# Motorized Fly System



## AxlD (Mar 27, 2014)

So this has been a topic of Discussion between me and a few people i work with after having some injury with our Fly System
So my question for you guys

Would you ever use a Motorized Fly System in your Theater Space if so would you take any more precautions or would you loosen them up

If not Why wouldn't you use it?

(P.S If this is in the wrong section please move the topic to where it needs to go)


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## derekleffew (Mar 27, 2014)

IMO, motorized fly systems are inherently _safer_ than traditional counterweight. Can you tell us more about this injury/accident (omitting the private/personal information)? With either system, I hope we're not considering Flying an actor | ControlBooth .


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## AxlD (Mar 27, 2014)

We have a double purchase system and we were adding 6 MAC 250's (which weigh about 65 lbs Each) to a Line Set. and how we load out lineset is we will Fly it in. Add 2 of our lights to it. Fly it out and add the weight. and then Fly it in add 2 more and so on. On the last time flying it out to add weight one of our Technicians hands got stuck in the rigging and cut his hand pretty badly. The reason i am making this about Motorized Fly System is because after that we talked about how Motorized Fly System could have prevented injuries. And no we do not Fly actors we only fly in Line Sets with Either Curtains, Backdrops. Or Lights on them


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 27, 2014)

I'd add a loading bridge - much less expensive than motorizing.

Counter weight can be very safe is all is kept in balance. I think your question has many facets. Suddenly a finger push can move thousands of pounds with no immediate and real feed back, but its never out of balance. Not simple.


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## AxlD (Mar 28, 2014)

We have a loading bridge. but we perfer to do our counter weight when the line set is flown all the way out in the fly system so that the entire line is balanced all the way down to where we fly it is


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## MarshallPope (Mar 28, 2014)

Are you saying that you are loading as such to account for cable weight? Just making sure I am not misunderstanding you.

Be thankful that a cut hand is the worst injury you had, then. Loading from the deck is a necessity in some venues due to a lack of proper infrastructure, but to not use the loading bridge that you have is just inviting danger. At least, you should get close to the proper weight from the loading bridge and then tweak the weight from the deck.


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## AxlD (Mar 28, 2014)

This is actually the 3rd accident that we've had in under a year. 3 of them were both cuts on the hand. And the 3rd was Rope Burned hands. The reason that we do our loading from the Deck is that's where all of our Emergency Safety things are incase something happens. And it is always a 2 person job no matter how much weight we are adding


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## Footer (Mar 28, 2014)

You don't need a motorized rigging system. What you need is proper training on the one you got now. With a loading bridge there is no reason to ever move an out of weight batten unless you are flying a large hard piece. Even then bull lines can be used to counteract those forces. You need to take a big step back and look at your entire operation. 

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## AxlD (Mar 28, 2014)

guys. Sorry throw this out here again. but this wasn't a topic about the safety about the rigging system or the personnel working the fly system. My main thing is Would you guys ever use a Morotized Rigging System. and What are your thoughts on it


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## Footer (Mar 28, 2014)

Would I? Yes. Would I trust it to someone who was not a good flyman? No. Truss and motor rigging had been used for decades and is very safe.... In the right hands. Motorized rigging is also safe in the right hands. Counterweight rigging is also safe in the right hands. All can cause catastrophic injures if used incorrectly. 

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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 28, 2014)

I don't understand why with a loading bridge you ever permit unbalanced linesets but will leave that.

I tend to lean toward motorizing fixed electrics and the orchestra shell in high schools, since at least the electrics are the sets most commonly out of balance resulting in crashes. But those are slow dumb machines. If using rigging for set changes and in audience view as I would expect on a stage, high speed motorized and all the controls get very expensive. To do what is easily done with a manual counterweight linsey, a motorized lineset is probably 7 to 8 times the initial cost and will require much more service and earlier replacement so over 50 or so year lifetime probably on the order of 20+ times the cost.

So no simple answers beyond a lot of us are concerned for your safety because of how you are operating your existing manual system.


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## cmckeeman (Mar 28, 2014)

AxlD said:


> We have a double purchase system and we were adding 6 MAC 250's (which weigh about 65 lbs Each) to a Line Set. and how we load out lineset is we will Fly it in. Add 2 of our lights to it. Fly it out and add the weight. and then Fly it in add 2 more and so on. On the last time flying it out to add weight one of our Technicians hands got stuck in the rigging and cut his hand pretty badly.



What rigging did he get his hand caught in? the light clamps, the connection from the lift lines to the baton, something on the rail? I don't get how a motorized system will stop people from putting their hands where it shouldn't be.


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## venuetech (Mar 28, 2014)

AxlD said:


> We have a double purchase system



A double purchase system has a number of things to consider but one of the big things is that your counterweight load is doubled.
so a 65 lbs fixture needs 130 lbs of counterweight. The real problem comes when you are removing fixtures from the electric.Take just one fixture off the arbor is suddenly 130 pounds out of weight and at the top of its travel, without anyone on the load plate to unload it. Extremely unsafe to say the least.

The system can be safely operated but training is needed. Keep your brothers safe, get some additional training.


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## derekleffew (Mar 28, 2014)

AxlD said:


> ... we were adding 6 MAC 250's (which weigh about 65 lbs Each) ...


Just curious, what version of MAC250 do you have that weighs "about 65 lbs."? My specs say 46-49 lbs.
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A double-purchase system without a loading gallery is a double-insult! @What Rigger? and I worked in one theatre where we had to use a scissor lift to load/unload weight. Bringing the arbor to the deck was impossible, as the electrics could not fly all the way out--something to do with the cable management system. PITA. Theatre was eventually demolished after a life of only 18 years.
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I've long felt that all permanent electrics should be motorized, particularly in houses that are rehung regularly. Somewhere on here is @SteveB's account of the process.
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See this post and most of the thread.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 28, 2014)

Just to see if we are all understanding the situation, there is a loafing gallery they choose not to use preferring loading from the floor and hand injuries are rope burns from out of balance sets.


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## josh88 (Mar 28, 2014)

He said only one was rope burn, the other 2 were physical cuts to the hand from getting stuck in the rigging?


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## SteveB (Mar 28, 2014)

We motorized 7 of our electric and ladder positions about 6 years ago.

The 5 primary electrics are Clancy Power-Assist motorized counterweight arbors, the side ladder winches are line shaft. The PowerAssist is a replacement arbor holding 1000 lbs of counterweight, the motor at the bottom uses chain and aircraft cable as the purchase line and allows up to 2000 lbs to be loaded with no need to weight/un-weight the arbor. I believe the advantage to Power Assist is the pipe/electric doesn't need to shift to accommodate the hardware of a line shaft system. 

Best rigging investment ever made. They are easier to move, it's just a button push now. As well we can readily accommodate a touring system that just hangs on our pipe (we strip the plot). We have also stripped and used to lift an LCD wall. That saved a ton of time over rigging chain hoists and a truss. 

I would go power completely if we had the money. The Met Opera is as BTW, replacing their current rigging system with a new motorized system, $15 million total for that part of the current renovation.


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## DuckJordan (Mar 29, 2014)

Honestly, the issue isn't motorized vs counterweight. Its the blatant misuse of the system. Changing what is on a line set should take at least 2 people period. If you have a loading bridge but don't use it then you should not use the fly system. THERE IS NO REASON TO BRING AN OUT OF WEIGHT LINE SET TO A POSITION WHERE A RUNAWAY COULD OCCUR. I've personally never seen a run away and if I can help it I will never see one. Quit cutting corners, (this will help with reducing injuries) and learn to use it correctly or not at all. I'm assuming this is a high school or community theater because no professional venue would ever suggest that replacing a counterweight line set with motorized as opposed to training staff to use the tools correctly. Cost of one could easily add up to several million (Motorized) vs training which would cost a grand total of 5-10 grand... the numbers just make sense.

About the emergency procedures should something occur, Really what could go wrong up on the loading bridge rather than on the ground that someone wouldn't have time to either A get up to them, or B they come down? How much more risk are you adding (obviously more injuries) by the method you are currently using?

Risk assessment tells me that its just asinine to not use the tool made for the job.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 30, 2014)

AxlD said:


> We have a loading bridge. but we perfer to do our counter weight when the line set is flown all the way out in the fly system so that the entire line is balanced all the way down to where we fly it is



I don't think were getting something an am trying to give axl a chance. Clearly if the batten is out, the line is not balanced all the way down. Some terminological issues I'm struggling with.


