Infogate Quickly Pinpoints – and Fixes – Problem for New York City Lighting Designer

With M*A*S*H star Jamie Farr leading the way, the off-Broadway comedy "Flamingo Court" chronicled the hijinks of seniors living out their golden years in a Florida condo complex. A UPI review called it "without question, the funniest show in town."

But it wasn’t so hilarious when veteran lighting designer Herrick Goldman encountered a strange situation with his lighting equipment during load in.

While focusing the lights, Goldman realized a few of his 50 Wybron CXI color changers weren’t responding to the board. For some unknown reason, the techs couldn’t control them.

And they were hung in a pretty inaccessible place.

Normally this sticky situation would have required a crew member to climb up to the aforementioned scrollers. That’s 30 to 45 minutes just to diagnose what went wrong.

"There was no way to tell from the ground," Goldman says.

But Goldman managed to both troubleshoot and fix the problem in only a few minutes – while staying firmly on the ground – thanks to Wybron’s Infogate software.

Using an industry-standard communication protocol called Remote Device Management, Infogate gathers information from the equipment on a lighting rig and sends the invaluable data back to the rig’s operators. Infogate can warn users of impending disaster and help them pinpoint problems fast.

Infogate quickly discovered Flamingo Court’s scroller problem: Three CXI units had been programmed with overlapping DMX addresses. To resolve the issue, Infogate simply assigned new addresses to the units.

The electricians loved it.

While Goldman hopes no more mishaps strike his lighting rig, Infogate brings him peace of mind in case they do.

"If something goes wrong, it’s definitely a safety net," Goldman says.

A few other Wybron products proved to be favorites of Goldman, a New York City-based designer who’s worked with countless theatre productions, concerts, dance performances and corporate events (visit www.hglightingdesign.com).

Goldman chose Wybron’s CXI – a dual-gelstring scroller that mixes hundreds of custom colors – to help light the Flamingo Court space at New World Stages.

"I find that the variety of colors I get out of the CXIs are wonderful," Goldman says. "I can go from No Color Blue to something very saturated in seconds."

And to choose the perfect hue, Goldman likes to use Wybron’s iPhone/iPod touch applications – the CXI Color Calculator and the Gel Swatch Library. The Gel Swatch Library lets users browse, compare, and search nearly 1,000 gel colors made by GAM, Lee, and Rosco, showing similar and complementary colors for each shade. The CXI Color Calculator lets users create nearly 500 different colors for the CXI.

"It’s easier than carrying around a swatch book," Goldman says.