Newbie no more: lessons learned from my first year

[ElectricCorn]

My very first show went live last weekend on the very date I'd planned! Here are things I learned along the way, listed here in the hopes they help someone new like me next year...

 

• Start as early in the year as you can. Things take longer than you think.
• Do your homework! Watch performance videos and (especially) behind the scenes videos. Something will catch your eye: there's your start.
• This forum's help is incredibly valuable. A big Thank You! goes to everyone who answered my questions here. 
• Be realistic about what you can pull off. I started really small: just 16 channels ...on purpose. I started late in the year (ahem) to tackle a huge production, and I knew biting off too much would court disaster.
• Do your own thing. Watch what other people do and how they do it, then adapt pieces from here and there to your own needs.
• Think through every step. Exactly how will you run that extension cord? Go physically scout.
• Making extension cords is easy and cheap(er). 
• Helpers are good. My kids were great minions and my wife was an excellent set of eyes on the ground when I was aloft, and they all enjoy watching the results all the more. My wife grew increasingly excited watching it all come together over the last 6 weeks, and that kind of happiness can only help my budget for next year's lights...
• LEDs! I love the warm glow of incans, but LEDs use so little power I went with all LEDs.
• It's great fun to watch people react. I saw a little girl passenger in a passing car yesterday crane her neck to keep watching as the car went by, her mouth the shape of an 'O'. My neighbor across the street lost her husband last December and last night she took the time to thank me for my efforts, saying they really made she and her sons smile. It's hard to beat that.

 

I'll be posting a video as soon as I can edit it together. Good luck, you can do it!

 

 

Jerry

[jerry72]

Have ya shocked yerself yet? If not yer still a newbie.

[ElectricCorn]

Uh oh! Not yet. 

[ericm]

The best shock is when you grab a sleeve of incans on your arch that are plugged in and it shocks you, little did you know a bulb was broken and you just grabbed the exposed wires

[dl20415]

Guess I'm not a newbie anymore, got my first shock yesterday while changing a fuse on a controller I thought I had unplugged! It's year 2 for me!

[jerry72]

My best one was when i built my first board, had it plugged in went and picked it up and my finger touched the metal tabs on the bottom of the transformer.

[zvacman]

I have been planning my show for over a year. Had the lights, props, controller locations, cat5, and extension cord layout all planned in my head. And STILL I was sequencing 30 minutes before the grand opening yesterday. I did a soft opening Saturday with just a few close friends and relatives looking for honest opinions and criticism. They were all awe struck and had nothing to say but WOW! I however saw a lot of things that needed tweaking. I was up most of the night and all day Sunday up until show time. No matter how ready you may think you are there will still be things to do. This is my first year with LOR. I started with 80 channels and over 100,000 LED's. Hindsight I would have started much smaller, but it did turn out awesome for my first year.

Z