VANISH MAGIC BACK ISSUES vanishmagazine64 - Page 24

TAKE
CONTROL
OR YOUR
SHOW
BY JUSTINO ZOPPE
www.QlabTutorial.com
We have all experienced it, showtime
is at 7:30, I get to the venue and told I
can’t set up till 5pm. I return 10 minutes
early hoping to immediately start setting
illusions, and rehearse with the crew, only
to discover the venue is still being used for
some other activity, like playing a movie
for a packed house of 4 people! The movie
of course is running overtime, so I start
setting props quietly in the wings only to
have the film finish 20 minutes late and
now there is no crew to be found. I make
a few calls and the stage crew saunters in,
the good news is they used the 3hr film to
make sure they are totally ready for my set
up… oh wait, no they didn’t. An agonizing
20 minutes go by and they are just now
starting to prepare the stage, meanwhile
I’m running around like a chicken with
it’s head cut off trying to set props, they
ask me to stop and do a mic check, “No
problem” except their mic is not working,
it has a bad cable, so after 15 minutes of
them trying to fix it, I politely give the
headset back and say, “when you get the
mic working let me know.” The Broadcast
tech now says, “let’s try video,” perfect!
Except, what a shock, video doesn’t work,
of course they assume it’s on my end, so
they ask me to change every adapter and
setting possible before they realize “oh, we
had the projector on the wrong input”…
it is now 6:15 A/V is finally connected,
something that should have been done
at 5pm when rehearsal was scheduled to
start. Now it’s time to program the lighting
cues as fast as possible skipping over
24 NOVEMBER | 2019
details such as making it look good. 10
minutes until doors open, the production
manager say’s, “ok let’s do a full run
through” … um… ok? I don’t know how
we could possibly rehearse a full 1hr show
in 10 minutes! He responds by saying,
“How are the Lighting, Sound & Broadcast
operators going to know when to fire all
your cues?”
Suddenly all my stress disappears
because it’s at that moment I say the
most powerful “Show Saving” words
in my vocabulary. “There are no
cues to learn, because I control my
own show!” The imaginary man in
my head does a little dance, lol.
I’d like to say this is a story I
made up, however, many of us
know all too well the anguish
of these rehearsal disasters
which have become the
norm in venues all across
the industry.
Unfortunately this has
become what seems like a
weekly occurrence for me
and my friends.
This forces entertainers
to make 1 of 2 choices,
#1 Sacrifice their own
show by removing
all the best effects,
routines, lighting,
and anything
requiring someone to learn the cues. Or, #2
take your show back and get full control of
every aspect of the production, making your
show look like it’s been rehearsed for weeks
with every cue firing to the millisecond of
perfection!
Now this is all possible because of two
outstanding systems, Qlab Show Control and
Audio Ape Remotes.
I first want to point out I do not work for
either one of these companies, nor do I get
paid for endorsing their products, I am a
proud user of both of these systems and
would never do a single show without them.
Let me introduce myself, my name is Justino
Zoppe, I’m a 7th generation entertainer and
the first one in my family to produce and
perform magic shows.
When my wife Daniela & I first started
producing our own Cirque, Dance Illusion
show “Extreme Vegas” we required 7 stage
techs and a minimum of 2 weeks of rehearsals
before we could open the show. Fast forward
to winter 2019, our latest production
“Illusions and Beyond” had a full cast, 5 giant
LED walls, 60 moving lights, 2 spot light
operators, a cast of 9 performers on stage and
well over 500 cues! The show was filled with
tons of effects, blizzard machines, confetti
cannons, streamers, and the entire show ran
completely automated with only 1 stage tech
backstage! No front of house crew at all! And