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## carsonld (Mar 30, 2014)

All of our battens are motorized and we love them, It makes loading and unloading things a lot easier. By far this is that safest way to do it. The motors and battens have load sensing on them meaning if load sensing is on (which it always should be) and it detects and extra weight to what the batten has learned it automatically stops. The one bad thing about them is they do not go as fast as counterweight systems, you can control the speed, but compared to a skilled stagehand its nothing!


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 30, 2014)

Can you say what the top speed is, to help others compare? I know that a decent flyman can get counterweight up to the 300-400 fpm range. Most so called "packaged hoists" tend to top out around 180 fpm, and of course fixed speeds are usually in the 20 - 30 fpm range. 

I'd agree that on all but the simplest fixed speed load sensing and slack line detection are important features, standard or available as options on most hoists.


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## JohnD (Mar 30, 2014)

One advantage to a motorized system not mentioned so far is the ease of restricting access.


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## SteveB (Mar 30, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Can you say what the top speed is, to help others compare? I know that a decent flyman can get counterweight up to the 300-400 fpm range. Most so called "packaged hoists" tend to top out around 180 fpm, and of course fixed speeds are usually in the 20 - 30 fpm range.
> 
> I'd agree that on all but the simplest fixed speed load sensing and slack line detection are important features, standard or available as options on most hoists.



The NY Times article on the Met Opera upgrade said this:

"There are 93 motors but only 30 drives to operate them. In the future each motor will have its own drive. The weight capacity for a single piece of lifted scenery will double, to 2,200 pounds, and so will the speed. Backdrops will have the capacity to be moved to within less than a quarter-inch of the desired position, instead of within roughly four inches. And they will be able to plunge down quickly, solving one of the most common complaints of directors, Mr. Sellars said.

“We can never get our curtains to drop fast enough. It can take roughly 10 seconds for some backdrops to fall the full 45 feet of the Met proscenium.

The overhaul will also allow slower drops. In the recently introduced production of Verdi’s “Traviata,” for example, a floral backdrop is meant to descend slowly, over roughly nine minutes, but the Met’s motors were incapable of such a controlled fall. So stagehands had to rig up a separate pulley system to work together with the motor."

So the complaint was that the current system has a 270 ft per second speed limitation and that the new system will be much faster as well as more accurate.

I also recall reading (somewhere - still looking for that article) that rather then having full length battens motorized, they will be segmenting to 3 sections per "lineset", so gaining the ability to fly pieces without using the entire batten.

The full NYT article is here, you may need to subscribe. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/06/a...-on-60-million-renovation.html?pagewanted=all

This is on the LiveDesign site: Technical Renovation at Metropolitan Opera House | News content from Live Design Magazine


FWIW, Our Clancy systems move slowly. I believe this was the cheapest motorized upgrade we could get and speed was not in the budget. It doesn't really matter as we have not as yet used them as a scenic fly move, but as Kyle stated in previous posts, needing to repeatedly bounce an electric to deck focus can take time. I believe our upgrade for 7 linesets ran $200,000 installed.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 31, 2014)

SteveB said:


> We motorized 7 of our electric and ladder positions about 6 years ago.



If you don't mind my asking, what was the price range on that retrofit? We've got two dedicated electrics with these compensating cable assemblies and truss with baskets for the multi-cable that weighs about a ton by itself. PITA is an understatement. It's SECOA built though.


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## sk8rsdad (Mar 31, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> If you don't mind my asking, what was the price range on that retrofit? We've got two dedicated electrics with these compensating cable assemblies and truss with baskets for the multi-cable that weighs about a ton by itself. PITA is an understatement. It's SECOA built though.




SteveB said:


> I believe our upgrade for 7 linesets ran $200,000 installed.



So that would be around $29,000 per lineset. By way of irrelevant comparison, we installed 9 lineshaft winch systems (different brand, different configuration, different requirements, different weight limits, did I mention "different" often enough?) for $14,000 per lineset.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 31, 2014)

If you can live with the counterweight set with a motor assist, that would be a lot less. Powerassist from Clancy is one but at least SECOA and Thern have similar and have hear you could use an EXO version of the Prodigy. I use $12,000 for a budget price, They all would give you about a thousand pounds normally. Whiter after cable and bare pipe weight that is always enough or whether you still have to balance occasionally is not clear.

$29,000 seems high for fixed speed. Have two 30+ set Prodigy systems - mix of models - averaging in the $20,000 each range. For a basic slow dumb set, $20,000-22,000 is not bad. Though if you start messing with feeders much, I find they end up getting replaced along with plug strips more often than I would have thought. And high speed high capacity - upwards to $50,000 per set plus some expensive console on top of that.

I'd like to know how the above $200,000 was contracted and what it included besides the machines and controls.

It will vary a lot depending on so many things.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 31, 2014)

Either way, outside of what we as a HS PAC could afford on our own without grants or other assistance from our county. One of the lineset schedules supplied by SECOA indicated that a winch-assisted electric option was considered, but most likely discarded during the "cut" phase of the design.


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## SteveB (Mar 31, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> I'd like to know how the above $200,000 was contracted and what it included besides the machines and controls.
> 
> .



- As I think back......The arbors for 5 electrics needed to be replaced and the t-tracks needed to be re-mounted to accommodate a new and different arbor. As note, the existing electrics were dual single track arbors "married" at the pipe, thus you needed to haul 2 adjacent purchase lines to get the electric moved. All our linesets are otherwise on 6" centers and the newer winch system needed the room for the floor motors, so won't work on a system on 6" centers unless you remove an adjacent lineset.

As well, the original arbors are all custom (as is the entire counterweight fly rail), a result of the building stage wall being built at an angle that is not perpendicular to the proscenium, so wedges had to be installed on the track glide blocks (new and old) to shim the arbor(s) so that they are parallel to the proscenium. Possibly much additional labor costs for all that.

- It's NYC and even though the installer was I Weiss (non-union AFAIK and a good company), the City University Contracts office always add's 5-10% or more for cost over-runs, etc.... thus a $200,000 budget. I have no idea how much I Weiss was paid.


As comment, it was not in the budget to install the Clancy Scene Control master control units, thus the individual winches have separate control heads with lock-out keys, up.down buttons, a dead-mans button and a target indicator. About the only operating quirk we find is a result of the very basic design of the control head, that has a single neon indicator that lights when you hit ANY target. There are 4 heights you can set as targets, with 4 as the lowest, 1 the highest. If you want to lower an electric/pipe from say - target 2 to deck, you will stop at 3 and 4 on the way down. The operator MUST pay attention as to which target they want to be at when you restore to trim height. If they "forget" that they stopped at 3, then you are at the wrong trim height. The indicator lights tell you are at a target, just not which one. If Clancy were smart, they would modify the head unit to have a small LCD display that indicates "1-2-3-4" for which target you are at. Would make life easier for the crew. In retrospective, I would budget for a master control unit (which can be added after the fact).


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## BillConnerFASTC (Mar 31, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> Either way, outside of what we as a HS PAC could afford on our own without grants or other assistance from our county. One of the lineset schedules supplied by SECOA indicated that a winch-assisted electric option was considered, but most likely discarded during the "cut" phase of the design.



It seems unfortunately to be a now or never world for high school stage equipment - once when new and not again till a major redo in 20 or 30 or more years. Too bad they are forced to work that way.

On the other hand, focus on motorizing electrics for safety concerns and it being more common now anyway - for safety - "for the kids" - and when they finally get around to it just let it be dear its the time to fix some other things - like all the rigging and maybe the lighting as well. I find getting one significant issue funded makes it possible to pile on others.


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## StradivariusBone (Mar 31, 2014)

We just finished getting our house lights replaced (EYW 500w halogens) for the second time since it was built in 1995, so we're well past the new phase of things, but financially Florida school districts are still rebounding from the torpedoing property taxes.

In any event, it's good to know there is an application and protocol to allow for a retrofit winch to be installed. It's sometimes good to drop aforementioned knowledge at opportune moments.


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## agbobeck (Apr 11, 2014)

We always load our single purchase system from the deck. Our TD believes it is safer for students to load from the deck then our loading bridge 


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## cmckeeman (Apr 11, 2014)

agbobeck said:


> We always load our single purchase system from the deck. Our TD believes it is safer for students to load from the deck then our loading bridge
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


The only benefit is that there is no fall risk and no drop risk, but it makes for a runaway risk.


