# Main Curtain damage D:



## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 17, 2009)

Ahhh!, Just as we are going to be spending money on some upgrades and renovations, The main curtain gets damaged.

I don't know if anyone has had experience in this but if so, please help.

Well when I ran into the school the other day, I was in the theatre to just check up on everything, just see if anything has happened since I was gone, and what do I see first? Our curtain tied up with a _*METAL WIRE*_. Omg I almost died. Stage right hald of the curtain was tightly wrapped in this wire, and stage left half tightly wrapped in a rope. I undid the wire first and it looked like they just ripped hte wire of something. I undid the other side and closed the curtain, it looks horribel....We have had times we a teacher has loosly tied up the curtain because someone had manually moved the curtain so it was allighned witht he track so when it was opened it wouldnt open all the way because it wasnt on the track right, and I wasnt there to come down and lower the curtain and just extened the curtain tot he correct length, and that left grooves every 5 inches or so and after a while we got them to come out. But this is just horendus. The side with the wire and big gashes in it every so many inches and the gashes are coated inr ust from the metal wire, and the side that had the rope had some fairly deep gashes. To me it seems there is notihng to do but get a whole enw curtain, it is EXTREMELY noticable. I have informed the principal already and they are preparing to get a new curtain. But before they do I wanted to ask to see if anyone here knew any tricks on getting out these grooves in the curtain.

If not, well, looks like the maintenance depertment is giving us another couple thousend dollars :/ (The same people who blew out our lighting system, I mentioned it lightly around here before, I will explain the lighting system thing if anyone wants me too.)

I do like it when thigns break though, because it jsut gives a valid excuse to get a new one .
But its annoying waiting for it to be isntalled though.


Wonder would would happen if some flys mysteriusly failed.


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## DaveySimps (Aug 17, 2009)

Depending on exactly how bad it is, you may have luck with a commercial dry cleaner. We have had good experiences with with a local company that has a mobile dry cleaning service. They come in the vans with the gear and clean large curtains in place. Certainly worth looking into, if you could save some $$$. Just be sure you have the curtains tester afterward by a professional to make sure they maintained their flame retardancy. This is something that should be done regularly any way for all of your curtains.

If you do get any new curtains, be sure to look into IFR (inherent flame resistance). In plain terms, these curtains are manufactured in such a way that they do not need to be periodically retreated like traditional draperies. Please note, this does not mean they should not be regularly tested to be sure, as part of a planned safety inspection of your facility.

~Dave


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 17, 2009)

Okay, I'll try to find someone around here who does that. maybe get all our curtains cleaned 

If it doesn't work, I'll look into that IFR stuff. 


How do the people who test it, test fire proofnes?
I have never been around while the curtains have been inspected.


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## MSLD (Aug 17, 2009)

Im up for the lighting system story, i can only imagine what they did


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## DaveySimps (Aug 17, 2009)

MillburyAuditorium said:


> How do the people who test it, test fire proofnes?
> I have never been around while the curtains have been inspected.



Essentially they take a swatch of a specific size, hold a kitchen match to the center of the swatch for 10 seconds. Once the open flame is removed, the flame on the curtain needs to self extinguish in a certain amount of seconds (depending on local code). There also needs to me no smoldering remnants.

Please do NOT attempt to do this yourself. Only professionals should do this testing and make the determination if the curtain passes or fails.

~Dave


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## MillburyAuditorium (Aug 18, 2009)

Of course I wouldn't try myself xD I just wanted to know how they did it, And I was right, they do try to light it on fire. Guess its pretty clear when it doesn't pass isn't it? : P


