Planning for the Future: AVL Infrastructure Planning

I often walk into school auditoriums that haven't seen a major technology upgrade in decades. Pieces have been swapped out here and there over the years, but the backbone of the system has stayed the same.

That's the point.

When you invest in the right AVL Infrastructure from the start, you can upgrade and replace individual pieces down the road without rebuilding the whole system.

Before LED lighting, the backbone of most theaters was the dimmer rack. ETC has led the industry in reliability and support for decades, and schools that installed ETC dimmer racks thirty-plus years ago have been able to upgrade fixtures and add new ones ever since — without pulling new electrical or adding power. Someone thought ahead: they looked at how the space was being used, and how it might be used in the future, even without the budget to buy every fixture they wanted or any idea what set-building would look like twenty years later. Because of that foresight, today's auditorium and technical directors have places to hang lights and power to run them, without a major additional expense.

ETC introduced modular dimming in the early '90s — a genuine leap forward, since it allowed far more intelligent control of dimmer racks. Any circuit could now hold a dimming module, a constant-power module, or a relay module. There have been plenty of improvements since, but the core of many of these installs is still in service today. Working with manufacturers who design AVL infrastructure for a longer refresh cycle means parts and support are still there long after the initial purchase.

Getting the infrastructure right — in lighting, audio, and video alike — costs more upfront. It's often the least glamorous line item in a project. But working with a local integrator like Force Tech means you're planning around what's proven reliable, not just what's trending.