We were talking about this last night: Our job isn't to review the thing... It's to get the picture/sound up on the screen.
After you see enough of these "dogs with fleas" you start to learn. But... suffice it to say, I don't know WHY anybody would pay $15 to come and watch something that they might be able to see on MTV! (Only MTV would be better, in my opinion.)

1. Equipment was installed day prior to show, not enough time to correct problems, which became apparent immediately
2. The wrong lens was brought to us. I had initially given throw distance from the last row in the auditorium, because I didn't know how big the projector was (we had very little info given to us), but they went ahead and installed the thing in the booth anyways. Needless to say we had MAJOR problems getting the image presentable.
3. The installers knew little about the system. I watched them for an hour or so playing with it, not knowing why the image didn't look quite right. I finally piped in and asked if the lens was for the floor or the booth, trying to point them in the right direction. I had to come in late that night, and spent 2 hours playing with the machine until I got a good picture. I will say the machine (Barco DLC-600?) was VERY user friendly. After watching the guys for an hour I was able to get the image proper. And as evident from the start of this thread, the installers did not know how to connect the sound.
4. The show was Sugar Ray, not a big crowd pleaser nowadays, and it was on a Wednesday during the school year. Had the show been the Backstreet Boys, or Britney Spears, or something, I believe we would have had a huge draw, any day of the week (real concert tickets are getting up to $100, so $15 ain't too bad).
5. The show ended up being a cuss-fest. I lost count of how many fucks, and motherfuckers, and shits, and whatever else was said. Not to mention the drinking, smoking, and sexual content that was in there. I believe it was billed as an all-ages event, but I could be wrong.

I believe, in the right context (proper day of the week, high-drawing content) this could be a viable money-maker during off-peak times of years. For us in Dallas, when the Dallas Stars were in the playoffs last year the Studio Movie Grill was showing the games on multiple screens and having good turnout for this (am I correct Ethan?). With smart planning this can work.

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Kyle Abel
General Manager
Plano Movies 10

I'm not familiar with that Barco machine (perhaps they use different model numbers in the US?) I'm assuming it's not a dark chip DLP, probably one of their SLM/ELM range. You're spot on right there, those beasties are very user friendly, and once set up right the picture is quite stunning. Some of the Barco machines can be networked and remote controlled via the network. I heard a true story of a universoty someplace that has loads of Barco 6500 machines in various lecture theatre, professor was trying to turn on the machine but the lamp had expired, just as he lifted the telephone to call the AV tech, said AV tech walked into the theatre with a new lamp. Prof is astounded by this and asks how he knew the lamp had failed. Easy, the projector e-mailed me and told him!

In talking to this guy, he told me that he works for a company called I-Mag, out of Atlanta, GA. (Where the concert was being held.) Appearently his ordinary work involves doing i-mag for rock concerts and the like. He seemed to know his shit pretty well.

On the day of the show I came in just before the last movie of the day and brought my RTA and computer. We had a little over an hour to get all the last minute details taken care of and we finished with plenty of time to spare. I set up the mics/mux box with help from the booth manager and "consulted" with the video tech on EQ job. (After all, this was officially his gig.) When I was done with that, I walked the auditorium to check the sound while the video guy sized-up and focused the projector. It was at this time that we discovered the crummy sound and low levels, so I went back into the processor and made the afformentioned readjustments. We were done, probably, 20 minutes before the show started. I had time to take a few pictures of the set up.

It was the "latest" Barco DLP projector. I don't remember the exact model number but it had a sizeable xenon lamp inside. Since I had never seen one of these babies close up before, I asked the video tech to show me what made it tick. (I showed him some of my stuff in return.) As was stated before, the satellite reveiver was just a standard "off the shelf" Dish Network receiver. Nothing special about it at all. We even took a few minutes to check out the latest news on ESPN while we were waiting on the movie to end, before we did the final setups.

I have to agree with you, Kyle, the "content" of the show wasn't all that spectacular. Not only do I not care for this type of "music", it wasn't a very good production. There were several instances where the picture was out of focus and some of the shots weren't framed well at all. (Heads were cut off and the camera "cut away" from the action at just the wrong times, on several occasions.) Of course, as we mentioned before, the sound feed left a lot to be desired. It was very top-heavy (over emphasized high freq.) and the level was very low. Even though I was able to boost the processor's output internally with the computer we still had to have the fader on "7 1/2" to get good volume. Even later, we decided to turn the volume up. We made a "strategic" decision on that one, though. We decided to wait until the "warm up act" was done playing and crank the volume for the feature act. (In other words we tried to make it look like we actually meant to do it that way! )

During a couple of parts of the "show" we discovered that the lip sync was slightly off. I don't think that the video tech would have noticed if I hadn't pointed it out. (Being a "film guy", I am trained to look for that where a guy who is "strictly video" wouldn't be.) It seemed to "fade" in and out of sync. It would last for about 30 seconds and then it would be OK for several minutes. No, it wasn't because the performers were doing a bad job of lip-syncing the music. I first noticed it during the "backstage interview" segments where the band members were talking directly into a mic. It wasn't something goofy with my DSP-60 processor, either. We went up to the booth and checked on the TV monitor connected diretctly to the reciever and the problem was still there. I figure it could have happened at any one of about 100 places along the line, so we just ignored it. I don't think it was bad enough for the customers (all 15 of them) to notice.

All-in-all, this event was a success, technically speaking. Customer-wise, this was show really TANKED! Like you, Kyle, I can't imagine why they put it on a mid-week night right after summer vacation is over. Nobody (who is interested in this kind of show) would be able to come on a school night. Even us guys who worked there didn't watch the show. We went into the auditorium to check on things after it got well under way and quickly left after that. The last part I remember was the song that went, "If heaven ain't a lot like Dee-Troit..." (If you call THAT a song.) Even the UB's on duty who were running the other 17 screens didn't watch it! Tells you a lot right there, doesn't it? The video guy and I went out and checked out a couple of movies while the concert was going on. We came back and checked on things every once in a while bit that was IT. I even left the building early. The equipment didn't have to be loaded out until the next day, so all the video guy had to do was pack things up in the road boxes and leave it in the designated place. I came back in the next morning to make sure the sound system was OK for running movies again. It was and I left. By that time the video guy was long gone.

The producers/backers of this show HAD to know it was going to tank. I can't imagine anybody who thought this would make money. I heard through the grapevine that this event was costing them something like $15,000 - $20,000 per location. That doesn't include the production facilities and techs at the venue. It doesn't include the uplinks/downlinks and it CERTANLY doesn't pay for the "bird". (Which is horrendously expensive, I'm told!) The ONLY reason I can think of for having this event is because they wanted to do some kind of "technology demonstration" to prove that it can be done. My hunch is that the people who put this on are trying to lure some big investors into producing some kind of "big event" in the future. You know how some corporate types can be... "No, That'll never work!"...

I'm betting that the whole reason for this event was to to do it "on spec" for some big wig sitting in an office somewhere, in hopes of making money on a future gig.