MSLD, 
Okay 

Well, you know the frequency buttons around the house to switch over from whatever you want to automatic, usually houselights to switch over to your DMX Controler? Well, we had three of these around our house, and they were just a box with a button and a green active light, and the button was the kind some keyboards are sort of like. There is like a piece of runner, and when you press the rubber in, it pushes a button inside of the box? Sorry if I cant explain that to great, So anyways, those rubber buttons are easy to get stuck inside the unit or break of, in this case, all three had from people forcing them in because the lights didnt go off isntantly, being on dimmers. So anyways, the janitors just thought these buttons were On/off buttons for the houselights, because that is what they used it for, becsause if hte board is not on or plugged in the lights stay at 0%, So that isnt a big deal, but, they decided, oh, its broken lets fix it. We had to poke it with a pair of scissors to get it to activate, which was fine, or a pencil. But a janitor one day take out the box, and installes an on-off switch, this and hte box being wired COMPELTELY differently, because there is only a tiny electric currenty going though all this, mostly 90% of it being a data signal, so They wired it up some how, turned the power to the room back, and I can only imagen the pretty colors :/ We're lucky the dimmers didnt explode, or mor elikly, the racks computer taking in this signal. So, We figured that in order to get the system operating again we had hard wire the wires that turn contorl over to the dimmers, those boxes I was talking about, we took them all out and hard wired them together, witht he power off. After that, we plugged in the light board and as soon as the power comes back on turn on the board. And since we didnt want to re-wire and turn off the power to the room every day we had to keep the board running 24/7/7/30 and because this would kill our Status having no cooling system and being relitivly old, we rented/borrowed an ETC Expression 3, over kill but it was free. So that thing survived the long haul until the school board cleared the purchase of a new system, of course they can say , lets get four flatscreen TVs that are turned off 75% of the time, but we have to think about having control of our theatre for a month...So we "borrow" $6000 from the minatenance department and call up Leviton and hire them to install a new system. So they come at the beggining of the summer and get to work, within about a week it is done, so I dont know what happend really, but it was just installing a new control box. So now we have colorful LED boxes with normal buttons so it wont break. And there are presets so the janitors dont need to sue the frequency button near the light board  Theres two presets, house and proscenium. Also we got a new back stage controller that holds as many presets as you need but only two, the same thing, are programmed into it. Dont need them turning on spots. 

Well now we have a brandydandy new system for the new year. To bad it didnt include new lights : P



Our old backstage control box was baaaaad, was my enemy, The Jr. High drama person found it while I was at home getting ready to go to the school for the night to work on the play, so performers are etting there, and they want to start without me and she finds a button labled "Spotlights" And this was a very old control system, so, on goes the spotlights to 100% and some ungoldly reason it by-passed the air conditioning system so I walk in 30 mins later and omg I almost died how hot it was in there. Burned out 6 bulbs bringing them down -.-


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## dcollins (Jan 10, 2010)

About the curtain damage...I've seen that twice. Both times 'helpful' people tied the main rag and the travelers back with tieline after the stage had been painted. It wasn't necessary as there is a good 2-3" of clearance below each. They would need to have been paged out of the way during painting, but they were tied back, and left like that overnight.


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## gafftaper (Jan 13, 2010)

You definitely should avoid having your curtains completely cleaned. It WILL reduce if not completely remove their fire retardant treatment! They might retain some of the fire retardant but if it will retain enough to pass the official fire code test is a huge question. Contact a cleaning company and ask them about the possibility of carefully spot cleaning the curtain. New Grand's cost a LOT of money (I paid $30,000 for one about 10 years ago). A very careful spot cleaning by a real pro is your best bet. If it doesn't work you could get the curtain cleaned and then retreated. Contact your local theater dealer or Rose Brand to find out about getting things retreated. I'm sure it would be VERY expensive... but a lot cheaper than buying a new drape. 

I took a class on theater safety a few years ago. We took swatches of an piece of curtain and soaked it in water, dry cleaning solvent, laundry detergent, sprite, and of course a control. Surprisingly (in our unscientific testing on the loading dock with a blow torch) while all fluids damaged the ability to self extinguish, the water soaked swatch appeared to be the worst. Students don't get any ideas about cutting up your curtain to burn it! For a test to be valid with your fire marshal it needs to be done by a professional and you don't count! On the other hand teachers if you have an old curtain laying around this would be a great educational activity for your class.


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## BrianWolfe (Jan 13, 2010)

You can try steaming the damaged areas.


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## gafftaper (Jan 13, 2010)

EDIT NOTE: I have toned down my post above. Derek found the following information on Rose Brand's site. 

