TSmithCreative

May 2010

Electrical Work for Olden Lighting for the 127th Spring Commencement at The University of Texas at Austin

Position: Load-In/Strike Electrician, Focus Crew

Rig Includes: Varilite VLX, VL2500, VL3000, and VL3500; High End Systems StudioColor, StudioSpot, StudioBeam, Cyberlight, and Technobeam; Moonscape LED pars and strips; Strand CD80 dimmers; Dove Shoebox dimmers; ProCan PAR64; and Strand SL ellipsoidals.

Photos in this album courtesy of Darren E. Levin

My favorite job of the year, this was my third year (2007, 2008, and 2010) to work as an electrician for the University of Texas Spring Commencement. It’s the one time of year when my inner Longhorn gets to come out and work on the campus I grew up on, where most of my relatives and scores of friends call their Alma Mater.

The set up is distributed across five major areas of the Main Building:

• The porch outside the presidential complex’s Stark Library hosts a bank of fixtures to side light the Tower and a primary distro box that serves power over 6-circuit and LeGrand cable to the rest of the roof.
• The service porch behind the Presidential Lobby facing the UT Tower holds all the front light for the tower: VLX (the new Varilite LED Wash fixture), VL3000, and Cyberlight (one equipped with a glass litho of the UT Longhorn for projection).
• Both sides of the roof/balconies on the loggia hold the side light for the south face of the Main Building and the courtyard where the ceremony takes place and LED wash bars to tone the columns outside the 2nd floor offices .
• The courtyard below has architectural uplight and specials along the sides and specials throughout the “playing” space: HES StudioSpot, StudioColor, and StudioBeams as well as conventionals.
• Both of the light posts in the South Mall, referred to us as the “rings,” are rigged with thirty feet of triangular truss to hold PARs for the seating area and automated front lighting for the playing space: VL3000 and VL3500.
• At the back of the South Mall, a truss tower over the lighting and sound control booths holds HES Technobeams and Pars to light the graduate seating area.
• Finally, along both sides of the green extending south of the Mall, each of the academic buildings is lit with four trees of white and orange PARs; at Degree Conferrment, the white PARs cross fade out and the orange upfades to color the entire mall in UT Burnt Orange.

It was, as always, a pleasure to work with Olden Lighting on this job and I hope to be able to do so again next year. It was not until I started attending other University graduations that I realized that this is a unique spectacle and celebration. Only in Texas. Congratulations to all my Longhorn Graduate friends. Best wishes.

Hook ‘em Horns!