558".

When I was a monitor engineer, I would receive accurate and current stage plots from the acts a bit more often than that.   ;)
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: paul bell on July 02, 2014, 09:23:32 PM
What's a "stage plot"??
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: eric lenasbunt on July 03, 2014, 12:03:02 AM

What's a "stage plot"??

It's the interesting back story to the ridiculous show that ensues when the production guys have incorrect info.

I.e. The monitor engineer is plotting against the PM....
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Tom Hester on July 03, 2014, 02:22:28 AM
A poorly made, accurate stage plot is much better than a perfectly made and annotated wrong stage plot.  I've had MANY more of the latter...


frank

I am about 8 festivals in this summer so far, I just started working for the band. I noticed booking has been sending out the 2011 rider which is nothing like the most current. So during my advance I have in bold red font Please note the updated rider/plot/input And during my follow-up call I ask what the date is on the rider they are referencing while we are discussing. Its amazing when I show up to the festival with my printed out plot that matches what I sent them does not match the 2011 version they printed out anyways and set up for. Its not always the BEs fault :)
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Steve M Smith on July 03, 2014, 02:27:12 AM
What's a "stage plot"??

A rarity in the same league as a sound check.


Steve.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: David Morison on July 03, 2014, 08:10:59 AM
A rarity in the same league as a sound check.


Steve.

Which is hopefully a lot more common than an unsound cheque   ;)
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Steve M Smith on July 03, 2014, 09:35:11 AM
Which is hopefully a lot more common than an unsound cheque   ;)

Makes even more sense when you use the American (wrong) spelling of cheque!


Steve.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Thomas Harkin on July 03, 2014, 10:19:48 AM
Makes even more sense when you use the American (wrong) spelling of cheque!


Steve.
And THAT, cheque, comes from when the Normans (French) ruled England!   ::)
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Steve M Smith on July 03, 2014, 01:13:22 PM
Yes, it's from exchequer - A chequered (or checkered) black and white cloth similar to a chess board was used for monetary calculations.  From the French échiquier for chess board.


Steve.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: jasonfinnigan on July 03, 2014, 01:26:53 PM
What's the arrow for? the direction the stage should fall if it should fail?

This is too funny!
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Graham Spice on July 06, 2014, 11:06:12 PM
This little iOS app called Napkin Sketch Stage isn't too bad for helping to create stage plots on the go:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/napkin-sketch-stage/id492744966?ls=1&mt=8

Has the annoying in-app purchases but you can get most things you need with this and it exports to PDF and will email...

How do you make good looking stage plots?
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Chris Johnson [UK] on July 07, 2014, 04:49:04 AM
How do you make good looking stage plots?

For those of the Mac persuasion: OmniGraffle! In fact, I use it for pretty much any not to scale diagram (read: not AutoCAD). Its very quick, very powerful, and lets you create 'stencils' which are blocks that you save for re-use. So once you've made a few stencils that fit your applications, and a nice template file, you can normally knock out a plot in a few minutes.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: boburtz on July 07, 2014, 12:32:09 PM
How do you make good looking stage plots?
I prefer stage plots without all of the cartoon stuff. Colored blocks with input numbers. The simpler the better. Here is an example of the plots I make when I get the luxury of getting all of the information I need. I just use MS Word.
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Mac Kerr on July 07, 2014, 08:14:23 PM
I prefer stage plots without all of the cartoon stuff. Colored blocks with input numbers. The simpler the better. Here is an example of the plots I make when I get the luxury of getting all of the information I need. I just use MS Word.

That's the kind of plot I like to see. I wouldn't bother with the input numbers on the plot since they are clearly listed on the input list on the same page.

Mac
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: Brian Adams on July 08, 2014, 12:16:40 PM
That's the kind of plot I like to see. I wouldn't bother with the input numbers on the plot since they are clearly listed on the input list on the same page.

Mac

I like this plot, and I don't mind the extra numbers at all. It's better to have too much information than too little!
Title: Re: Friendly Reminder. Proper Stage Plots
Post by: boburtz on July 08, 2014, 12:39:53 PM
That's the kind of plot I like to see. I wouldn't bother with the input numbers on the plot since they are clearly listed on the input list on the same page.

Mac
The earlier version of this plot design didn't have the numbers on the plot. Patch guys were writing them in for convenience, so I started adding them so everyone working on the stage would be on the same page. It's actually quite useful to have those input numbers on the plot when it's a multiple band stage, which most of ours are.