Theatre Design & Technology - Fall 1983 - 22

the telephone company. Five days for
the telephone installation alone! It was
a vast jigsaw puzzle waiting to be
assembled.
The first step in the transformation
of concert hall to convention hall was
the planning and designing for the conversion of the theatre. Because the
Crouse-Hinds has continental seating,
we had to plan on removing nearly 300
seats down the middle of the house. Removal of the seats took a crew of eight
stagehands five hours. A system of unbolting and storing parts was devised
and we were all surprised at how easily
the whole process ran once implemented. Two complete rows were
removed near the rear of the theatre for
the television camera platform. Another
row was removed to permit delegates to
cross over from one side of the hall to
the other. The rest of the house was left
unchanged. The newspaper reporters,
radio stations and TV networks and stations used the fourteen house boxes for
anchor positions. The print media had
a long table with telephones and power
for their equipment positioned near the
cross-over aisle in the theatre.
Technically there were some novel
challenges. Electrical power had to be
safely and correctly distributed. Bill
Beckerman, house stage electrician, was
given the power problem. He devised a
safe bypass route and utilized three 50
amp circuits through the dimmer system
to the front-of-house positions. These
power sources supplied the camera platform, the print media tables and two of
the television anchor positions. Power
requests for the convention floor were
minimal and we were able to satisfy
those requirements from standard 20
amp circuits located along the walls of
the theatre orchestra chamber. Prior to
the set-up time of the convention, we
had anticipated large power requests for
major television remote vans. By the
set-up day our fears diminished. The
network sent small hand-held cameras
and portable video cassette machines.
One TV station brought their production van and required three phase
power. We asked them to hire a private
contractor for the installation and supply of wire, distribution panel and imilar items. Power was supplied from the
stage company switch, which contained
two 400A, two 200A, A.C. 60 cycle, 3
phase 4 wire 120/208 with ground service. We decided that all power and
20

technical requests would be handled on
a first-come, first-serve basis.
After the electrical hook-ups were
planned and ready to "plug in," audio
work began. Every TV, radio, and some
of the print media wanted an audio feed.
The Civic Center did not own a 24 or 48
balanced line audio splitter. Bob Oliver,
manager of house operations and the
man who booked the convention, discussed this matter with the convention
coordinator, who thought the Koch
Campaign owned an audio splitter. A
telephone call was made and the Koch
people agreed to send their audio splitter on the next trip Upstate from ew
York City. The problem was, however,
that we had requests for 30-35 lines. A
local audio company was contacted by
Tim Guhl, audio technician for the Civic
Center, and the convention personnel
learned that they would be able to rent
another audio splitter. Problem solved.
The other audio requirements for the
convention were basic. Two microphones on the speaker's lectern and two
microphones per stand at two floor locations. Guhl used EV-RE-15 and -16 microphones for all applications. On the
opening morning of the convention, we
were inundated with many more requests
for audio lines or feeds. The policy of
first-come, first-serve held and was understood by everyone. Some of the latecomers were disgruntled, but complied
with the rule.

The press fable momellls before the beginning of
the Conl'elllion.

Television production problems grew
as the convention dates approached.
Lighting for the convention was of great
concern to me and house electrician Bill
Beckerman. We discu sed the various
problems at some length for many weeks
before the convention. The Convention
Office said a lighting designer would be
present and he would be experienced in
television lighting. On the day of the
load-in of technical equipment, which
was two days before the convention was
to begin, we still had received no word

Theatre Design & Technology/USITT /Fall 1983

from the "designer." Finally, there was
a telephone call from the lighting designer and we set up a time of 9:00 a.m.
on the Saturday tech set-up for lights.
Saturday he walked in, looked at the
theatre and said, "I'll be back soon."
Bill Beckerman and I looked at each
other and said "Hit plan B"-a back-up
plan to light the hall in case this situation
arose.
Bill went to work. To light the Convention we used front-of-house lighting,
two of three side house (box boom positions) towers and backlit the speakers
from the stage first electric. We did not
rehang the electrics. The stagehands and
Bill refocused the instruments described
to light the floor as evenly and fully as
possible. We had promised the media
they would have at least 90 foot candles
of light and we delivered 200 foot candles of light. The instruments used were
40 Major 10 xIS Lekos, and 16 Major
8 x 9's. Beckerman also used sixty Altman 6x 16's, 6x 12's and 8" Fresnels.
The light blue cyclorama was lit with a
250W IQ, three-color ground row upstage of the cyc, and a similar strip light
downstage and above the cyc. Gel was
not used, except in the overhead strip,
and all light was run at full intensity.
There were a few shadows around the
edges of the hall. The main aisle up the
center of the orchestra of the theatre and
the stage were amply lit, and TV engineers had no complaints.
Security was also a big issue. The
Convention Committee and the Civic
Center staff did not want any unpleasant problems. The Convention security
personnel were in constant communication via hand-held walkie-talkie radios
at security posts selected around the
theatre complex. Every hour the entire
group would rotate positions. The
security was good, tightly run, and
flexible.
The diversity of the event leads me to
the stagehands and how we billed the
Democratic Committee. The stagehands
that serve the Civic Center and Syracu e
are I.A.T.S.E. Local 9, a highly professional and cooperative group of men
and women. As administrator of the
Civic Center, we advise the incoming
les ee of the stagehand costs and schedule the stagehands. For the convention,
after discussion with the business agent
for Local 9, we priced the convention on
a "show cal!" plus overtime for the convention days. All work prior to the con-

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