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City Theatrical SHoW DMX Utilizes RDM for Mary Poppins Tour
When Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd (HELL) won the contract to supply all the set electrics to the Cameron Mackintosh / Disney national UK tour of Mary Poppins, they turned to City Theatrical to provide the wireless DMX control system.
City Theatrical is no stranger to Mary Poppins. Its WDS Wireless Data System is already providing wireless control to the Broadway production, but the new tour sees the first large scale use in the UK of their new SHoW DMX system. City Theatrical provided one transmitter and a total of seven receivers to the production: two mounted in trucked scenic pieces, four mounted on tracking sliders and the final receiver providing DMX to a large flown "attic" piece.
Of all the pieces, the four tracking sliders are the most interesting elements. These tall translucent panels are internally lit by custom HELL RGB LED strips. The scenic design calls for the panels to be able to cross over completely from one side of the stage to the other, passing each other with minimal clearance. Because of these demands, a cabled solution was quickly ruled out, and a decision was made to go with battery power and wireless DMX control.
Mounted at the top of each panel is a slim battery pack and LED control unit by HELL, and a City Theatrical SHoW DMX receiver providing DMX control. But it wasn't just the wireless DMX control that attracted HELL to SHoW DMX, it's built in RDM capability was also a major deciding factor.
RDM stands for ‘Remote Device Management', a new extension to the DMX standard which allows compliant equipment to talk back to a controller. Martin Chisnall of City Theatrical's London office explains: "Howard Eaton Lighting is on the cutting edge of RDM, and City Theatrical's SHoW DMX is the world's only example of wireless RDM, so it seemed only natural that the two companies should bring their respective technologies together.
"For the first time it's possible to read the voltage of all of the LED battery packs via the built in RDM monitor in the SHoW DMX transmitter. This is an excellent example of the capabilities of RDM. Previously it would have been necessary to utilize a tallescope or genie lift, and several crew, and go up to each battery pack in turn with a volt meter. Now all that can be avoided by the electrician plugging in a laptop to the SHoW DMX transmitter at ground level."
During technical rehearsals at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, another of SHoW DMX's advanced features was put through its paces. The Theatre Royal has a WiFi ‘hotspot' in the auditorium on channel 6, directly in the middle of the WiFi spectrum. Coupled with that, the lighting desk wireless remote, another WiFi based system, was working up at channel 11, effectively occupying the upper third of the band. By using SHoW DMX's limited bandwidth operating mode, the wireless DMX signal was limited to the lower third of the frequency band without affecting either the wireless internet or the desk remote.
Howard Eaton said of the show: "There were several routes we could have chosen for this project. CTI have a well founded reputation for product excellence but it was their renowned service that made the decision for us. Martin Chisnall visited Plymouth to look at the RF use in the theatre and assisted the Poppins crew with the choice of Show DMX setup and was at all times supported by the design team back in New York. When the show moved to Birmingham Martin visited again to check the system setup."
Mary Poppins is currently at The Hippodrome Theatre, Birmingham, and moves to The Playhouse Theatre, Edinburgh this autumn.
SHoW DMX will be on the City Theatrical stand, D73, at PLASA 2008.
29th August 2008
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