The program reviews the requirements for emergency lighting control covered under the National Electrical Code® (NEC®), the associated UL Product Standards, and application and misapplication of products, and the newest requirements in the NEC®.

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Presenter: Mitch Hefter has been working in entertainment and architectural lighting controls for 38 years. He is currently Senior Systems Engineer at Philips Lighting. As a past Engineering Commissioner for USITT, Mitch oversaw the development of USITT DMX512. He is a USITT Fellow, USITT Founders Award recipient, an Honorary Lifetime member of USITT, and has also served on the USITT Board of Directors. Mitch is a founding member of the ANSI-accredited ESTA Technical Standards Program. He serves on the Technical Standards Council and co-chairs the Electrical Power Working Group. He is an ETCP Certified Entertainment Electrician and Recognized Electrical Trainer. Mitch has worked on updates to the National Electrical Code since 1981 and is a member of NEC Panel 15, representing the Illuminating Engineering Society (IES) since 1997. Mitch is a member of the IES Control Protocols Committee which developed IES TM-23 in 2011 and is the scribe for the revision to TM-23 expected in 2017. Additionally, he is a member of the Control Protocols sub-committee of the IES Energy Management Committee, responsible for LEM-7. He is also an Associate member of the International Association of Electrical Inspectors (IAEI).

FREE for USITT Members, $15 for Non-Members

From the theatre to Times Square and from the studio to a stadium, how do you navigate and manage a rig with 500+ fixtures? This intermediate-level session will delve into the process of designing, engineering, and managing large scale productions from start to finish.

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Presenters:

Dylan Bomgardner, (Moderator) Lighting Designer, Available Light

Robb Jibson, Multi-discipline Designer

Steven Rosen, Founder and Creative Director of Available Light

Travis Shupe, Freelance Lighting Programmer, Electrician, and Lighting Director

Jordan Yeo, President, Production Services, LLC

FREE

Josh Epstein, a lighting designer and the founder of Cuelist Software, helps users move their tech process collaboration to the digital realm. Learn how updating and annotating scripts, describing cues, sharing information, and making changes can now be an instantaneous, collaborative, and environmentally friendly process. Whether face-to-face in the theater or online during a theoretical project, Cuelist can help you communicate all your project information in real-time. Thank you to our exhibitor for offering this session.

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Presenter: Josh Epstein Cuelist founder, Josh Epstein has been a professional lighting designer for 20 years. He has designed at many of the top regional theaters in the country including the Guthrie Theater, Goodman Theater, Mark Taper Forum, Alliance Theater and Pasadena Playhouse. He is currently on faculty at the USC School of Dramatic Arts.

FREE for USITT Members, $15 for Non-Members

This session explores the dos and do nots of being an assistant lighting designer, what it entails, what are some of the stigmas that we face as assistants, how is it different from associate, and what should an assistant know when walking into a room. This is a moderated panel discussion exploring these topics.

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Presenters:

Lucas Granholm is a Theatre Arts professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. He regularly designs across the Midwest at locations such as… Prairie Repertory Theatre, Lyric Arts Main Street Stage, and the PErpich Center for Arts Education. Lucas has his MFA in Theatre Design and Technology from the University of South Dakota.

Tyler Micheel is the Master Electrician and Sound Engineer for the theatre department at The University of Arkansas, where he facilitates technology and training for four unique theatre venues. In addition to facilitating productions, Tyler also teaches courses in Sound Design to graduate and undergraduate students. Recent design credits include Tartuffe, A Little Night Music, and She Kills Monsters. Tyler's work has been both seen and heard at venues such as The Black Hills Playhouse, The Performing Arts Center of Rapid City, and the Vermillion Community Theatre. He received his MFA in Lighting and Sound Design from The University of South Dakota. He received a bachelor’s degree from Dakota State University in Digital Arts and Design emphasizing in Audio Production.

Darren E. Levin is an Associate Professor teaching Lighting Design at Middle Tennessee State University. Design credits include Nashville Repertory Theatre, Black Hills Playhouse, Green Mountain Opera Festival, Cedar Point Live Entertainment. Darren has worked as an electrician with Feld Entertainment’s Disney on Ice, Cedar Point Live Entertainment/Cedar Fair Entertainment Corporation, Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts, and Assistant Technical Director/Lighting Supervisor for McCain Auditorium at Kansas State University. He currently serves on the USITT eSET (Essential Skills for the Entertainment Technician) Council and is the USITT Lighting Commission Vice-Commissioner for Communications. Darren holds a BFA from Missouri State University (2007) in Theatre Design and Technology, and MFA from The University of Texas at Austin (2010) in Theatrical Design (Lighting Design). Proud member United Scenic Artists 829 and IATSE Local 205.

