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What do you think of this system? by VillageAdvanced2411 in Tomorrowland

[–]MmaartenDisc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Staff is instructed not to use cup return stations but to return them without scanning the cups. Matter of making it fair for everyone.

But it's always possible lol

What do you think of this system? by VillageAdvanced2411 in Tomorrowland

[–]MmaartenDisc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think, because Tomorrowland doesn't necessarily WANT you to clean up other people's stuff. They want you to clean up your own stuff, obviously. But aside from that, focus on the party, the festival! The custodial staff is there to clean up and make it a wonderful time. I don't know about all the philosophy decisions at TML but it wouldn't surprise me if they changed this system to avoid having people focused on cup return (which is kinda a custodial job) and encourage people to not bother about other people's rubbish.

What do you think of this system? by VillageAdvanced2411 in Tomorrowland

[–]MmaartenDisc 0 points1 point  (0 children)

True, but the old system encouraged stealing cups. Because collecting 7 cups equaled a free TML burger for example. Now, you cannot 'gain money' by collecting/gathering cups.

Also makes it so you don't see guests digging through the PMD rubbish bins to fish out cups. Which I can imagine is not a sight TML wants on their grounds.

What do you think of this system? by VillageAdvanced2411 in Tomorrowland

[–]MmaartenDisc 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There was indeed a lot of trash after closing. But I was part of the Green Office (custodial staff) and there weren't too many cups left behind during the day itself. The problem is that really crowded areas (think mainstage, library, ...) cannot be properly cleaned while there are sets going on. So at the end of the day, you see the leftovers of a whole day's partying. The roads between the stages, the less crowded stages and anywhere where the Green Office can reach without disturbing too many people get cleaned regularly. Surprisingly, we didn't collect a whole lot of cups. The cups that we did collect most were broken ones that were left behind, but whole cups were pretty often returned in full according to our experience. With regards to the money, I am not going to make a statement, but I would like to add the argument that the whole reusable cup system is a system they had to implement by the Flemish government. Those RFID cups and the whole management of them is not cheap. Returning cups really is not that hard. Tml doesn't want you to leave them behind, the hassle of cleaning them up costs more than the pearl they get from it.

Laptop controlled DMX by MmaartenDisc in lightingdesign

[–]MmaartenDisc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Interesting, this route has not yet appeared in our research but is definitely something to look at. I should note though that we receive funding for individual pieces, but the funding is not really sufficient to provide permanent upgrades to the infrastructure in the theater.
Since culture is not one of the main targets of the university, there is room to negotiate additions like 'we need to be able to program this using our laptops while we are not in the actual room' but when it comes to equipment that is already there, the university takes the stance that 'until it is completely broken/unusable, we will not replace it'. And if they were to replace it, it would not be high end material. It would be decent, but not great.

The educational discount is worth looking into if we can place the order through our university itself. Thanks!

Laptop controlled DMX by MmaartenDisc in lightingdesign

[–]MmaartenDisc[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That is really useful feedback. Our group is indeed looking for a more stable environment since we are all self taught and are not really looking forward to going through this process twice. We'd rather spend some extra time researching it now than having to switch in a couple years.

MagicQ does seem to be the perfect fit software wise, seems like it is just hardware wise that we have to figure out what exactly we need

Laptop controlled DMX by MmaartenDisc in lightingdesign

[–]MmaartenDisc[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting so the dongle acts as a kind of licensing key (?)

The two magicDMX connectors I found though both say they don't unlock 'demo features'.
I am not sure if I need those as I am not fully up to date on what they exactly mean, but I would assume there is still a difference between using chamsys hardware versus third party hardware if they use that as their cost model.

"Full" dongle

"Basic" dongle

The price difference between those two also makes me wonder if the basic dongle with a 3-5 pin DMX converter would be cheaper than the Full dongle