A Crazy Couple of Days.

Saturday was a relatively quiet day - and that was a good thing, because it has been crazy since then and will still be crazy for the days to come!

Sunday, we spent a few hours in Danbury at the Crowne Plaza to set up for today's event - not truly crazy, but busy for a Sunday. Today, back in Danbury early to kick off the event and again later in the day to strike it. Additionally, we were at the Simsbury Inn to set up for the event that runs tomorrow through Thursday and spent some time in the workshop to further clean/organize it.

Tomorrow, we have an event at Hawthorne Inn bright and early to kick off the day followed by day 1 of the previously mentioned event in Simsbury...

...bored yet? Well, it sure isn't terribly exciting to write/read about, but it sure is exciting to experience.

For the Simsbury event, we are using 2 of our Sanyo projectors, 2 screens, QSC speakers, 4 wireless Shure mics - 2 lav and 2 handheld mics, a Mackie mixer, and 2 laptops feeding through a seamless switcher. At the Hawthorne Inn, the actual equipment being used is yet to be fully determined as this is the first event that we are doing at this site though not the first with the client. Apparently, 4AVNow is  the new AV source for the Hawthorne Inn! Tomorrow morning, we will find out whether we will be feeding the audio through the house sound system or using one of our sound systems. As such, we are using a Mackie mixer, Shure mics - 2 lavs and 2 HHs, and TASCAM recorders to record the presenters. If we don't use the house sound, we will be using Behringer speakers to broadcast the audio.

Shop-a-holic

So, 'shop-a-holic' usually applies to somebody that goes shopping a lot. In this case, however, I am using it to describe the last couple of days spent organizing the workshop...

We started by building a rack to hold all of our VGA and XLR cables - sorted by type and size. As it turns out, the newly built rack accommodates a lot more cable than we currently have, so we also started to sort and rack our extension cords on it. In addition to that rack, we cleaned out a closet and built a rack to support almost all of our projection screens. This closet is a lot closer to our loading area than the area we had been using to store the screens - making it a lot easier to load up for events needing projection. What the closet doesn't accommodate, however, are our 10' cradle screens (hence, the 'almost'). As such, we need to clean out the area just outside of the closet and build a rack to hold the cradle screens. At least they will all be in the same, general vicinity. Currently in that area, we have some salvaged equipment from a closed expo center. We really need to figure out if there is anything there worth keeping...

Along with the cleaning, building, and racking, we did quite a bit of organization. 4AVNow has been in this shop just a little over one year. In all of this time, this is the best condition that the shop has been in - and we still have quite a bit of work ahead of us.

Yesterday, after we had an event to set at Millwrights Restaurant in Simsbury. For this, we used an InFocus projector, Duet accordion screen, and a Targus Presenter. This particular InFocus projector is great because it has a 'short throw' lens - meaning, it sits a lot closer to the screen than a projector with a standard lens. After striking that event this morning, we headed to Morton's Steakhouse in Hartford to set an event. Conveniently, we used the same projector that we recovered from Millwrights. While we have worked many events at Morton's previously, this is the first one that we have done as their official A/V technicians! Additionally today, we set an event at Zinc in New Haven (this event also only required a projector) and two events at the Crowne Plaza Danbury.

Meet and Greet

Well, this is certainly an experience... I am composing this post on my phone while I await the arrival of a client at a venue. It isn't the 'when,' it is the 'how' that is odd. I mean, typing a text message or Twitter post is one thing... Typing a whole comprehensive blog post is another animal.

At any rate, I am at Morton's Steakhouse after setting up the equipment - a screen, an InFocus LCD projector, a Shure lavaliere mic, and a QSC speaker - and waiting for the meet & greet. Meanwhile, in a land not TOO far away... another event is being setup.

 In Woodstock, at the Mansion at Bald Hill, another event is being set as I type...

- Intermission -

...and we're back. Although you didn't notice, my client arrived and we proceeded with the meet & greet...

So, also during that intermission, I received confirmation via text that the Woodstock event has been successfully setup. There, we are simply using a screen, projector, and remote. I won't bore you with the details. Besides, as my meet & greet is complete, I am going close this post to depart the venue.

Tweet or not to Tweet...

Two posts in a row are ripping off Shakespeare.

We now have a new Twitter identity. Sadly, our name - 4AVNow - is already taken as a twitter account so we had to use a different ID. Strangely, it is taken by US! See, a person was hired to develop a web identity for us. She started the website and the twitter account among other things. Before she finished the process and turned over all of the information, she passed away. As a result, the twitter account is not accessible to us. As a result, 4avnow1 is our twitter ID.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Alright, what does a soliloquy from Mac... - erm, The Scottish Play - have to do with audio-visual? OK, well, not much. It just seemed a fitting title to a post that mentions three different events scheduled to occur - of course - tomorrow.
Until I get to that point, however, I am going to mention today's events...

