lamoreaux:stagecrew:market_square

Market Square

Also known as the Rollit J. Goldring Market square, it is essentially the lobby of the school, also used as a meeting spot and for assemblies, etc.

The market square is set up for lighting from the central dimmer rack, and can easily accommodate speakers, etc.

Historically, there were ceiling mounted speakers in the market square.

My understanding is that those could be used in one of two ways:

  1. By plugging in an amplifier to the 1/4“ speaker jacks in the sound panel that contains the outputs of the built in XLR cables and the 5-pin DMX input.
  2. By running through the AV rack in the cafeteria, which contains an amplifier which could be routed to the market square speakers.

Those speakers have since been removed.

For most assemblies, we set up the sound cart in the elevated section by the stage for easy transport from Ms. Coniams office. In most cases we just use the Stagepas 500i system speakers in the back.

For larger events such as commencement or concerts, we bring out the NX300 speakers.

Having speakers for assemblies face the microphones is a bad idea, but you can't do much better in the market square for a quick setup.

There are also the 70V speakers in the ceiling for the PA system. These are on a single phone number, but with a separate amplifier (?). They echo a lot, and sound as you expect 70v PA speakers to sound.

These are just used for Radio L'Am and office announcements. If you try routing audio to them, the minute you hang up the configuration phone, they go silent.

There is a single horn speaker under the skylight.

I have no idea where it is wired. My best guess is with the PA system, but it is not on zone 1. We never did a test with all numbers to avoid getting complaints from the Adult ESL portable

The market square lighting bar has 12x 30A NEMA twist lock plugs. They are wired for 120VAC, not 208V (as is commonly seen using those outlets).

Note that anything other then incandescent lights should not be run off these, since they are run off dimmers. There is NO other stable power source, or DMX routed here.

The outlets are on dimmers 37-48.

In 2015, the market square lighting looked as follows. This was one of my first setups, after the new drama room setup for our french class. I mainly ensured we had 12 lights.

From left to right, if I recall:

  • Fresnelite (500W or 1KW)
  • Unknown ellipsoidal
  • Unknown fresnel
  • ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal (550W or 750W)
  • Strand scoop light (750W?)
  • ETC Source 4
  • Lee Colortran ellipsoidal (500W or 1KW)
  • ETC Source 4
  • Strand scoop light
  • ETC Source 4
  • Unknown fresnel
  • Fresnelite

Note: what I call “ellipsoidal” in this page is often called Leko lights by Ms. Coniam.

Other angles:

In later years, once the TDSB had electricians with a lift come in and replace the cafeteria lights, we moved the much better quality ETC Source 4 and Lee Colortran ellipsoidals over to the stage. This was since the main shows where spots from a longer distance are needed are for the talent show and school play, both of which take place in the cafeteria. Not to mention, the fact that we only get the chance to change those out once a year or two, so it made sense to move higher quality lights there.

In the 2016-17 era, we got more CYC lights, so we put those up in the market square, later replaced in 17-18 to move those to the stage, bringing older tungsten scoop lights over. The halogen scoop lights here were moved to the drama room, other halogen ones to the stage. This was because market square benefits from those wider lights, especially given the positioning of the bar (a spot would just light top-down at these angles as seen above), and the halogen scoops with longer bulb life were on the stage as they are hard to replace, and classic incandescent on the stage, where we can easily replace them (if we find the right bulbs).

The high quality 1kw Fresnellite were also moved to the stage, as those fresnels used bulbs we could no longer find…

This article sat on my computer for years (since grade 12) before I finally uploaded it, so a few things are bound to be out of date.

  • lamoreaux/stagecrew/market_square.txt
  • Last modified: 2022-08-06 06:32
  • by Tony