"My biggest motivation? Just to keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had. Every day I'm learning something new."

 

Remote Device Management, or RDM, has been around since December 2006, but it's just now finding its way into the marketplace. The vast majority of stage lighting products being manufactured today, including luminaires and consoles, have RDM capability. But what does it do and what good is it?

Bill Ellis, owner of Candela Controls in Orlando, Florida, demonstrates some RDM capabilities at PLASA Focus Orlando 2013 using two different configuration and troubleshooting tools-the Doug Fleenor Design RAD and the Goddard Design Lil' DMXster. 

To watch the video, click here.

Heather Hillmeyer-Newsom, a Hollywood lighting tech, likes to put funny posts on Facebook about doing "evil lighting." All joking aside, there may be some evil lurking in your lighting, wether or not you're aware of it. Many of the lamps in the entertainment lighting industry have mercury, a highly toxic element that can cause poisoning in certain circumstances. So why do we use mercury in fluorescent lamps and arc lamps like MSRs and HMIs? It's used to fill in the light spectrum and without it, the color rendering would render these lamps unusable in stage lighting.

 

I always knew there were risks involved in using these lamps. Read the guidelines for cleaning up mercury spills issued by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and you'll get a sense of the hazard involved. Better yet, view this video called "Toxic Light: The Dark Side of Energy Saving Bulbs" presented by Link TV for DW In Focus and written by Alexandra Pfeil. (Thanks to Chipmonck for sending us the link.) After watching the first three minutes of the video, I immediately went out and bought LED replacement lamps for all of the CFLs in my house. Why?

To continue reading, click here.

 

The Event Safety Alliance has announced a significant upgrade to the ESA website. 

Several new features have been added to the site, including a listing of upcoming industry events and an Alliance-managed blog. Most significantly, the improved site now tracks updates to the Event Safety Guide, so users can be sure they're referencing the most current information available. The current update of the Event Safety Guide includes the highly anticipated chapter on Rigging for public review and comment. You are invited to download the latest version and send your feedback before the August 5th deadline for public review.

 

To visit the web site, click here.