Murphy's Laws
of
Entertainment Lighting

As one progresses through a career in entertainment
lighting, some misfortunes will ultimately befall one.
Here is a humorous look at a few of these.

(For those of you not familiar with Mr. Murphy and his laws,
essentially the name is representative of the fact that
anything that can go wrong, at some point will.)

1. You decide to do a computer-aided lighting design and are so into trying to keep up with the looks flooding from your brain that you fail to save the work at any time. After several hours of creativity not seen for a decade, you attempt to save your work but the system blue-screens just at that instant.
   
   
2. You double and triple check to make sure you have the keys for every locked item you are taking on tour. This is because the last time, a lock had to be destroyed in order to open a drawer for which no key had been packed. However, this time you forget that the lock has now been replaced and the key you packed is for the old, destroyed lock. So the new lock has to be deliberately broken the first day of the tour.
   
   
3. You carefully measure to the millimetre every piece of gear so as to be sure it will all fit into the truck. After the vehicle is packed and you are ready to leave for the tour, you discover you have neglected to allow space for your extra suitcase and some other personal items. Thus, you end up having to wear the same clothes for the duration of the tour.
   
   
4. The one crucial gel colour you choose to use in a show will be the one of which your on-hand stock is exactly one frame short.
   
   
5. The number of Masters of Ceremony at the lectern will always be one more than for what you have allowed, so one of them will always be underlit.
   
   Corollary:
   
   • Trying to get around this, you decide to light for more than the supposed number of MCs. Of course whenever you do this, there will always be fewer than was stated to you. As a result, excess light extends well beyond the lectern, unnecessarily diluting the rest of your carefully thought-out looks.
   
   
   
6. The chain winches you specify for a show are based upon someone's adamant statement of the venue's ceiling height. Of course, it will turn out to be three metres higher than the length of the chains - and neither you nor the venue will have a suitable ladder.
   
   
7. The available dimmers will always turn out to be one channel fewer than the number your design specifies, resulting in frequent swap patches.
   
   
8. The single light for which you have no spare lamp is the only one that will burn out.
   
   Corollaries:
   
   • It will be the most critical light in the production.
   • Even if you can locate a spare lamp, the burn-out will have happened just after the start of the show when you have no way to get to the unlit fixture.
   
   
   
9. The number of available headsets will always turn out to be one fewer than the number of followspots you are required to call.
   
   Corollary:
   
   • The night when one spot operator fails to show will coincide with the failure of one of those headsets, so you will still be one short.
   
   
   
10. Although you have brought extra worklights, they have been handed out to needy musicians and to others that never seem to think it will be dark backstage. As soon as you give out the last one, your only lighting console worklight fails and you end up having to do the show with a flashlight between your teeth.
    
    
11. You will be the only person who does not get the revised script. (Lighting people are the last to get anything, if they even receive it at all.)
    
    
12. It has been promised that you will get a credit. If your name actually makes it into the program, it will be mis-spelled or mis-attributed. In the case of an announced credit, the MC will lose the paper with your information, or will discover it in a little-used pocket after he gets home.
    
    
13. The likelihood of you missing an important cue is directly proportional to the size of the audience. It is also proportional to the importance of the people in that audience.
    
    
14. The only place open to eat after your show will have closed 5 minutes before you arrive.
    
    Corollary:
    
    • The 24-hour gas station or convenience store at which you end up will have nothing in stock that you like at that hour.
    
    
    
15. The 5-minute repair you decide to tackle two hours before a show will end up taking two hours and 5 minutes.
    
    Corollary:
    
    • Because the show is 5 minutes late starting, it concludes 5 minutes late, so when you finish at the end of the night, the one place available at which to eat will have closed 5 minutes beforehand.
    
    
    
16. The strike crew assigned to you will always appear at the end of your show on time and be sober - except for any night where you barely have enough time to pack up, travel to the next gig, and get set up there.
    
    Corollary:
    
    • Because it took longer to pack up, the one place available for a meal will have closed 5 minutes before you arrive.
    
    
    
17. The "experienced" members of the crew, as were promised to you, will not know clockwise from counter-clockwise, or a flat washer from a lock washer. To make it worse, they will have to be personally shown what to do because they never learned to follow verbal instructions. This is, if they even show up and are not drunk.
    
    
18. The hotel room you specify for yourself and a crew member, who happens to have taken an unwanted romantic interest to you, turns out to only have one bed. You are not interested in a liaison with this crew member and so you issue repeated requests to the management for a room with two beds. They go unheeded because it is their busy season and none are available. Thus you end up with an apprehensive night of no rest.
    
    Corollaries:
    
    • The management is finally able to supply a cot but it jams and will not open, so you end up sleeping on the floor.
    • Because of all the time wasted with the uncooperative cot, you just get to sleep in time for your wakeup call.
      
      
19. The lighting design of which you are most proud never gets recorded because, in your exuberance, you forget to pack your camera. Due to the fact that you told everyone you were providing a camera, no one else brings one and so in the future, the show is only seen in people's memories. These of course falter over time, so no one completely remembers the great design you used.
    
    
20. The one time after you bindingly agree to light a one-night, no-pay, no-glory charity show will be the time when the production you have waited all of your career to light will be offered to you.
    
    Corollaries:
    
    • This charity show you would now prefer to blow off will always fall at a point when a substitute lighting director is unavailable. Or if a substitute is available, he or she is unacceptable for either the charity gig or for the one day you would miss of the potential production of your career. Thus, you are unable to agree to light the desired gig.
      
      or...
      
      
    • The charity show is on some airport-less island where ferry service is only available every seventh day. Although the potential show of your career is scheduled to start the day after the charity gig, the island's boat will leave for a week the day before you will be finished, so you are still unable to accept.
    
    
    
21. The one day you have off during a six-month tour will see you in some small village with no Internet service, on a Sunday when there is nothing open, during the storm of the century so you can't go out, staying in a hotel with no bar, no entertainment and no gambling, and the only television channel is in some language you don't understand.
    
    Corollary:
    
    • Because you wasted so much time trying to find something to do, the one available restaurant in the hotel will have closed 5 minutes before you decide to go there.