Lighting, Lighting, and More Lighting

I am just coming up to the end of my second month here on the Explorer of the Seas. It’s been an adventure so far but definitely an enjoyable one. I’m thinking it’s likely I’ll stick around on ships for at least a few contracts, if not more.

For the past few cruises I have been doing as much lighting work as I possibly can, so that I’ll be a good candidate for promotion to light tech when I get close to the end of my contract. So far that has involved doing lots of maintenance and some repairs on automated lights, and reading the control console manual cover to cover. A new light tech is working in Studio B now and I’ve been working closely with him whenever possible to get more lighting experience. The Studio B light tech has (from what I can tell) the largest responsibility for maintaining lighting fixtures (as opposed to the light tech in the Palace Theatre), because they are responsible for 3 different venues: Studio B, the nightclub, and Royal Promenade. All of those add up quickly when you look at the number of fixtures (each of which must be thoroughly cleaned out and re-lamped (change bulb) every 3-6 months).

For the technically inclined, here is a summary of the lighting-related equipment in those 3 venues (note quantities may not be exact but are very close):

Studio B	18x Cyberlight SV 12x Martin MAC 500 16x Martin MAC 600 14x Martin MAC 250 Wash (4 of which sit on the ice during shows) 30x ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal (most have Coloram II scrollers) 8x 9-lites (with Coloram II scrollers) 18x ETC Parnels 16x Martin Robocolor 400 (powering fibre optic star cloths) 6x Wildfire Long-throw UV lights (with scrollers) 4x Snow machines 4x Antari ICE low-fog units 2x MDG hazers several of strip lights which will be replaced with LED strips in dry-dock (these light the edges of the ice rink) Wholehog II control console Richmond ShowMan show control
Royal Promenade	18x Martin MAC 600 16x Martin MAC 500 8x ETC Source 4 ellipsoidal 10x Chauvet Colorado II 2x hazers Wholehog II control console Richmond ShowMan show control
The Chamber (nightclub)	6x Martin MAC 600 14x Martin MAC 500 8x strobes a bunch of non-functioning DJ lights that are all being replaced with Martin SmartMAC and Mania fixtures in dry-dock Martin LightJockey controller

When you add all that up, it’s quite a large responsibility. But, it’s also a great opportunity for me to get my hands on as many fixtures as possible because it’s important for me to have that experience.

In addition to maintaining and repairing fixtures, I am also about to start working on programming shows and learning about ShowMan show control. It’s great that stage staff have a few more hours of free time than many other positions because it enables me to spend this time learning about the position I want.

Last cruise the ship started to get decorated for Christmas. As my job involves trips to the galley on occasion, I had an opportunity to watch the production of the gingerbread houses that make up the gingerbread village which I have seen on a previous Royal Caribbean cruise vacation. It’s a big job and I could tell many different chefs were pitching in to help, not just the pastry team. The huge Christmas tree was also installed in the Royal Promenade.