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There are various types of lighting instruments available to you. In Sala, you have Source 4 ellipsoidals, Source 4 PARnels (mostly like a fresnel, but in the formfactor of a Source 4 PAR), scoops, strip lights, and a few miscellaneous fresnels and other things. In KLT, you'll have Source 4s, Source 4 PARs (the normal interchangeable-lens ones, not PARnels), fresnels, cyc cells (both hanging and ground-row), and strip lights. (Beware: the KLT strips are notoriously unreliable. We recommend not using them.) See "references" below for some more information about the functions of these different types of fixtures, if you are just learning or if you'd like a refresher.
As of Fall 2022, CAC requires us to make a plot in VectorWorks for every show we do. This means that the opinions on VectorWorks below are not really relevant unless this changes.
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Jake Gunter wrote: "Use VectorWorks for your plot, unless you have a really good reason for using another CAD software. (VectorWorks offers a free student version; they may ask you to send them a picture of your student ID in order to download it.) Whatever you do, don't draw your plot by hand. Hand-drawn plots stopped being cool before you were born. VectorWorks template files of both Sala and KLT are attached to this page, for your use. If you're new to VectorWorks, a quick googling should bring you some good tutorials. (An in-person training from a competent experienced drafter is always a better option, though.)"
In my (Christopher Cassidy's) opinion, Vectorworks is not worth learning how to use if you are just starting out, or if you don't think you are going to LD multiple shows (read: there was no LD for this show so you got forced to do it), or if you are not a hardkore 1337 LD (read: <50 lights, <50 cues, and that's just fine), or if you have an even remotely weak computer (Vectorworks takes like 2-3 minutes to boot up on an average PC laptop). I (LD for multiple shows, done lights for years, E33 President) don't like it and don't really use it. It also has egregious compatibility issues (if someone makes something in VWX 2018, you can't read it in VWX 2017, etc.). There should be plots (.vwx and .pdf) attached to this page. I find hand-drawn light and cable plots very helpful, at least in the planning stages, so you don't misclick something in VWX and then spend 20 minutes trying to figure out how to get back to the view you had before. If your plot is simple, a hand-drawn plot is just fine. If you want a slightly more elegant plot, importing a screenshot into the glorious meme-studios of PowerPoint and MS Paint and just using circles/squares etc. for your instruments could work.
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While creating your plot, you should decide channel numbers for every instrument. A "channel" on the light board represents a complete connection of instrument(s) to dimmer(s), or addresses for intelligent instruments. During focus and afterwards you will probably refer to channel numbers (example: “bring up channel 19”). As such, it is important that the channel number arrangement makes sense to you so you can refer to the correct instrument/s quickly and easily. Some designers organize their channel numbers linearly along pipes; others organize their channel numbers by purpose (for example: front light is chs. 1-10, back light chs. 11-20, etc.). When working with intelligent instruments (LEDs, moving lights, etc.), the way channels and addresses work is slightly not-obvious. If you don't know/remember how DMX addresses work, see the Master Electrician page and the patch section of this page. Don't leave figuring out addresses for later, because it will cost a lot of time and pushing scaff around to fix.
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