Audio Team

VancouFur Department Guides

Theater A/V^{[[[a]]][[[b]]]}

Originally written by Nullre^{[[[c]]][[[d]]]}ff, 2017

(updated by ____, year)

Please remember, we want you to have fun, be creative and be inspired! Have ideas for your department? Talk with your fellow staff and get some stuff info written up to explain what you want to do! Talk to your execs (or the chairs) to confirm if it’s okay to do but we want to hear all the creative things you have to offer. We want your department to become a fun project for you. Have idea’s for projects or convention additions that don’t fit in your department? Thats awesome too! Have an idea about how to engage people in the convention more? Do you have experience in some aspect of the fandom that you think could get some more exposure? Let us know! This guide is to make sure the essentials get done and you aren’t feeling lost or scrambling last minute for something that you weren’t aware of. Feel free to get creative and start suggesting new things to do! We may not be able to do them all (for various reasons) but we want to hear of them!

Basic Department Description:

• Theatre A/V provides the skills and gear needed to put on large events in theatre. We make all the behind the scenes magic happen.
• For department staff, a knowledge of sound/lighting/video/rigging/power and general theatre knowledge (cues, blocking, etc..) are recommended but not required. We need staff with a willingness to learn and follow direction. They should also be mindful of safety procedures. During setup and teardown, additional hands will be required who can lift heavy objects.
• You can reach the lead at [email protected] or via telegram @nullreff

Yearly Responsibilities:

• Determine technical requirements for events happening in theatre and design a setup that will fulfil them. Requirements should be prioritized as “required”, “good to have” and “extra”.
• Contact hotel (via liaison), rental houses (Scooby) and other staff to determine what is freely available and what must be paid for. Create a list of gear and a budget sheet. If over budget, cut down on “extra”, and maybe some “good to have” requirements. If too many “good to have” items or any “required” items would need to be cut, contact the executive team to discuss increasing the budget or cutting expensive events.
• Once the design is finalized, send out orders to get final quotes and submit costs to the executive team.
• Once the programming department has finished finalizing the schedule, determine layouts for all the events. Determine when changeovers need to happen.
• Prepare tech for the event (download files onto playback laptop, pre-program lighting, etc..)
• Contact volunteers and make sure we have a primary and secondary staffer for audio, lighting and video.
• Make sure all gear is properly packed and ready for transport. If logistics is required, notify the logistics department of what needs to be transported.
• Make sure that there are plenty of expendables available (gaff tape, earplugs, spare lamps, haze fluid, etc…)
• Contact the organizer of events to discuss cues and figure out what needs to be set up before rehearsals.

Your Department on the Website/in the Conbook:

• Make sure the list of staff is up to date so it can be published in the conbook.

6 Months before con, what do you need to have done?

• General idea of requirements for theatre.
• Preliminary gear list, design and budget.

3 Months before con, what do you need to have done?

• Full volunteer team for running FOH (leads and seconds).
• Layouts for events and a preliminary schedule of when hotel needs to change over.
• Solid list of gear, design and budget.
• Notify rental houses of what you want (but may change depending on what’s available).

1 Month before con, what do you need to have done?

• Room layouts and changeovers sent to the hotel team.
• Gear roster sent to logistics and confirmation with A/V crew transporting their own gear.
• Final rental list and budget.
• Send in final staff list for conbook.
• Start prepping gear for transport.
• Start talking about cues for events and rehearsals.

After the Convention/Before the Firing Party:

• Make sure all your volunteers (and yourself) got inputted into the system for their hours.
• Update your guide with any new/relevant information/changes.
• A staff feedback survey will be emailed out and sent into the staff chats. Please fill this out ASAP!
• Make any staffing suggestions to the next years’ chair. (If you want to work again, staff who excelled and where, etc.)
• Make sure all equipment made it back to the right owner.