Heather Brown is a Visiting Lecturer of Lighting and Sound Design at the University of Kentucky, earning her MFA in Production Design from Michigan State University. She has over 10 years of professional experience designing lighting for productions, dance, and live events.

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FREE for USITT Members, $15 for Non-Members

Freelance designers and individual artists have unique proximity to the heartbeat of the theatre field. They work at numerous venues each season, in many cases over multiple years and multiple visits, thus experiencing a variety of institutional cultures first hand. However, unlike Actors Equity, there are no industry-wide standards for engaging freelance artists. How can institutions incorporate the learning and experience of the freelance artists they hire more deeply into their organization’s fabric, acknowledging the invaluable nature of their vantage point? Especially during this time when the entire field is on a forced pause. In this session, we explore how guest artists are welcomed and valued by the institutions that invite them through their doors. We will discuss implementing industry-wide standards, creating sustainable feedback loops, recommended best practices sourced from the community at large, and how we can move forward as a community.

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Presenters:

Porsche McGovern is a lighting designer. She designed Skeleton Crew and We Are Proud to Present... (Playmakers Repertory Company), A Single Shard (People's Light and Theatre Company), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (Oregon Shakespeare Festival). In New York, she designed Mothers (Playwrights Realm), Bureau of Missing Persons (Neighborhood Productions), Ghetto Babylon (Dramatic Question Theatre), many shows with Spookfish Theatre Company, among others. She has an MFA from California Institute for the Arts and a BA from St. Lawrence University. She is also a researcher, concentrating on designers in regional theatres.

Deb Sivigny: As a costume and scenic designer, Deb Sivigny has worked on over thirty world premieres with Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Theater J, Kennedy Center Theater for Young Audiences, Imagination Stage, The Source Festival, Young Playwrights Theatre, The Hub, Studio Theatre 2nd Stage, and Rorschach Theatre where she has been a company member since 2006. She has also designed for Round House Theatre, Olney Theatre Center, Everyman Theatre, Signature Theatre, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Rep Stage, Adventure Theatre, Shakespeare Theater’s Academy for Classical Acting, 1stStage, Keegan Theatre, Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, Opera Vivente, WSC Avant Bard, Flying V, DC and Seattle Fringe Festivals, Peridance, Dance Elixir and Tia Nina, among others. She is a member of the second generation of The Welders, where she served as Lead Producing Playwright for her work Hello, My Name Is… Set in a house, she designed and created environments that channeled the lives of Korean adoptees.

David Bengali is a projection and lighting designer based in New York. He has designed theater, opera, and dance Off-Broadway, Regionally, and internationally, and has worked as an associate designer on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and Regionally. Recent design credits include: The Great Leap (Atlantic Theater Company); Van Gogh’s Ear (Ensemble for the Romantic Century - Drama Desk Nomination); Frankenstein (Dallas Theater Center); Rockin' Road To Dublin (National Tour); Assembled Identity (HERE); Uncommon Sense (Tectonic Theater Project); The Temple Bombing (Alliance Theatre); Conference of the Birds (Boston Center for the Arts); SPILL (Ensemble Studio Theatre); Anna Akhmatova (ERC/BAM), Jules Verne From The Earth To The Moon (ERC/BAM); Ring of Fire (Endstation Theatre); The Tempest (Classic Stage Company/The Young Company); Kill Me Like You Mean It (Stolen Chair); Two Point Oh (59E59); I Forgive You Ronald Reagan, The Sensational Josephine Baker (Theatre Row); The Orion Experience (XL).

Katherine Freer is a multimedia designer working in theater, installation, and film. Frequent collaborations include Liz Leman, Ping Chong, Ty Defoe, Carl Cofield, Tim Bond Kamilah Forbes, Talvin Wilks, Andrew Scoville, and Tamilla Woodard. Recent designs: Ajijaak on Turtle Island (New Victory, dir. Ty Defoe and Heather Henson), By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (Signature Theater, dir. Kamilah Forbes), the Convent (ArtNY, dir. Daniel Talbott), Antigone (Richard Rogers Amphitheater, dir. Carl Cofield), Cellular Songs (BAM Harvey, by Meredith Monk), Next to Normal (Syracuse Stage, dir. Bob Hupp), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time (Syracuse Stage, dir. Risa Brainin). Katherine is a proud member of USA829 and Wingspace Theatrical Design.