> Keep curtains and scenery clean. If dirtied, dry cleaning should restore the FR properties to an acceptable level. Washing of IFR fabrics will likely increase flame resistance. Any water washing of treated fabrics requires new FR treatment.



They ARE the experts, however it doesn't really fit the results of my class experiment described above. I would be VERY careful about any cleaning and contact Rose Brand (or your favorite drape specialist) for more information from an expert before doing any sort of cleaning. Definitely avoid any water based cleaning with all drapes.


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## MPowers (Jan 13, 2010)

Brian,

Contact Ginny Bentley, curtain fabricator or Bob Medve, project manager, Limelight Productions 1-413-243-4950 / 1-800-243-4950, 471 Pleasant Street, Lee, MA 01238-9322. They can handle your problem and will come out to your place and access the situation. They are good and reliable. However, If you really want to spend a lot of money unnecessarily, come all the way here to Iowa and hire me. . They can also do an official rigging inspection of your place (sounds like you are way overdue for that!).

Michael Powers, Project Manager, ETCP Certified Rigger-Theatre, Central Lighting & Equipment, Des Moines Iowa


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## MillburyAuditorium (Jan 13, 2010)

Thanks everyone, well, the damage wasn't as bad as we though. After long hours of rubbing and picking and rubbing and picking and sitting closed for half a summer seemed to get the indents out. Now, there is another concert tomorrow, and the music director likes to tie the curtain back. It aint happening unless he wants to buy a real one of those ribbons


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## 1kfresnel (Jan 13, 2010)

Glad to hear your grand is doing better!

Back when I was a senior in high school, we had just purchased a new grand curtain. A nice forest green to replace the previous "puke" (why do people ever order gold curtains -- they don't age well!). Unfortunately, the installer didn't take into account the difference in fullness when they installed it. In less than 5 days, the blackout lining on the back snagged on an instrument on 1st electric, leaving a big gash -- during the middle of a show!

It's one of those moments where a crew pulls together and things happen magically, because of course, the show must go on!

Needless to day the riggers had to come in and move 1st electric upstage further, however, to this day, they now play the same game with the motorized movie screen and the electric. Great compromise.

Anyway, heed everyone else's warning regarding cleaning and basically annihilating your flame retardancy. And your lighting story is yet another example of why dangerous situations occur in our industry, with untrained individuals attempting procedures. My #1 rule when teaching students is: when you don't know, ask!


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## billn (Jan 27, 2010)

> Essentially they take a swatch of a specific size, hold a kitchen match to the center of the swatch for 10 seconds. Once the open flame is removed, the flame on the curtain needs to self extinguish in a certain amount of seconds (depending on local code). There also needs to me no smoldering remnants.

That is NOT the specified testing protocol, by any stretch of the imagination. 

I agree with most of the others. Do NOT get the drapes cleaned locally or try to spot clean. If you spot clean, you will have areas that look different than the rest. Cleaning and retreating (if necessary) needs to be done by companies that specialize in such work. Some will travel to your venue, with others you have to ship them the drapes.


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## OnWithTheShow (Jan 27, 2010)

> You definitely should avoid having your curtains completely cleaned. It WILL reduce if not completely remove their fire retardant treatment!



While this is true most businesses with experience in cleaning theatrical drapes know this and will retreat your drapes with flame retardant. If you are going to have them cleaned find a organization with experience in theatrical drapes and make sure they provide a new certificate of flame retardancy.


> That is NOT the specified testing protocol, by any stretch of the imagination.



NFPA 701 is the standard for lab testing of textiles. Lab testing is the ideal scenario and is what is used to generate the certificate that comes with most new drapes. These certificates will sometimes state what cleaning, washing, etc will do to the flame retardancy of the fabric and your local authority having jurisdiction will accept the certificate even after cleaning.

Sometimes if a venue cannot produce a certificate or has cleaned their drapes (and manufacturer instructions call for retreating) the fire marshal will need to perform a flame test. Most jurisdictions do not have ready access to a lab so they will perform a field test exactly how described above with a fabric sample and standard kitchen match. This is how fabrics are tested within the city of Philadelphia. The standard for this is NFPA 705

Both standards are viewable online for free at NFPA


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