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## agbobeck (Apr 12, 2014)

Yea it's the drop/fall risk that we are concerned with . We have been doing it that way for so long. We have learned how to do it safely with no runaways in 8 years. I would like to use the bridge but our facility manager locked us out of the bridge because of his safety concerned.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Apr 13, 2014)

Your facility manager obviously is ignorant of stage rigging.


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## agbobeck (Apr 13, 2014)

Yup.


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## derekleffew (Apr 17, 2014)

Student injured in 'Peter Pan' play mishap


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## VCTMike (Apr 17, 2014)

derekleffew said:


> Student injured in 'Peter Pan' play mishap



Taking down the set and some how he went up and hit his head on the scaffolding???? Runaway batten? Something is weird here....sure doesn't sound like it was related to any flying equipment or at least the explanation offered implies it was only 'set' related....


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## josh88 (Apr 17, 2014)

Well the picture shows them lowering him, and it says got him down. It looks like there was a runaway or some kind of out of weight scenario and he either held on, or got caught and lifted up.


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## sk8rsdad (Apr 17, 2014)

This article offers a little more information. On what little information is provided it sounds like a runaway while the student was on the fly gallery. It's hard to imagine how else he hit his head and didn't fall to the stage floor.


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## VCTMike (Apr 17, 2014)

That article makes it sound like they unloaded the arbor without having it secured or attached to a winch and when it went he hung on for dear life, although it could have cost him his life.


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## SteveB (Apr 17, 2014)

I suspect those reporting have no clue as to what actually happened. 

I cannot imagine a runaway where the student held on to the rope for 75ft of travel, then hits his head, then waits till rescue arrives and they rig a rescue basket and lower him to the deck. 

If that's really what happened, then I'm amazed.


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## danTt (Apr 17, 2014)

Teenager rescued from East Lake High auditorium catwalk has more information as well.

I wonder if he was standing on an arbor to unload weight, and the arbor he was standing on was out of balance and ran? This is the only way I could see him making the full 75' accension without falling and doing much more damage when he hit his head... might also explain how he got hoisted onto the catwalk. Can't think of how else this story could possibly happen

Edit: and East Lake High School student suffers head injury taking down theatre set says 100'. I've now seen 30', 75', and 100'. Clearly the news agencies are not sure what they are talking about.


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## Euphroe (May 4, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Just to see if we are all understanding the situation, there is a loafing gallery they choose not to use preferring loading from the floor and hand injuries are rope burns from out of balance sets.



I like the idea of a loafing gallery. 

Most schools would be best off with 3 or 4 motorized electrics, some or all of the curtains dead-hung/tracked, and a handful of counterweight sets with Tiffin Restrictor ropelocks that can hold a one thousand pound imbalance, and cannot be released if the set is imbalanced. The locks are $600 per and can be retrofitted.

I rarely see a school counterweight system without at least one bend in the stoprail from a crashed set.

Counterweight systems require skill and consistency. Schools lack both.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 5, 2014)

Euphroe said:


> I like the idea of a loafing gallery.
> 
> Most schools would be best off with 3 or 4 motorized electrics, some or all of the curtains dead-hung/tracked, and a handful of counterweight sets with Tiffin Restrictor ropelocks that can hold a one thousand pound imbalance, and cannot be released if the set is imbalanced. The locks are $600 per and can be retrofitted.
> 
> ...


The problem with dead hanging the curtains is it can then never rise above mediocre acoustically and the curtains, always at floor level, wear out early from the normal activities.
As far as motorizing, schools are not so good at funding performing arts at all and adding motors at annual maintenance that too often won't get done.
I think the district I'm working with that has 5 high schools all with manual counterweight rigging on the stages also have a full time theatre specialist. Seems like a much better answer than so severely limiting function and opportunities.


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## StradivariusBone (May 5, 2014)

I think the idea of a ropelock that holds excess of the standard 40# or 50# would encourage out-of-balance scenarios and train young riggers to trust the lock. When they get their hands on a standard counterweight system they might not understand that it won't hold a heavy arbor in the air. This has been debated elsewhere on the board. 

The tradeoff between Bill and Euphroe is a real life event where I work. 6 PAC's with theatre managers who handle everything from booking to maintenance to set building and training stagecraft students. The newest high school was in the planning stages of building their performance space when the principal decided he didn't want to have to deal with a manager position and they went dead hung, three motorized electrics (which have never moved, nor does any light in that building have gel on it) and now their cyc (which blocks the three upstage exits since there's no way to fly it out and it is mostly useless since the cyc lights have no gel) is jury-rigged up with clothesline so you can get in and out of the doors.

In those situations, maintenance of the technical side of the building falls on the most experienced person using the space for their events, usually a drama or music teacher or both. Stuff gets broken and sometimes gets replaced, but without the income from someone actively generating bookings the money comes from the programs using the space. Before making a career change, I'd taught band in three schools without a TD and all three had spaces that have been used and abused. The first one had more lamps out than good, so bad that initially I thought the board was bad. It took months to get them replaced and even longer to find a county maintenance team that would do it.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 5, 2014)

And when I do a "dead hung" stage - usually budget driven - I simply put in catwalks across the stage for lighting. Cost less than motorized electrics and eliminates ladder/lift work for focusing - which is where I see injuries - ladder falls. Plus the catwalks add some convenience and opportunities to "rig" something - if only a couple of students dropping snow flakes of leaves. To try to improve acoustics, either no borders - exposed overhead like a thrust and black box stages - or borders are on traveler tracks to get them out of the space. Adding tracks under and between catwalks affords a kind of horizontal rigging option for drops and scenic pieces. This is usually an approach when a high trim is 35' or so max - since that doesn't permit set over set - or more specifically for a shell tower to pass under legs and travelers.

And I agree with Strad on the Restrictor - just have never sipped the Tiffin kool-aid on that one. Train and retain people right. Maybe you can dumb down equipment enough so no training or plain competence is necessary, but who is going to maintain the basics for safety in an assembly occupancy if not the "theatre guy/gal"? The folks that run the rigging are usually the same ones that make sure the basic auditorium is safe from means of egress and so on.


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## Euphroe (May 6, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> And I agree with Strad on the Restrictor - just have never sipped the Tiffin kool-aid on that one. Train and retain people right. Maybe you can dumb down equipment enough so no training or plain competence is necessary, but who is going to maintain the basics for safety in an assembly occupancy if not the "theatre guy/gal"? The folks that run the rigging are usually the same ones that make sure the basic auditorium is safe from means of egress and so on.



Old-school riggers argue against fall protection by saying people who rely on it get sloppy, and to simply hire good riggers who won't fall and not amateurs. Everybody has now sipped the lanyard Kool-Aid and we've dumbed down high rigging. Why not rope locks? 

Current rope lock designs pre-date the Model T Ford, literally. That Restrictors are too safe compared to traditional 50lb locks, is an argument against any safety advance. A kid who grows up with front wheel drive and ABS brakes might crash an older car someday, but we take that chance. 

I specced Restrictors on a specialized application for touring shows, and the locks were super reliable in operation. We could not have built a usable system with conventional locks in our application. 

Carl Sagan couldn't put a number on the crashed sets in high schools over the years. Most of these real-world accidents could be prevented by an incremental advance in rope lock design. I cannot see the argument that we should live with an unceasing clatter of real-world accidents because some hypothetical student exposed to a Restrictor will later crash a set on his first day as a flyman at the Met. 

And if he walks into the Met and releases a lock on a set that is 400lbs out of weight and not snubbed, who left it like that? 

* * * * 

I agree, catwalks are great. Acoustics are icing on the cake, once basic needs are met.

Among countless other wonders, I saw a number of school auditoriums originally planned for a flyhouse, then budget-cutting resulted in deleting the top 20' - 30' of the flyhouse from the plan. In two cases the counterweight systems remained in the spec and actually got built, with barely enough fly space to get the curtain hems 5' off the floor. This is the kind of application where a contractor might propose a line winch LX because the building was not constructed with catwalks but does have loft steel. 

A school in San Francisco asked me to price to "synthetic purhase lines" to reduce friction. The system was 70 years old. It had been built with double-purchased arbors, but single-purchased liftlines, all running over a single-purchase head block. So the purchase line was trying to run at 2x the speed of the lift lines and had to skid through the sheave. No slick rope was going to help. It had been this way for decades and nobody knew better. Again, this is the kind of stuff rigging contractors see in the field and you solve it as best you can, sometimes with a mix of dead-hungs and upgraded LX sets. 


