# Proper way to take down curtains?



## ValleyTheaterKid (Oct 7, 2011)

Hey guys, at my school, we had a little roof leak (Little is an understatement...) and some pipes broke right above center stage and upstage. They had to take down the skrim and blackout curtain. When i say 'they' i mean workers from the school district who dont know what they are doing. I was wondering if there was a certain way to take down curtains because all they did was lower it right on to the stage and let it pile it up on itself. It was painful to watch. so is there?

Thanks, much appreciated.


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## MarshallPope (Oct 8, 2011)

That is the way it is normally done. Scrims and drapes are generally lowered down like that and then shoved into a bag or hamper. Painted drops, on the other hand, are almost always folded.


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## Footer (Oct 8, 2011)

Are they down and did no one die? Then they did it correctly. If its a dead hung house, then there is no graceful way to do it that does not risk tipping a lift/ladder. Odds are the goods are wet if a pipe burst and they have to be send out to be cleaned and have fire retardant applied. If your in a fly house, then standard fly operation needs to be done but the practice is the same. When folding a good, you should always fold good side in, otherwise there are very few "wrong" ways to do it. The drapery company that just treated out goods rolled them when they sent them back. First time I had seen that but it worked.


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## danTt (Oct 8, 2011)

With a fly system, the best way to handle/store drops depends on the type of good. The goal should be to make it as easy to rehang as possible.

For Legs, you should fold in half the long ways once or twice (depends on width), and then fold 2'ish sections from the bottom to the top. This allows you to access the webbing and all the ties without unfolding the whole leg, and it can flip itself down as the pipe flies out. With borders, you again want to fold the height first, and then fold the width in towards center, so you can find center and tie it all up without unfolding the good entirely.

For scrims/cycs, it's usually easiest to "west coast" the drop first, and then store it in a hamper/bag. This can wrinkle cycs, but folding them is remarkably awkward. This also makes it relatively easy to hang without having to deal with a large full stage good.

When you're dealing with dead hung pipes though, all bets are off. Any way that's safe is usually the best in the scenario, and that can vary depending on the height and hanging method (genie/ladder, catwalk, something less safe)


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## ValleyTheaterKid (Oct 10, 2011)

Ok so they were doing it right, alright thats good to know. i was just worried about curtains ripping or wrinkling. thanks everyone for the help.


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## MPowers (Oct 10, 2011)

Actually there is a "way". It is not critical but it can reduce the dirt and dust that might get folded into a piece. 

For soft goods that are to be folded and stored, lower to about 2-3 feet high. spread crew across the stage (or if it is a leg, as needed) and grab the bottom. Then as the goods are lowered, pull the piece down stage slowly so that the piece is laid out face up, only the back touches the floor. This is especially important with Cycloramas and other light colored goods.

Scrims are a special breed as both the front and back are show faces. However their softness makes it possible to simply "pile' them up on the floor, IF, your floor is VERRRRY clean or if you put a paper or plastic drop on the floor to pile it on as you bring it in. Scrims can also be what I was taught as "West Coasting" or gathering the goods directly into a hamper as it is brought in.

The main connecting thread here is to avoid letting the show face of the goods touch the floor. No matter how clean the floor is, it is dirty to white cyc's or light colored velours.


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## Lambda (Oct 12, 2011)

danTt said:


> When you're dealing with dead hung pipes though, all bets are off. Any way that's safe is usually the best in the scenario, and that can vary depending on the height and hanging method (genie/ladder, catwalk, something less safe)


 

Footer said:


> ...If its a dead hung house, then there is no graceful way to do it that does not risk tipping a lift/ladder.


 
So, what really is the right way to take them down off a dead-hung curtain track? I had to do that very thing a while ago, and it was not easy. I couldn't just unhook the attachment points one at a time, when I got down to the end there would be too much weight and it might rip. I ended up having to gather the entire thing into the genie bucket (not too comfortable) and then unhook it when it wasn't under any load. And I'm going to have to do it again in a week or two.
But that was difficult and not too pleasant. So what's the _right_ way? Our curtains are hung about 15 feet above the deck.


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## derekleffew (Oct 12, 2011)

Lambda said:


> ...I ended up having to gather the entire thing into the genie bucket (not too comfortable) and then unhook it when it wasn't under any load. And I'm going to have to do it again in a week or two. ...


Yep, that's the best way (provided you+the softgood's weight does not exceed the capacity of the lift/ladder).


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## ruinexplorer (Oct 15, 2011)

With a fly system, if they did not have the room or the man power to do as MPowers suggested (which is the method that I prefer), then they at least need to trip the bottom of the goods before letting it pile on the floor. This is when you guide the bottom edge slightly downstage so that when the goods pile up, there won't be any portion of the show side that falls to the floor. Ideally, this will require quite a few hands to do this properly. Too few and you can risk damaging your goods.

Oh, and where I was from, most scrims have an attached "diaper". We would spread a number of stagehands across the bottom of the scrim and as the scrim was lowered, it would gather in our arms. As the batten came to working height and was locked off, we would take every third tie off of the batten and tie the scrim in to the cloth. We would then wait for the weights to be removed (since we had not changed the weight on the batten). At that point we would begin by removing one side of the scrim and setting it in to the hamper and continue taking it down and coiling it in as we moved down the pipe.


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## mstaylor (Oct 17, 2011)

Lambda said:


> So, what really is the right way to take them down off a dead-hung curtain track? I had to do that very thing a while ago, and it was not easy. I couldn't just unhook the attachment points one at a time, when I got down to the end there would be too much weight and it might rip. I ended up having to gather the entire thing into the genie bucket (not too comfortable) and then unhook it when it wasn't under any load. And I'm going to have to do it again in a week or two.
> But that was difficult and not too pleasant. So what's the _right_ way? Our curtains are hung about 15 feet above the deck.


Do you have the means and room to rig a pipe on sheeves? If so, hang bit on that, raise the pipe and transfer to the track.


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