One of the most famous nightclubs in Paris, Le Lido, has completely renovated its revue show for the 26th edition. This year’s spectacular is named Bonheur. Running twice a day, the new musical tells the story of a young “bird-lady” looking for happiness.   

The show encompasses four scenes using twenty-three scene sets, including an airplane, an ice skating rink, a fountain, a swimming pool and an indian temple.  Medialon Manager was selected as the show control software for this complex installation. The system uses four peer-to-peer Medialon Managers to partition, control and synchronise all show elements while supporting, of course, true live interaction with onstage talent.   

Multiple instances of Manager provide redundant control paths, allowing the show to continue if certain show subsystems (or even controllers) go offline. Partitioning the show elements allows graceful degradation in the event of total subsystem loss – the eggs are never in just one basket.   

Here’s an example from the audio department:   

The audio department has its own Manager licence, which starts and monitors the time code generator. (All other licenses are separately synchronized to the time code generator).  As soon as the time code starts, the audio Manager tells the first audio player (a Tascam MX 2424) to lock to incoming time code. The audio Manager itself then locks to time code, at specific times sending cues to the audio console (Yamaha DM2000) and house router/processor (Peavey MediaMatrix).   

The audio Manager continuously monitors the tracking of the MX-2424 source.  Should it fail, an event-driven escape task routes time code to a standby MX-2424, with audio auto-follow. If this standby in turn fails, time code is routed to an alternate MD player. The time code generator is also monitored by the audio Manager. Should the generator fail, the audio Manager automatically assigns the timing track of the running audio player as the time code source.  Finally, the audio Manager’s performance is continuously evaluated by the other licenses of Manager – if necessary, they can take the audio Manager out of the loop, and route the last known time code source directly to the console and house processor. This layering of contingencies greatly reduces the chance of a show mishap, and is essential in a feature of this class.  

The lighting & video department also has a dedicated Manager license. As mentioned before, it slaves to the time code generator (as determined by the Audio Manager) and fires cues to a Whole Hog III lighting console and the video players. 

A primary advantage of using a show controller to control the lighting desk is the ability to bypass some memories live or to offset some part of the show, especially when talent behaves differently than expected. These ‘wild’ adjustments are written as short, self-contained cues, and are fired from a Medialon Remote Desk, which provides much faster selection and actuation than keyboard or mouse. The lighting Manager also acts as a complete backup for the lighting console, in that every console lighting cue was recorded as a DMX file in an alternate timeline, ready to go if the lighting Manager detected a console problem.   

without a lot of coding.   

A fourth license of Manager acts as a supervisory and reporting system, monitoring the departmental licenses, and extracting variables from each for display on backstage monitors.  For example, heads up displays at stage wings indicate the cue currently in progress plus a countdown to the next cue. This makes life a lot easier when, like the Lido, up to three of four productions may be mounted simultaneously. And, of course, every controller is loaded with all three departmental programs in case of a switchover.   

All equipment is controlled via TCP/IP, except for time code, which is piped directly to an Adrienne RG1 time code card in each Manager computer. The total roster of equipment under control is pretty impressive (add part numbers):  

36 I/O contacts for the water show and scenics. 

One of the biggest challenges of this project was to strike the previous show and complete the new show in three weeks. It happened, and the opening was flawless!   

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