* * * * * * * 

That injured kid launched into the fly loft -- was he holding a batten? That's an old problem -- 10 guys holding an unloaded batten while the set is unsnubbed so the arbor can be eased down; starts running too fast; nine guys let go, but not the brave soldier on the end of the pipe, who gets launched. The classic version ends with the pipe slamming against the grid, a pregnant pause, then a voice in the darkened loft saying, "It's okay -- just let in the 2nd Legs" -- he'd grabbed them on the way up.


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## Tex (May 6, 2014)

> Among countless other wonders, I saw a number of school auditoriums originally planned for a flyhouse, then budget-cutting resulted in deleting the top 20' - 30' of the flyhouse from the plan. In two cases the counterweight systems remained in the spec and actually got built, with barely enough fly space to get the curtain hems 5' off the floor.


I worked in a school like this. The district didn't like the way the building looked because one end was much higher than the other. :/


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## VCTMike (May 6, 2014)

Tex said:


> I worked in a school like this. The district didn't like the way the building looked because one end was much higher than the other. :/



Our re-build in a 2004 bond had a fly space included and a few more automated fixtures - until the athletics people wanted lighting on the fields for night games and a new scoreboard for a non-existent (but clearly planned future) football team. The whole round-about of bypassing the taxpayers wishes has been interesting for the past 10 years as voters did not approve funding for football - and yes, they now have a football team, initially supported by some hastily arranged booster club that has now morphed into fully paid coaches, training facilities, etc. Taxpayers be damned.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 6, 2014)

Euphroe said:


> Acoustics are icing on the cake, once basic needs are met.



Maybe for you, but for me acoustics are primary and basic. If nothing else, the audience has to see and hear well in comfort and safety in these spaces; and the room should be as supportive of the performers as possible.


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## DuckJordan (May 6, 2014)

Also note, High rigging has not been dumbed down, only made safer. Rope locks designed to hold 1k out of weight is a disaster waiting to happen. You now have kids who have learned its okay to take a super out of weight line set and leave it there just on the rope lock. Those same kids go to a house that doesn't have the 1k rope locks and does the same thing. Instant runaway recipe.

I'm all for making things safer in our industry but I do not believe anything involving rigging should be reliant on a tool that is so scarcely monitored such as a rope lock. I have never seen in person a house that locks their rope locks, in any way. Be that a cage, a hole in the rope lock for a padlock or cable or similar. I have seen several high schools and venues with no constant staff who have a fly system but barely know how to use it. Putting a tool that promotes unsafe habits is just like handing a loaded gun to a 5 year old.


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## StradivariusBone (May 6, 2014)

With counterbalance systems, there's a safe way to operate without a super lock. With high rigging there's not a safe way to do it without a lanyard. I'm not sure that's the best analogy. 

I do see where a rope lock would make attaching oddly shaped scenery pieces or travelers easier, but I also see the potential in allowing for out of balance conditions to exist and persist. A lot would depend on the house and personnel. To each their own.


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## Euphroe (May 7, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Maybe for you, but for me acoustics are primary and basic. If nothing else, the audience has to see and hear well in comfort and safety in these spaces; and the room should be as supportive of the performers as possible.



I think we probably agree a lot more than we disagree. Designing/consulting as you do, yes acoustics are an indispensable part of the job. But as a contractor asked to make recommendations to address multiple safety problems, an asbestos fire curtain, non-functional equipment, and with zero trained personnel on the district payroll, improving the acoustics barely rates as a consideration. If in the course of replacing the rigging and soft goods, we can make good acoustic choices for the same budget, without compromising safety, then yes it's an obligation. 

When your job is to clear mines and de-fuse unexploded bombs, you can't afford to be fussy about acoustics. That's what life is like for rigging contractors. Sometimes you get to build brand-new professional theaters designed by ASTC consultants. But most of the time, you get called to schools to clear grenades. Just as often, you get called to measure/price curtains, and discover two or three unexploded grenades the school did not know they had. And I am not talking about innocuous backwards crosby clips -- I mean real hazards.


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## Euphroe (May 7, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> With counterbalance systems, there's a safe way to operate without a super lock. With high rigging there's not a safe way to do it without a lanyard. I'm not sure that's the best analogy.
> 
> I do see where a rope lock would make attaching oddly shaped scenery pieces or travelers easier, but I also see the potential in allowing for out of balance conditions to exist and persist. A lot would depend on the house and personnel. To each their own.




Lots of guys can climb without falling, and can run 50-lb locks without crashing a set. Many of us did both for decades. 

But a world full of workers without fall protection inevitably leads to accidents. And a world full of unskilled kids trying to use 50-lb locks leads to constant accidents. This is undeniable. 

It is not possible to operate counterweight rigging without creating out-of-balance conditions. The sets cannot be 100% in balance 100% of the time. 

The question is whether the operator can safely handle an imbalanced set. This takes a skill level that has never been achieved in sufficient numbers to prevent a constant stream of accidents. 

So the argument that we simply need to achieve a sufficient skill level in every high-school class falls flat. It never happened, and never will.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 7, 2014)

My job is to provide the best planning in the Owner's bets interest. If it means simply removing items, so be it. I have pushed converting a few stages from rag tag rigging and no value into more of a recital/concert hall stage because it could be good at that. If they can't afford to do something well, I suggest perhaps they not do anything other than make it safe. Seems like a poor use of taxpayer money to end up with a sub standard facility. Of course I'm hired and going to be paid regardless of my recommendations and you only get hired and paid if they authorize some rigging work, and of course the more the merrier for you. Do you ever consider that because a superintendent or principal or head maintenance person does not really know what they need? I get called into a lot of crappy, woe begone, school stages and auditoriums also have to tell them the 25 or 50K they thought would fix everything is woefully inadequate and explain why they should spend 10 or 50 times that and convince them it's worth it. It seems like you are willing to accept the 25 or 50K and do the best you can to make it safe.


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## DuckJordan (May 7, 2014)

Euphroe said:


> Lots of guys can climb without falling, and can run 50-lb locks without crashing a set. Many of us did both for decades.
> 
> But a world full of workers without fall protection inevitably leads to accidents. And a world full of unskilled kids trying to use 50-lb locks leads to constant accidents. This is undeniable.
> 
> ...




No the need to be trained properly, Adding a tool to teach them to do it improperly is just asking for trouble. That is what I am getting at. It is OK to have an out of balance line set. If the pipe is the heavy side it should be at the ground, and the reverse is true as well. Its much easier to stop an accident when the kid running it lets the break go at 50 lbs rather than 1000 lbs.


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## Euphroe (May 7, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> It seems like you are willing to accept the 25 or 50K and do the best you can to make it safe.



Yes I am that venal. When a stressed-looking lady with four kids brings me a '98 Corolla with worn brakes and asks me to fix it, I don't tell her she'd be happier with a new Lamborghini, no matter how true that might be. I fix the Corolla and take her lousy $500.


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## Euphroe (May 7, 2014)

DuckJordan said:


> No the need to be trained properly, Adding a tool to teach them to do it improperly is just asking for trouble. That is what I am getting at. It is OK to have an out of balance line set. If the pipe is the heavy side it should be at the ground, and the reverse is true as well. Its much easier to stop an accident when the kid running it lets the break go at 50 lbs rather than 1000 lbs.



Have you ever used a Restrictor?

It will not release a 1000lb imbalance. It will only release a slack line. If you can't slack the line (by hand, with a come-along, however) the lock won't release. 

So the kid is not going to crash a 1000lb set. They can't. That's the point. 

The Restrictor is not a "tool to teach them to do it improperly", any more than a lanyard is a "tool to teach them to move unsafely." If you reduce the consequences of falling from height, have you encouraged people to act unsafely? That's silly. 

It's much easier to prevent an accident when the machinery will not allow you to crash a set. 

It is IMPOSSIBLE to prevent an accident by turning 50 years of schoolkids loose on machinery that can screw up as easily as a 50lb lock. When you install a counterweight system in a high school, it will be there for 50 years or more. Even if the school has a good instructor this year, it will not over the life span of that equipment. You're leaving a grenade for the future. Nearly every high school I ever visited had signs of a crashed set in the past. 

I like counterweight sets and think it's neat that we let kids use them despite the risk. But it's a risk that could easily be mitigated with Restrictors or probably Sure Locks. I haven't used the JRC yet. 

