Re: How many of you use (or have to use) a light your job?
Two Jobs
1. Chauffeur/Driver. More or less the same stuff as Derek Dean. Also we do a lot of runs from Santa Barbara to LAX and back (~100mi 1way). I often pick people up or drop them off late at night/early in the morning for redeye flights. Most of the time these people have very long driveways or courtyards sometimes with lots of stairs, often with very pretty stonework that makes for dicey footwork carrying a bag or wearing heels. Usually as they turn their lights off as they walk out, they realize they have no lighting to guide them and can't see a thing without night-adjusted eyes. My Pelican 3370 usually gets a nice comment or two for flooding the whole walkway. Also fits handily in a suit pocket and the tailcap switch makes it easier to use to light a path behind me as I carry a suitcase for them in the same hand.
Also, Most of the wealthier neighborhoods seem to shun streetlights. Makes for pretty star-gazing, but finding addresses can be a real *****. They're usually numbers mounted on a decorative rock or something of that nature so the car headlights don't light them up.
2. Valet Manager
I manage a valet parking company that works at alot of the same kind of jobs Derek was describing.
Like he said, coordinators don't seem to give any consideration to lighting outside the dining area and rarely even have a flashlight at all. Sound and lighting guys usually aren't asked to light anything other than the dance/party area. This means we usually have long walkways with flagstones and dirtpaths or driveways with bumps or gravel, usually on inclines, with zero lighting. They also tend to be well landscaped with trees blocking out whatever star/moonlight there might be.
In addition to that though, we have to think about the cars for the guests. Often between 50-200 cars in multiple locations in areas with no street lights and in fields or makeshift dirt lots 200-600 yards from the receiving area which often has to be partly on a public road and involves messing with the flow of traffic.
- I have a bunch of little Home Depot-bought Stanley 5led tripod worklights with adjustable heads I use to light the pathways. I'll also use white Maglight traffic wand attachments as diffusers and stick 3Dled mags into white traffic cones - works really well.
- Finding a silver mercedes amongst 75+ other nice cars in a pitchblack field at a run on uneven surfaces can be fun, but ROP mags (or my newly made Mag85
) make pretty short work of it, even when they're 500 yds away. Also on the bigger parties, usually have plenty of pretty inexperienced valet staff who bought a Save-On drugs 2D rayovac or the like when I told them to bring a flashlight so I have a few 3d led mags and Costco Dorcy Hawkeye lights to loan out to them or the coordinator staff (or to sell to them sometimes).
-Traffic direction can be loads of fun too - dealing with limos, taxis, busses, and normal street traffic (think 16 year old neighbor kids blasting around the twisties in daddy's new BMW M3) while getting my guys into position to back down one lane driveways or pulled up at the gate on the wrong side of the road while well-dressed socialites with a couple drinks in them load into their cars. Usually involves lots of cones, some A-frame construction style blinking road signs and a couple guys at both ends with radios standing in the middle of the road with a powerful flashlight to make other drivers see you and go where you want them to. Occasionally one of those 16 year olds will get it in their head to blow through on the wrong side of the road but a blast of the ROP Hi Mag to the windshield generally calms their exuberance
.
I always get lots of funny comments when I pull out my bag-o-lights as it starts to get dark, but the new guys are usually asking me where they can buy whatever I loaned them the next day. Also get lots of conversations with the private security guys about the ROP's. They usually have a surefire or streamlight of some sort and are always asking about what that bright-*** light I have is. Was mostly using LED mags before I found CPF. Funny, now I just loan those things out and never really use em myself. I used to think they were so bright too...:candle:
-Pete
