Turns, a musical production featuring Nancye Hayes and Reg Livermore and a lighting design by Trudy Dalgleish, has been touring to city and regional theatres in Australia, lit with conventional fixtures controlled by an ETC Element console.
Lighting operator and technical manager Jo Elliot has been using the console, which was designed for modest rigs and maximum hands-on fader control, for performance spaces and lighting rigs that vary from venue to venue. With the rigs changing, she’s relieved to have one constant with her in the form of the Element console.
"At each theatre I then only have to update cues and sometimes change fade times to suit the dimmers in the venue,” said Elliot. “I found that the Element adjusts quite easily to accommodate the different dimmers I’ve come across, so it’s been really quite good.”
Elliot particularly liked having 40 submasters at her fingertips so she could easily grab different subs if there was an emergency.
"They are also very good for plotting because I will often plot the show without anyone standing in the light, and so they give me the ability to adjust levels very quickly,” she said. “The spreadsheet view in blind plotting makes life very easy — it is simple to quickly scroll through. We have a couple of channels that I have to absolutely make sure are in certain cues, because if they are not, it’s a total show stopper, and it’s really easy in blind to check that they haven’t accidentally been knocked out whilst I was plotting.”
Elliot also found the Element console easy to patch, and she added that she likes that she can patch with either a channel number or dimmer address as her first number.
"I find that adding and changing cue times is very straightforward,” she said. “We have a little chase and adding it to a cue or submaster is simple. In fact, it’s an easy console to figure out quickly, very user friendly.
"The Element’s small size makes it great for touring. It can be set up next to the sound console FOH and as I’m also technical manager, that is very handy as I can hear and see the show from that position. Quite often the venue may not have a riggers remote for me to use so I can pick up the console and set it up front of stage and access the rig from there.”
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