Moreover, the Restrictor is not just a "safety device." It's a great tool for advanced users. There are things you can do with a Restrictor that you can't justify doing by screwing around with sundays and Uncle Buddies. 

We should be teaching kids how to really put CW rigging to work. Instead we're limiting what they do in an attempt to delay the inevitable set accident caused by the 50-lb lock. Install Restrictors and not only is it safer, you can teach them to play with carpet hoists and other tricks. 

The only justification I see for 50lb locks is lack of money. 50lb locks are demonstrably less safe and less useful.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 7, 2014)

Well, obviously the majority disagree, beginning with the ANSI standard says 50 pounds is fine.


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## Euphroe (May 7, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Well, obviously the majority disagree, beginning with the ANSI standard says 50 pounds is fine.



So?

All that means is that the majority thinks having a lot of counterweight accidents is okay because they're used to it. 

Not so long ago, that was the consensus on fall protection. We changed that because we decided the accidents were intolerable.


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## Chris15 (May 7, 2014)

Let me take a moment to remind everyone of Control Booth's Core Values (FAQ [HASHTAG]#15[/HASHTAG]: Core Values | ControlBooth

> The cornerstone of our community is mutual respect between members. We pride ourselves in having a mature, civil, yet fun atmosphere where members are able to debate their differing opinions without resorting to flame wars. Our community enthusiastically welcomes new members, and we are always eager to offer helpful advice to both the novice and seasoned veteran alike.



It's OK to disagree, but we need to maintain respect for, and to be seen by everyone else as respecting, other people's views and opinions, even if they don't make sense to you...


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## cmckeeman (May 7, 2014)

Euphroe said:


> Old-school riggers argue against fall protection by saying people who rely on it get sloppy, and to simply hire good riggers who won't fall and not amateurs. Everybody has now sipped the lanyard Kool-Aid and we've dumbed down high rigging.



Adding lanyards so that when riggers fall, and it can happen to any rigger, they are stopped in a safe manner doesn't dumb anything down but makes rigging safer. I'm not convinced these restrictor locks make anything safer. a counter weight system is designed to be human powered, having a lineset locked off for a show 1000 Lbs out of weight doesn't sound safe to me and restricts what i can do. Also what scenario do you need a lineset locked off that much out of weight?


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## DuckJordan (May 7, 2014)

I'm sorry but I still disagree, you brought up a good point about cost though. Honestly it seems like you are throwing money at a brick wall and seeing what sticks though. Most schools brand new or even renovating cannot afford these restrictor locks. Hell they can barely afford to put lights in the space. First things they skimp on is always audio, lighting, and then fly systems, In that order. Well they've pretty muched cashed out what they can from the audio and lighting, now that fly system looks like its gonna be a dead hang because they can't afford to add the arbors and hand lines, let a lone the rope locks.


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## Euphroe (May 8, 2014)

cmckeeman said:


> I'm not convinced these restrictor locks make anything safer. a counter weight system is designed to be human powered, having a lineset locked off for a show 1000 Lbs out of weight doesn't sound safe to me and restricts what i can do. Also what scenario do you need a lineset locked off that much out of weight?



What more do you need to be convinced? A 50lb lock cannot prevent a runaway in either direction. A Restrictor will prevent runaways in both directions. 

Runaways are what we are trying to avoid. Restrictors prevent them. 50lb locks do not. 

You can safely prevent a runaway with a 50lb lock plus a certain skill set, some sash cord or a broomstick, a comealong or tackle, and a sunday or prussick sling. But we've never successfully achieved that skill level enough to prevent runaway sets virtually every day in a theater somewhere in the US. You'd think we'd wise up. 

Actually, "wising up" is coming in the form of schools being built without counterweight sets to eliminate the risk. I would rather have the CW system and manage the risk with Restrictors. 

Isn't preventing runaways a worthwhile goal? Because what we've been doing for 100+ years has never prevented runaways on a near-daily basis, and is not going to suddently start working in 2015. 

Restrictors make certain fast moves possible that would be difficult if the SM had to wait for a set to be snubbed, or where the flymen are so busy they cannot tend to the snubbing immediately. 

A Restrictor adds possibilities, prevents runaways, and does not limit any move you want to make. 

Say you want to strip a batten and slip the arbor down to bridge or floor level. With a 50lb lock you snub the purchase line, strip the pipe, unsnub the line and slip the arbor. It's exactly the same with the Restrictor except you do not set the lock before snubbing the purchase line; you just twist and snub. 

In that scenario setting the 50lb lock accomplishes almost nothing anyway, so by not setting the Restrictor you're not losing anything. 

But you gained something: in case of a problem, you can close the Restrictor and secure the set against a runaway. You can't accomplish anything by closing the 50lb lock on an imbalanced set, it's useless hardware at that point. 

If a severely out-of-weight set sounds unsafe, then how much unsafer is it with a 50lb lock? Sometimes you can't reach the arbor and you have to manage severely out-of-weight sets some other way.


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## MNicolai (May 8, 2014)

@Euphroe, I don't believe anyone here is disagreeing with you about the safety of a Restrictor lock in terms of operation. The debate is about what happens when students learn to rely on the Restrictor for that degree of safety, begin work in another theater, and fail to realize that non-Restrictor locks do not afford them that degree of safety.

If every rope lock in use today was a Restrictor or even most were, it wouldn't be so much an issue, but the Restrictor is currently a rare breed and unless price comes down drastically, likely to remain a rare breed. It's a promotion of what would be unsafe work methods under other, much more common circumstances. In schools, in particular, it's more troubling yet because students have such a narrow view of the world -- they'd be surprised to learn that not every other theater has the same types of rope locks as their theater does.

Another factor to take into consideration is that, though I'd expect runaways or close calls are not all that uncommon, we hear only about a few accidents a year where someone is substantially injured. While there are safer alternatives, such as motorized rigging with slackline detection and load monitoring, conventional counterweight rigging remains fairly safe. To that end, I'd not be surprised to learn more accidents happen in theaters annually from unsafe use of prop weapons or falls from ladders.

Taking into account the frequency of injuries in our industry, and comparing the risks versus rewards of Restrictor-type locks, I'm just not sure the risks outweigh the rewards. While that specific theater may have a reduced number of accidents and close calls, the prevalence of accidents and close calls may increase in the many theaters without Restrictor-type locks, who have people working there who have grown up with Restrictor-type locks.

Another thing to examine is I see more and more venues with motorized battens for electrics, and counterweight for general-purpose sets. Almost always, the most hanging from these counterweight sets are legs, borders, and drops. Maybe a mirror ball or a banner from time to time. I actually don't see many schools hanging scenery on their battens in excess of a couple hundred pounds. Certainly none that are going up several hundred pounds on a given batten, and anyone doing that level of production probably has a scene shop attached to the theater and proper supervision.

All things considered, I think that Restrictor-type locks in academic environments promote an unsafe work method in the broader industry that students are being prepared for, and that for that risk, not enough reward is to be had. For venues with motorized electrics for lighting (where the vast majority of reweighting would otherwise occur), the number of times a counterweight set is even used for actual scenery that may weight more than 250lbs is almost none, making Restrictor-type locks vastly overkill for the application.


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## StradivariusBone (May 8, 2014)

Three thoughts-

Is there any data kept on runaways or other rigging accidents? All I've ever heard is anecdotal.

What happens when the restrictor gets loaded to 1,020#?

What kind of abuse do the head and tension blocks and purchase lines sustain being forced to carry 50-1000# loads? Are those retrofitted as well?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 8, 2014)

When I hear of deliberately stripping electrics and then "slipping arbors" to the floor I have to clarify I do not tolerate absence of loading bridges. If you're installing counterweight (for general use) you must have a properly designed loading bridge. I think twice in maybe 150 projects I've renovated rigging systems without retrofitting a loading bridge, but did require a mule winch system and extra training and precautions. Not providing a loading bridge in new build should be criminal. I feel almost as strongly about gridiron access to make regular inspection and service much more likely. And if you can't afford the bridge or gridiron, you can't afford manual counterweight. Besides, a loading bridge is like the cost of one or two linesets, so no excuse.


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## MNicolai (May 8, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Not providing a loading bridge in new build should be criminal.



"Bill Conner, ASTC" should be "Bill Conner, Preacher Man"

Protecting sacred industry values since 1989.


