Prepping for Shows

Twice a year, we have an ice show and we host one figure skating competition. There is our winter show and our spring show. In the weeks leading up to it there is plenty of prep. Our figure skaters are rehearsing, and we are doing the technical prep. This includes getting all of the audio in digital format, and onto a raspberry pi based computer behind the scenes. I have been doing this for several years, and it has been way easier and more reliable for playback during a show.

This replaced the old method of using individual CDs for each skater, which was problematic in a way of tracking where we were and what cd should be playing. On top of that you have to account for the scratched up cd handed to us the day of and hope that it works. I made this change for our shows and also for competitions. We moved to an all digital platform where music is submitted electronically in advance. You may wonder why we used a raspberry pi:

• Cost Effective.

• Single purpose, all this thing does is play music.

• Simple hardware – one small computer. ]

• Streamlined/Small Debian Linux operating system.

• Normal people (non tech people) can’t figure out how to install software on it. So it tends to work better since people can not install junk software on it.

• Reliable.

• Easy to use.

• Reboots quick in case there is a problem.

Here is a photo of our music playback system and our lighting controls.