Technical Specifications

Location

Alpha sets up all sound and lighting desks off-prompt.
Please have everything prepared for this location of our desks to operate the shows from.
If you have a dedicated area for sound in the audience, please reserve this area for us to use.
We need ground floor access to the venue, for our vehicle to bring equipment straight in onto your stage. Please arrange this.
Our set will use up most of the stage, and be integrated into your curtaining system with our black stage curtaining.
Stage space required will be approx 10 metres deep
Legs are dropped after setup, and often the half tab is brought down half way to touch our curtaining/set.

Power

We can connect to 3-phase or 2 separate circuited 15 amp standard outlets, so it’s best to have these available on the stage right side.
ALL VENUES ALWAYS HAVE AT LEAST 2 CIRCUITS – SO ANY VENUE WE CAN PERFORM AT.
At schools usually your hall will have 2 circuits, although sometimes we must run 1 cable into a canteen/kitchen.
IF WE NEED TO RUN INTO A CANTEEN, YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HAVE OTHER APPLIANCES ON DURING THE ENTIRE TIME WE ARE THERE, AS WE USE THE ENTIRE POWER OF BOTH CIRCUITS.
Please ensure that no extra power load is on any of the circuits you arrange for us to use; otherwise we will trip the circuits and not be able to perform the show for you.
We also have the ability to run off 3-phase so it’s easiest to have 3-phase ready for us on off-prompt side.

Sound

Sound desk with Allen & Heath mixer, Powersoft LQ2804 1400w amp, 2x 15″ FOH speakers, Lexicon effects processor/compressor/limiter, 30 band EQ, 2x RCA 10″ foldback, TASCAM minidisc/cd player/recorder, 8x sennheiser receivers and belt packs, with 6x countryman E6 earsets, 1x DPA earset, and 1x sennheiser handheld.
Unless your venue is large this will be sufficient for most venues.
For larger venues, please have a quarter inch jack to take a channel up to your system from our mixer. For longer seasons (greater than 2 shows) we can send independant vocals & music feeds up to your system to be controlled by your operator. For single/double shows this is not possible and not necessary.
It is Alpha policy to always have our sound system set up in case there is ever a problem with a venue system. Please do not ask us to forgo the use of our equipment in favour of yours!! We won’t do it!!
We will do a substantial sound test with a dB meter to get the levels appropriate for your venue, whether we are using just our equipment or connecting in to your sound system as well. This will be slightly louder than you may be used to with other children’s shows but well within safety levels. This is due to the nature of the product, being a rock-concert style, and the fact we are appealing to a higher age range.

Other effects

ROBE 1500 Fog + Martin Haze Machine used – venue must have smoke detectors isolated
Miniature flash pot in King Arthur for Sword in Stone effect. Please notify us before visiting if you do not wish this effect to be used.
Compressed Air confetti hand-held cannon used in Aladdin
All other equipment, set and costumes etc set up by Alpha. If you have crew on duty, helping to bring stuff in would be appreciated; setup of equipment will be done by the Alpha cast.

Lighting

Lighting will be done at all venues using our own equipment and operators. Please have a place ready to set up 2 x lighting trees in an appropriate position with good view of the stage area. This can be on the side or at the rear of the auditorium. Please reserve the area in the audience normally used for sound mixing desks and operator.¹
Our lighting rig is as follows – we have 2 different possible setups that may be visiting you. Both are listed here:
SETUP 1: 6 x Multipars 575w, 4x Par 56 300w, 2 x 600w Selecon Profiles, 2 x 250w Moving Head Intelligent Lights, 1 x 1300w Blinder all connected to 2 x 6 channel Theatrelight Dimmers controlled by a LSC Minim desk
SETUP 2: 8 x Multipars 575w (connected via Weiland cables to 2 x LSC Redback Single Phase 6 channel dimmers), 1 x 1300w blinder, 2 or 4 x 250w Moving Head Intelligent Lights, 2x iSolution 250w Scanners, all connected via DMX to LSC XTC Lighting console, which can control up to 100 fixtures, with special controls for moving lights via inbuilt PatPad.
All lighting is operated by Alpha crew. We have a complicated lighting plot with very specific and quick cues and Alpha policy is to ALWAYS run our own lights no matter the venue. It is very difficult to duplicate what we do so please do not ask us to forgo the use of our lights, unless your season runs for more than 3 shows. You can always add venue lights in on top of ours but we will always use our lighting.
If we can get our lighting trees in a sufficiently effective spot, then no other lighting will be necessary, so please try to arrange a space for our lighting trees to go. For longer runs or for very large venues, it can be benficial (although not necessary) to add in the standard house rig in addition to the lighting we provide. We can call the show to your lighting operator to add additional lights at your venue. We will do a lighting plot (about 20 minutes) with you once our lights are set up. Your operator then matches the names of our lighting states to your newly programmed states (that are based on our lighting states) and we can call the show using those simple names.