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## derekleffew (May 8, 2014)

MNicolai said:


> ...All things considered, I think that Restrictor-type locks in academic environments promote an unsafe work method in the broader industry that students are being prepared for, and that for that risk, not enough reward is to be had. ...


Do you feel the same about the SureStop™ Head Block ?
Couldn't one make the same argument against the SawStop | America's Number One Cabinet Saw | SawStop ? "Oh my dear deity, these poor, not properly trained, disadvantaged children are going to cut off all their fingers the minute they encounter a traditional saw."

Experts, care to expound on the merits/drawbacks of SureStop and Restrictor (and any others that serve similar purposes)? Disclosure: my experience in the early 1980s, with Tiffin's automatic ropelock that included a deadman pedal, was less than positive. Safe perhaps, but not enjoyable.


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## MNicolai (May 8, 2014)

I think the Sawstop is different. Either you don't know it's there and you don't plan on it to save your butt, or you _know_ it's there, either because someone bragged to you about it or you figured out the hard way. You also can't lean on the Sawstop to encourage your poor work practices because when it activates, it ruins the blade and costs a bit of money to replace. Whereas you can tap into the features of the Restrictor without ever knowing it, many times a day.


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## StradivariusBone (May 8, 2014)

The SureStop looks interesting. It addresses the safety issue on the Euphroe side, but also makes everyone aware that an imbalance error has just been averted without slamming a pipe/kid into the grid/bridge. 

I would still guess we're in cost-prohibitive-land for most schools. 



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## chausman (May 8, 2014)

I like the concept of the SureStop because it doesn't (or at least shouldn't) allow you to work differently than a house that doesn't have them. It only should afford you some extra security.


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## sk8rsdad (May 8, 2014)

It's been quite a while since I've worked on counterweight rigs so I defer to those who do this all the time. That said, I work with inexperienced people all the time in a place where adequate supervision is not always possible. Consequently, I am a strong believer in anything that makes it harder for somebody to hurt herself. The Restrictor appears to be designed to make it difficult to release a load that is badly out of balance. That might (and I stress the word "might") make it possible to develop bad habits that could get you hurt elsewhere. The same could be said for relying on any safety device that isn't universal such as seatbelts, airbags, parachutes, fuses, etc. Should I avoid using something in my venue that would make it safer? Isn't it the other venue's responsibility to provide the proper training for their space?

At the risk of heading off on another tangent, has any vendor ever developed and arbor with load cells that would sound an alarm when the load is badly imbalanced, like how commercial vehicles have to have a backup alarm? There are certainly times during loading and unloading when the system is knowingly out of balance. Maybe they should be beeping until the problem is resolved.


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## josh88 (May 8, 2014)

I also seem to remember a discussion at USITT a few years back of a theatre that had a counterweight system that used water to keep things balanced and sensed the weight loads and moved water as needed from a tank on the roof. Though I may be making this up entirely.


Via tapatalk


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 8, 2014)

Strad-in a new building I'd guess either the top lock or head block will cost about one in six or seven linesets so instead of 30-35 you'd get 25-30.

No, you probably should not retrofit a restrictor without some engineering analysis, and the t-bar is likely the weak point - just as it is the reason many people don't approve of using an uncle buddy. But that's a quick response, and I'd want a sealed drawing or calculations showing it.


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## Jay Ashworth (May 8, 2014)

> If you reduce the consequences of falling from height, have you encouraged people to act unsafely? That's silly. 

Nope. In fact there's plenty of scientific evidence that risk mitigation just causes people - especially young people - to find news risks.

Sent from my SPH-L720


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## Euphroe (May 8, 2014)

This has been an interesting thread. MNicolai: I especially appreciate your thoughtful, substantive response, and the effort you put into both the substance and tone. 

[playful tone on]

I would like to respond further, but am busy disconnecting the anti-lock braking system on my daughter's car. Since 100% of cars cannot be instantly changed over to ABS brakes, and she cannot tell the difference by looking at the car, it is unsafe for young drivers to have ABS brakes. They are a tool for teaching improper driving habits like jamming on the brake pedal.

Since young drivers cannot be introduced to ABS brakes, that innovation can never be introduced. All cars should be equally dangerous; the lowest common denominator governs. 

[playful tone off]

Tiffin invests in building a safer product to mitigate a universally-recognized risk, and are basically told to jump in the lake; that their product actually creates a hazard by being too safe. This is the industry at its worst, discouraging innovation. 

There's a century-long history of crashed CW sets. Few fatalities, but bent stoprails everywhere you go. IA crews struggling to bull sets, rope burns, scary moments that did not result in a hospital stay, but were bad enough. 

Against this known history of accidents and near-accidents, there's a hypothetical possibility of an accident caused by a student who doesn't know the difference between a Restrictor and a paleo-lock. And the consquences of that accident will be no worse than the accidents that are already happening. 

To the idealogues who insist after a century of failure that we should continue relying on teaching the "right way" with old locks:

It IS possible to use Restrictors but teach students to treat them like paleo-locks. To teach students not to trust them to hold more than 50lbs. 

Because if you cannot reliably teach them the correct method with Restrictors, then you cannot teach them the correct method with paleo-locks either. 

The difference is that with a Restrictor, you can teach them the traditional method, safely. 

With the paleo-lock, we are *guaranteed* to have more accidents of the kind we've been having for a century or more.


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## gafftapegreenia (May 8, 2014)

Been thinking about this thread as it has been developing. It occurred to me that the one run away situation that I did witness could have been prevented had these rope locks been in place. Two students would have avoided ER visits and the costs of a rigging inspection and lineset replacement could have been avoided. So, that has me in favor of the Restrictor. Yet the situation could also have just as easily been prevented by better communication and education, so ultimate I remain internally conflicted.

Technology should never been viewed as a replacement for training and communication. I cannot stress this strongly enough. A lack of education and oversight is going to make any theatrical system dangerous, Restrictor locks or not. Is a poorly run venue or school safer with Restrictor locks? I'd argue marginally at best.

On the other hand, lets not fight technology when it can make our lives safer. I know that there is often a sense of tradition in Theatre, "if it ain't broke dont fix it" and "if it was good enough for me its good enough for them", but can we stop making our lives harder? Everyone makes mistakes, even the best up riggers and scenic carpenters, is it wrong to have more safety built into the system? I understand that the biggest fear is a sense of complacency that some might develop from using a product like the Restrictor or the Sawstop, but is the possibility of a *what if* scenario enough justification to stick to traditional tools? I think thats the heart of the debate here.


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## josh88 (May 8, 2014)

Can you actually back up this "crashes happen everywhere all the time" figure? I'm actually curious because you've seen evidence in every theatre you've been to it seems and in all the high schools I've been too I've been lucky enough to never see any of this. I'm not saying they don't happen, but I've visited probably 30 high school theatres and I've seen one with a batten that was bent but that's it. 

Like strad asked earlier is there anywhere that we can find data on injuries and incidents out there or do we only have anecdote evidence to rely on?


Via tapatalk


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 8, 2014)

In maybe being backstage in 300 high schools, I think I've seen signs of two or three run-aways - deformed lock rail - and all on stages without a loading bridge. Keep it in balance, which it can be in nearly every high school situation as long as there is a loading bridge.


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## gafftapegreenia (May 8, 2014)

Keep in mind that minor to moderate damaged can be caused by inexperienced operators crashing a fully loaded - yet properly balanced - arbor into the rails.


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## Euphroe (May 8, 2014)

Nope. But most of the schools I've visited have signs of crashed sets. Sometimes you have to look close. Sometimes the stoprail is obviously bent, or a section has been replaced, damage at the top of the welch blocks, or the T-bar behind. I've seen damaged arbors, sets that were chained off/abandoned. Signs of crosbies jammed against loft blocks when pipes gridded at speed. 

Talk to guys that do rigging renovations in older school districts. You see all kinds of stuff, like the dysfunctional hermaphrodite double-single purchase system I described above. Or the house that had this strange left-lay wire rope . . . a little resarch revealed it to be 6x6x7 "tiller rope", 1/4" with a strength of 2500bls. You could almost bite through it, an easy one-handed cut with C-7s. Plow steel, with fiber cores in each strand plus the center. 

Even in large IA houses, I've seen a lot of hairy struggling and near-accidents on what should be basic operations. 