Fixture manufacturers have developed LED Color mixing systems that utilize various combinations of LEDs including RGB, RGBA, RGBW, RGBL, RGBAL, RGBAW, RGBAWUv, or even White LEDs using subtractive CMY systems. Ford Sellers (Sr Product Manager for Chauvet Professional) talks us through the various color mixing systems, and then leads a discussion on how best to utilize a variety of fixtures in the same lighting rig. This session will be most beneficial to anyone (Student, Designer, Electrician, or Educator) who currently has multiple types of LED fixtures, or fixtures from multiple manufacturers. The discussion will help answer questions such as: How can Lighting Designers work with multiple systems in the same lighting rig? How can different systems work together, and what can you do to make best use of using multiple color systems easier?

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Presenter: Ford Sellers is an active lighting designer and freelance electrician. He has been the Senior Product Manager for Chauvet Professional, and Iluminarc since 2010. Prior to joining Chauvet, Ford was the Master Electrician for Cornell University's School of Theatre, Film, and Dance. Ford was also the Assistant Lighting Director for MGM Grand Productions and worked as a projectionist and follow-spot operator for large productions in Las Vegas.

FREE for USITT Members, $15 for Non-Members

While there are legitimate reasons whereby one person should rightfully earn more than another, gender should not be among them. And yet, a recent study of college graduates [1] found that, on average, 57 percent of identifying males negotiated contracts upon offer compared to only 8 percent of identifying females. As a former internationally-touring GSM turned Director of Operations and Producer, Terrence Williams brings a unique perspective, having sat on both sides of the negotiating table and having offered numerous contracts to crew members around the world. Join him as he takes you through some common deal structures, ways in which gender wage gaps form in the entertainment industry, and both common and uncommon negotiating strategies for employees. Attendees will learn to form their own personal strategy for wage growth, as well as gain an understanding of the behind-the-scene dynamics governing wages within the industry. [1] Study conducted by economists Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever in their book Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide.

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Presenter: Terrence R. Williams is an internationally-touring General Stage Manager having worked with such distinguished productions as The Illusionists, Circus 1903, Absinthe and Illusionist David Copperfield, among others. Terrence has helmed four Australian National Tours as well as multiple tours through Japan, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, and various parts of the Middle East. His work has been seen on The Late Show with David Letterman, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Late Late Show with James Corden, the Rachael Ray Show, the TODAY Show, and America's Got Talent. Currently overseeing 13 live touring productions worldwide, he has turned his focus towards stage management education and leadership training within the industry.

FREE

ANSI E1.11 This video is a brief overview of one of ESTA’s most popular standards, E1.11, DMX512-A. This control protocol is nearly ubiquitous in the entertainment lighting industry, used in a host of luminaires, lighting effects, special effects, house lighting systems, video servers, and more. The standard is simple and effective, specifying everything about the protocol, including the structure of the data packets, the electrical interface, and the physical connectors. Viewers will get a basic overview of the standard and be informed where to download it for free, courtesy of ProSight Specialty Insurance.

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Presenter: Erin Grabe, Assistant Technical Standards Manager, holds a Bachelor of Technology in Entertainment Technology from the New York City College of Technology. Since February 2013, she has been the Assistant Technical Standards Manager for ESTA's Technical Standards Program, the only ANSI-Accredited standards developer for the entertainment technology industry. She also serves as a technical resource to ESTA's members. As of October 2014, Erin has also been the administrator for ESTA's association management database.

FREE

ANSI E1.9 This video offers viewers a quick look at a standard to describe a method of reporting the photometric performance of luminaires being sold for or offered for use in entertainment lighting that is both detailed and easy to understand for people in the entertainment lighting market. In other words, a standard for reporting photometrics on a cutsheet. Viewers are given instructions for downloading the standard, free of charge, courtesy of ProSight Specialty Insurance.

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Presenter: Erin Grabe, Assistant Technical Standards Manager, holds a Bachelor of Technology in Entertainment Technology from the New York City College of Technology. Since February 2013, she has been the Assistant Technical Standards Manager for ESTA's Technical Standards Program, the only ANSI-Accredited standards developer for the entertainment technology industry. She also serves as a technical resource to ESTA's members. As of October 2014, Erin has also been the administrator for ESTA's association management database.