We had a site survey to kick off the day. Coming up next month, there is an event taking place at a local school's theater/auditorium (theater + the Scottish Play = another connection). The event planners (not the school) are calling on us to provide a projector and a screen for the event. As a result of the site survey, we will be using a rear-projection screen rather than shooting from the front at an extreme angle as they were originally calling for. While we have projectors that are capable of shooting from at least a 45 degree angle (as we've done in previous events), the site survey revealed that using rear projection is a much better option at this site. For this event, we'll use a 6K Sanyo projector and a Da-Lite Fast Fold screen.
After the survey, we had a quick strike of the lighting at the Simsbury Inn.
This evening, we had only one event to set, tech, and strike at Max's Tavern in Springfield, MA. This wasn't much of a set/tech/strike. All that was used was a laptop and a Logitech presenter. We hooked into the restaurant's flat screen so set and strike was really quick. Tech was relatively nonexistent but the client required that we be onsite during the presentation.
During the rest of the day, we did some (more) clean up in the workshop and had an equipment rental - a 60" flat screen, a TV stand, and some cables (VGA, HDMI, power) - picked up.

On to tomorrow... OK, thanks to my falling asleep while composing this post and waking up at 2 AM and completing it, 'tomorrow' is actually today and 'today' is officially yesterday. I am too tired to come up with a new title for this post. Besides, I like it too much to change it.
So, tomorrow morning we have an early event in New Haven. For this, we are setting up two Behringer speakers and a Countryman mic for the audio and nothing more than a screen for the video.
In the evening, we have two events one in Madison, the other in Old Saybrook. The Madison set is similar to New Haven - a screen, a Shure mic, and a QSC speaker - only this will be one speaker and a lavaliere mic. Old Saybrook only needs the video side - this one needs a projector (likely, a Panasonic) and a screen.

Fortunately, I am not the one scheduled to set the New Haven event so... back to sleep for me!

Pictures Don't Always Do It Justice

Yesterday looked like it was going to be a productive day in the workshop getting things straightened up. While that did turn out to be true, it was interrupted by a last minute job - setting lights at an event at the Simsbury Inn. Here are some pictures of the results:

Unfortunately, the pictures don't look as nicely as the lighting looked in person - except the first one.

Downtime Isn't Really Down...

Yesterday and today were both relatively quiet days. We had some equipment to strike from a couple of events at the Crowne Plaza Danbury but, otherwise, there wasn't much going on. As such, we took advantage of the downtime and spent some time re-organizing the workshop. We acquired quite a bit of new cables - VGA and XLR, specifically - to accommodate all of the simultaneous events that we had going on. One of the projects that we started was to build a new rack to hold all of those cables sorted by type and length. I'll post some pictures once the rack is finished. It definitely feels great to get the workshop cleaned up and organized. Another accomplishment during this downtime was to make some DVDs from the various videos that we shot during the events.

A Quick Post...

...and a picture post, at that.

The primary meeting room at the event we did in Baltimore (seemingly like ages ago though it was only last month!) looked like this:

-

Too Busy to Post

I suppose that it is a good thing that we have just been too busy to update the blog!

Since my last (and only!) entry, we have had quite a variety of events...
We spent a couple of days at the Sheraton Hotel at Bradley Airport with a set, tech, and strike. Additionally, this event was recorded on video, so we also took the raw video and edited it into a viewable DVD. The event was a 4 hour session that ran two times - morning and afternoon - for two days, each time with a different group. The second day was recorded on video - both sessions. While the actually video editing - done using Final Cut Pro - didn't take too long, the conversion from the final cut to the DVD took most of a day. Fortunately, the conversion does not need constant supervision so the MacBook I use was able to do the process while we were off doing other projects.

Today marks day 2 of an event we are working with Unilever in Trumbull. "Who or what is Unilever?" you ask... Well, there is a good chance that they are responsible for at least one product in your bathroom and/or kitchen cabinet. For this event, we set up several 60" flat screen TVs on stands in conference rooms for their training sessions (pictures included).

In addition to these events, we also had the regular stream of meetings where we set anything from a screen and projector to a full boat of equipment. For one of these events, we set nothing more than a simple remote for the presenter to advance their PowerPoint slides!

A note of frustration:
That remote that I just mentioned? Well, we actually have several of those that are now useless. The item is officially called a "Presenter." Presenters consist of two pieces - one is used to transmit the signal from the person to the computer, the other is used by the computer to receive that signal. The receiver plugs into a USB port on the computer and often remains in the computer when the person packs up and leaves the event, thus rendering the Presenter useless. I contacted Targus - the manufacturer of the Presenter in question - to see if there was any way to replace the receiver. After an extended conversation - more for their benefit than mine - I learned that it is not possible. Understandably, these receivers are coded to their specific Presenter - otherwise the Presenter you are using in one room would interfere with one used in another, nearby room. That is why I was hoping Targus might be able to code a new receiver to the several Presenters that we have that are missing their receivers. No luck - and I am thus frustrated.