Rob Sayer

Rob Sayer HND PGDip FHEA is a Senior Lecturer in Technical Theatre Production, mentor, and consultant in stage lighting and education. As a professional lighting designer, Rob designed and programmed theatre performances, music festivals and large corporate events for blue chip companies while travelling all over Europe. With a background in theatre, he combines traditional stage lighting knowledge alongside fast moving lighting and video technology in the world of commercial events.

Stage Lighting Focus Guide – Updated

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*Update* Have you ever worked with a Lighting Designer, whether amateur or professional, and wondered what they are doing wandering around on stage waving their arms about? Have you noticed an LD, directing the lighting focus standing on the stage with their backs to the rig, and wondered what they were looking at on the floor? This newly updated article sheds some light (sorry!) on how to focus stage lighting, with an assistant, from the stage. We examine the process from the viewpoint of both the Lighting Designer and the Electricians and get to grips with some common lighting focus terminology.

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Parkinson and Pareto – Ways of the Lighting Jedi

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If you have never heard of the Pareto Principle or Parkinson’s Law, get ready for a potential re-framing of how you tackle lighting work from this point on.  On Stage Lighting uncovers a key secret ingredient to enlightenment through lampie-Jedi knowledge, and to improving your effectiveness as a lighting programmer.  Partly though using a concept named after an obscure Italian economist.

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Blocking and Block Cues

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In this article, On Stage Lighting addresses some common areas of difficulty for anyone trying to get to grips with programming professional lighting desks, particularly for cued theatre performances.  Going hand-in-hand with the dreaded ‘Tracking’, lighting control ‘Blocking’ and ‘Block Cues’ often confuse beginners to the world of lighting programming.  Let’s try and straighten things out a little.

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Nested Palettes in Stage Lighting Programming

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On Stage Lighting presents a quick guide to the use of “nested” palettes in stage lighting programming and some benefits from using this technique, along with potential problems that may arise for the unwary programmer.

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QLab 3 Tutorial : Moving on from Qlab 2

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This tutorial is a quick overview of the QLab 3 interface for anyone that already uses Qlab 2 or who have learned using my QLab 2 for beginner’s videos.Including the answer to the question ” Where has Load To Time gone in Qlab 3?”

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A Practical Guide To Stage Lighting – Shelley

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Following the recent publication of the third edition of Steve Shelley’s book “A Practical Guide To Stage Lighting”, On Stage Lighting tackles this enormous beast of a book to see if we should replace our original copy.

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