Recently I filled in as flyman at an unfamiliar venue, for a TV shoot. The welch blocks were in a deep well, so I found an 8' 2x4 on the loading dock to poke down and release the welch blocks. I was doing this to snub a set, when a couple of the TV studio guys asked what I was doing. I started explaining the snubbing process and they knew about all that, said they worked CW often. But they did not know that welch blocks could be released by pressing down on them -- "Learn something new every day!" they said. How they'd been working linesets without ever slacking the purchase lines I'm not sure . . . Plus this venue was a (well-funded, probably ASTC-designed) high school theater. How were the students releasing the welch blocks? They probably weren't. 

One school I renovated had money left over from a seismic retrofit and spent it on new rigging. When I arrived for a survey, an abatement company was prepping to remove the fire curtain. I asked, and they had *no idea* about that 1400lb counterweight it was attached to. Their plan was to build 65' scaffold to the grid, enclose the entire thing in plastic, try to get negative pressure, and just cut the fire curtain from the batten. 

I pointed out the counterweight to the GC. I offered to rig the FC batten so it could be safely lowered, and to deal with the counterweight. He hired me to do that. 

The abatement contractor built an 8' enclosure to receive the fire curtain on the ground, and negative-pressurized it. But they ALSO built the 65' enclosure to the grid, which they could never successfully get negative pressure. The small enclosure was inside the large one. 

The 65' enclosure was redundant, and the contractor knew it. But they built it because the abatement consultant had already charged the district $50,000 for the *design* of the unneeded enclosure. To not build the (giant, expensive) failure would reveal that the $50,000 was a wasted boondoggle. 

Next job I arrived at, the same abatement contractor was on-site building an 8' enclosure. They learned that much. But they still hadn't reckoned on the counterweight. Fortunately I arrived before they tried moving and cutting away the fire curtain, so I got to do that one, too.


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## Euphroe (May 8, 2014)

Euphroe said:


> . How they'd been working linesets without ever slacking the purchase lines I'm not sure . . . Plus this venue was a (well-funded, probably ASTC-designed) high school theater. .



Sorry, that sounded like a dig on the ASTC or Bill, and I didn't mean it that way. I meant it was a really nice, well-equipped facility, one that could be hired out for TV events and such. It was recently renovated and in excellent condition, and undoubtedly designed by a professional. 

The designer put the welch blocks in a well to get travel without resorting to double-purchase. It was a good system, just required a little careful handling. 

I don't remember seeing a bent stoprail there.


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## kicknargel (May 8, 2014)

I'm not really even weighing in here, other than to try to bring focus to a fundamental question. I think the uneasiness of the 1000 lb lock is that it allows a practice that is inherently unsafe - leaving linesets out of balance, with a single point of failure (the lock). A 50 lbs lock requires that any out-of-balance condition be temporary and attended to. There's not imperial evidence which system is safer in actual practice. I think I system that was more analogous to Sawstop, which was a failsafe but didn't affect best practice, would be the ideal. I'm not putting my hand into that saw blade no matter how good you tell me the safety device is. But I'll be glad it's there if I do it accidentally.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 8, 2014)

kicknargel said:


> I think I system that was more analogous to Sawstop, which was a failsafe but didn't affect best practice, would be the ideal.



Well, the new Clancy head block would seem to do that. Not noticeable except in a run away.


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## StradivariusBone (May 8, 2014)

Does the SureStop brake the purchase line or the lift lines or both? 

At the core the biggest issue I have with the super rope lock is the idea that an out-of-balance situation could be left unattended indefinitely. I would expect that to be common in a house w/out a dedicated TD. Or if it were to fail, or a purchase line fails then you could have as much as 1,000# going to the deck. 

I would think many would be encouraged to not reweight during light hangs (run it up with the genie) forget about it after the show run is over and it continues unbalanced. 

That all being said, I've experienced being on deck while hanging and running my HS crew. Distractions happen and they are less apt to keep their concentration than most. We have never had an incident, but insurance is always nice.


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## Jay Ashworth (May 8, 2014)

For more on "less protection" see item 4 in this article:

6 Little-Known Driving Tips That Could Save Your Life | Cracked.com

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## Jay Ashworth (May 8, 2014)

Sorry: [HASHTAG]#5[/HASHTAG]

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## gafftapegreenia (May 8, 2014)

kicknargel said:


> There's not imperial evidence which system is safer in actual practice. .



Just so you know, I believe the phrase is "empirical evidence".


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 9, 2014)

Both Strad, by their common connection to the arbor if not by traction in the block. It stops movement in an over speed condition. Which is nice since it is invisible except in that case, so its only about money. I don't know if its trigger speed is anywhere close to expected top speed operation.


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## kicknargel (May 9, 2014)

gafftapegreenia said:


> Just so you know, I believe the phrase is "empirical evidence".


Oops. In my defense I was on my second distinct plane trip of the day. And why wouldn't the one that's about empires be the one that starts with a "e?"


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## Jay Ashworth (May 9, 2014)

Such a good question that I deeply resent your having thought of it first.  

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## Euphroe (May 10, 2014)

kicknargel said:


> I'm not really even weighing in here, other than to try to bring focus to a fundamental question. I think the uneasiness of the 1000 lb lock is that it allows a practice that is inherently unsafe - leaving linesets out of balance, with a single point of failure (the lock). A 50 lbs lock requires that any out-of-balance condition be temporary and attended to. y.




StradivariusBone said:


> Does the SureStop brake the purchase line or the lift lines or both?
> 
> At the core the biggest issue I have with the super rope lock is the idea that an out-of-balance situation could be left unattended indefinitely. I would expect that to be common in a house w/out a dedicated TD. Or if it were to fail, or a purchase line fails then you could have as much as 1,000# going to the deck.
> 
> talk



If having out-of-weight sets is inherently unsafe, then CW sets are inherently unsafe. The nature of CW sets is that payloads are added/removed, during which the set is often hundreds of pounds out of weight.

Sets crash when the pipe gets stripped, the crew can't handle the imbalance, and the arbor comes down partially or completely out of control, and grids the pipe. This sometimes happens because the top weight in the arbor is too high, so the flyman tries to slip the arbor down a couple of feet and underestimates the difficulty. Sometimes there's no "crash", only an arbor that the flyman can slow down, but not stop or reverse. Then the flyman unloads the arbor at deck level and saunters off to change his underwear. 

If you leave a loaded 1000lb arbor at grid level hanging on a Restrictor, *you've left the pipe at the deck*. Who leaves a pipe at 5' trim indefinitely? 

A worse scenario is accidentally stripping the wrong arbor at deck level, and leaving a loaded batten at the grid. The risk of doing this with a Restrictor is no worse than with a paleo-lock. Anybody who trembles at having the loaded batten hanging on rated 1000lb lock until later noticed should consider the alternative. Make the same mistake with a paleo-lock and it would *certainly* fail; the arbor would start running as the crew unloaded it, putting at risk both the rail crew and anybody caught under the falling batten. 

Interesting note: because the Restrictor holds 1000lbs does not mean every arbor weighs 1000lbs after installing Restrictors. Sometimes arbors only weigh 450lbs, or 234lbs, even after installing Restrictors.


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## StradivariusBone (May 10, 2014)

My question (rephrased) was, how does it hold up when the crew treats it like a dead hang? If it locks 1,000# why would you ever need to reweight your lx? What kind of abuse does a purchase line or t track that was only designed for 50# take when it's loaded down and left for 6 months til someone notices? Is it designed for that abuse?

I'm in agreement with you, the concept of this safety hardware sounds great and preventing runaways while still allowing HS kids to run the ropes is awesome. I'm just wondering (since there's an apparent dearth of actual data on either for or against and a conflict of anecdotal evidence) as to the cost-benefit of standard vs super vs braking headblock. I'm still thinking the headblock has an advantage if for nothing else than to give that "Oh S***" feeling to the kid who just dropped the ball.


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## BillConnerFASTC (May 10, 2014)

I disagree that manual counterweight rigging is inherently unsafe or that out of balance conditions are common. Saying that's its OK is irresponsible. The scenarios described are examples of non-competency.


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## Euphroe (May 11, 2014)

StradivariusBone said:


> My question (rephrased) was, how does it hold up when the crew treats it like a dead hang? If it locks 1,000# why would you ever need to reweight your lx? What kind of abuse does a purchase line or t track that was only designed for 50# take when it's loaded down and left for 6 months til someone notices? Is it designed for that abuse?
> 
> I'm in agreement with you, the concept of this safety hardware sounds great and preventing runaways while still allowing HS kids to run the ropes is awesome. I'm just wondering (since there's an apparent dearth of actual data on either for or against and a conflict of anecdotal evidence) as to the cost-benefit of standard vs super vs braking headblock. I'm still thinking the headblock has an advantage if for nothing else than to give that "Oh S***" feeling to the kid who just dropped the ball.
> 
> ...