Break down of contacts:

• Main Contacts: Theatre, Hotel, Logistics, Programming
• Executive Contact: Programming Lead
• Outside Contacts: Scooby (gear rentals)

Department Inventory and Ordering Resources:

• Resources Used:

• Stagevison (via Scooby) - Sound/Lighting/Rigging Rentals
• Kheetah - Video
• Nullreff - Lighting (Washington)
• Foxworth - Sound (Washington)
• Kay Fox - Video/Lighting (Washington)

Do's and Don'ts of the Department:

• People will try to change and schedule things last minute. Just roll with it.
• Scooby won’t know what he can give you until around a month or two before the con. Give him a general idea of what you want and he’ll make it happen.
• Bring multiple paper copies of the room layout and rigging.
• Always have someone watching FOH during the dances (people like to mess with the volume).
• You only need one projector screen and it doesn’t need to be that big.
• Put the haze machine on the side away from the door, get approval before turning it on.
• The hotel (Executive) only has a limited number of staging sections available. These have to be stacked in order to make a stage. Would highly recommend renting staging instead if the budget permits.
• You have two power distros available, one typically used for sound and the other for lighting/stage.
• Video village in FOH takes up at least two tables. Sound and lighting can fit on the same table.
• Speakers will probably be on the far sides of the room rather than where you want to put them due to limited space.
• There are some dead zone for radio reception, including where FOH usually is.
• FOH will most likely be on the right side of the room rather than center.
• Rigging lights to the overhead truss is a pain with the stage in the way. If you can fit it, getting truss lifts would make things much easier.

Other Resources

• Lighting software: [[1]]
• Audio playback: [[2]]
• Cameron Sandbeck (Scooby) provides rentals for most of our equipment: [[3]]
• Ray Aberle provides rentals for other fur cons in the states: [[4]]

PLEASE REMEMBER

• Always respond to emails/contacts, even if it is just to say “I recieved your email and will get back to you soon!” / “I don't know the answer but I am looking into it for you!”
• Be sure to contact the Chairs or Admin to make sure you have access to the materials you will need for the year like your Staff Email, Access to any folders/sites with materials, etc. (Be on the lookout for invites or emails to these things and check your junk mail too!)
• Make sure you TEST your new staff email (if any) and report problems immediately to the Chairs! (if you haven't gotten any emails in a while, do another test!)
• Make sure you keep all of your information up to date with the convention staff! Contact the volunteers lead to update your information if the volunteers spreadsheet is not available for direct editing!
• Do not WAIT for someone to contact you. If you have a moment to reach out, do so! Depending on who you are working with, the communication road may not be a 2 way street and you will have to do a lot of poking. Please be proactive!
• Do not edit any staff members’ documentation without permission!
• Keep all VancouFur related documents INSIDE the VancouFur Materials folders. Keeping things on your own gdocs and not inside the VancouFur specific folders makes it incredibly difficult to find needed information for all parties without hassling a lot of staff.
• If you need to make something private in the materials folder (Googledocs or wherever it moves to in the future) Make sure that the Chairs, Admin and Executives CAN STILL SEE IT. We need to know where you are and if your files are all hidden we cannot proactively offer help, guidance, or corrections. Otherwise, just keep things public/view only to prevent people from messing with your info.

• Make sure you know who your Executive is! They are there to help you and oversee the branch of departments you are in. Contact [email protected] / [email protected] to check or check the contact page on the website! You can also use the contact sheet for the year

[[[a]]]Looking for an ETA on the guide completion :3

[email protected]

[[[b]]][email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

A reminder for this to be done by the end of the planning year/shortly after if all possible. (Theater stuff, not promo video. All experience is welcome!)

[[[c]]]@[email protected]

I have added a few extra "after con" items at the bottom, however if you (and/or your team) could fill this out so we have a general guide going forward, that would be awesome!

Thank you so much for your hard work this year Nullreff! If you need any assistance or have questions about this, let me know. (Feel free to add/remove that things apply/dont apply.)

_Assigned to [email protected]_

[[[d]]]Done :)