You re-weight your LX to get it to fly at all, that's why. If it's out of weight a Restrictor won't cause somebody to fly it before re-weighting. If it's locked with a Restrictor, you can't release it to fly it. 

Don't treat it like a dead-hang. If you can't trust the crew with a Restrictor, then you *really* can't trust them with a paleo-lock and a broomstick. They could equally stupidly walk away from an imbalanced set that has no 1000-lb mechanical backstop. 

Purchase line is not designed only for 50#, it is supposed to be specced to handle imbalanced sets by being snubbed. Whether you twist the parts of line, Uncle Buddy them, hitch them with cord, jam a broomstick in them, they're still carrying the weight of the imbalance. T-track should not be seeing much load for most of its length if the sets are plumb. The T-track at the welch blocks might see load if you reverse an imbalance (severely batten heavy). Rails are supposed to be designed so that you can snub off heavy loads. The difference is that with a Restrictor you can't release an imbalanced set; with a paleo-lock and snubbing system, you can release an imbalanced set and crash it. 

(I've seen a lot of worn, dried-out manila in school theaters, but you wouldn't re-install that rope in a Restrictor, and would check the rail anchorage, etc.) 

The drawback of a Restrictor that I can see is if you lock the Restrictor and remove either payload or arbor weight beyond what you can tug on the purchase line, you'll need a lifting mechanism like a comealong or tackle to overhaul the set enough to release the Restrictor jaws; a lowering brake won't help at that point. The answer is to not lock the Restrictor in the middle of such a move; which is no loss, because there would be no point in setting a 50lb paleo-lock either. 

I can't speak to the SureStop, haven't used them. But am skeptical because line speed and runaway set are not equivalent. I've seen out-of-weight arbors descending that the flymen could not stop, but they could slow. 

I designed a couple of special carpet-hoist type systems around Restrictors for arena touring applications. One of these was operated by non-English speaking foreign nationals who were really bad at taking instruction. They operated the systems for hundreds of shows, tens of thousands of moves, without accident or even incident, despite the sets being significantlly "out of weight" by design because, as stated, they were carpet hoist variants. Skilled riggers could not have done these moves with paleo-locks, safely or otherwise. 

The above was a highly advanced use, but operated by complete amateurs. That sold me on the utility of Restrictors. 

When you install CW rigging in a school, you leave it for 50 - 70 years of students, teachers, staff, operating budgets. Nobody can control for the human element that far in the future. It doesn't matter that you can teach students the correct way to operate it, because you won't be there.


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## RickBoychuk (May 13, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> Well, the new Clancy head block would seem to do that. Not noticeable except in a run away.


I attended the demo drop of the Clancy head block at USITT in Long Beach. I had the opportunity to talk with the young man doing the demo. This is what I remember that I think he told me. Please do your own research to confirm or refute my understanding and memory.

First, the device worked. It stopped the falling load. Kudos.

But after deployment it needs to be adjusted because there is a 'wear item'. After X number of deployments without adjustment, it could stop doing what it is supposed to do. X could be as few as 4 or 5 deployments.

If my understanding and memory are correct, that is not a desirable situation. 

I repeat: please do your own research on the issue.


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## ruinexplorer (May 31, 2014)

So, I think what the concensus is, *we need better training for CW systems and rigging in general*. The details about the safety mechanisms are secondary to the issue at hand, improper training. This is not unique at the High School level by any means.

I do believe that the car analogies are correct with concern to the safety mechanisms in theater. They are all designed to prevent catastrophic results when mistakes happen. ABS brakes allow for safer stopping when a situation where proper driving techniques do not allow for safe deceleration. They can confuse improperly trained drivers as they do not all work the same way. Does this mean that we shouldn't have them? I doubt that many experienced drivers who have occasionally needed them would not want them.

When I first joined IATSE, part of my apprentice training was going through a rigging and fall protection course (contractor was brought in to teach the course). This was the first time I was instructed in the use of a harness. Growing up in Colorado, I did a lot of climbing, but never technical climbing. So it took me a bit to trust the harness. Does this make me now less safe because I choose not to do work where I don't have a safety system? We could have a discussion on that separately.

So, we never did find out what caused the initial injuries based on the OP and the question about a motorized system, but in sticking with the CW system, there are merits to both of the safety systems proposed here (Tiffin locks and Clancy head block). If we are solely concerned with runaways, then the head block may suffice. If we are concerned with loading practices, the Tiffin device may help (assuming that the runaways happen as the lock is released). I haven't used or seen demonstrations of either of these devices, so I won't comment on the actual use of either of them.


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## ruinexplorer (Jun 12, 2014)

http://www.jrclancy.com/downloads/load_arbor.pdf

Working without a loading bridge.


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## drama3022 (Jun 22, 2014)

I am a middle school theatre teacher with no background in rigging. The system in my theatre just does lights. I know it is not set up right and not correctly weighted having tried it once. The district has no one to train me in its use. I am suggesting a motorized system for safety. I know some stupid 12 year old will do something to it and cause an accident. Sometimes the fear of death does not work as middle schoolers feel they are immortal. It seems that motorized is the way to go in this case. Opinions...


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## Robert (Jun 22, 2014)

drama3022 said:


> I am a middle school theatre teacher with no background in rigging. The system in my theatre just does lights. I know it is not set up right and not correctly weighted having tried it once. The district has no one to train me in its use. I am suggesting a motorized system for safety. I know some stupid 12 year old will do something to it and cause an accident. Sometimes the fear of death does not work as middle schoolers feel they are immortal. It seems that motorized is the way to go in this case. Opinions...


Get some training. Check the universities, check the local theaters, call the Stagehands Union, go to a rigging class. While these organizations are not guaranteed to know how to run a fly or your fly system, they may at least know qualified personnel in your area and direct you to the right person. A couple of weekends may be enough to learn how to do the basics or to convince you to lock everything down. 
Read some books. Book knowledge is not equal to real world knowledge, but you will have an understanding of the parts and operations and not waste someones time and your money teaching you what it is you are looking at.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Jun 22, 2014)

If raising and lowering is required, I'd concur this is a good motor application. My concern would be if they cant fund support now, how will they fund annual service required on motorized rigging.


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## venuetech (Jun 23, 2014)

drama3022 said:


> I am a middle school theatre teacher with no background in rigging. The system in my theatre just does lights. I know it is not set up right and not correctly weighted having tried it once. The district has no one to train me in its use. I am suggesting a motorized system for safety. I know some stupid 12 year old will do something to it and cause an accident. Sometimes the fear of death does not work as middle schoolers feel they are immortal. It seems that motorized is the way to go in this case. Opinions...


I suspect that San Diego school district would have some qualafied theatrical technicians to talk with. if not look for a local vendor who has experiance with installing rigging. start with the SDUSD"Visual and Performing Arts" page


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## StradivariusBone (Jun 23, 2014)

Ditto on recommending finding someone in your area that is qualified to come out and see what's wrong. If there's a regional theatre or playhouse or a college roadhouse nearby, give their technical director a call and ask for help. At the worst, they'll know someone who would come out for a fee, at the best, they might come take a look just to help out. The ETCP website is also a good place to start- look for theatre riggers.


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## ruinexplorer (Jun 24, 2014)

@drama3022, as others have said, I feel that it would be better and cheaper for you to be trained than to switch systems. Since the district does not have someone specific to train you in the proper use of your system, you will need to bring in an outside contractor. Being in a major city, this shouldn't be too difficult once you get past the red tape of the school district. My assumption is that you will need to speak with the district safety officer to get this ball rolling. Chalk it up to an onsite inspection and then have the contractor teach you what needs to be done. You should have the system inspected every year anyhow, so you are probably overdue.


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## BillConnerFASTC (Jun 24, 2014)

If you do stay with counterweight, you must have a loading bridge. The probability of a runaway is very much higher without a loafing bridge and simply not acceptable. Consider as a mpre economical alternative counterweight assist.


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## Euphroe (Jun 27, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> If raising and lowering is required, I'd concur this is a good motor application. My concern would be if they cant fund support now, how will they fund annual service required on motorized rigging.



+1 on this.


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## carproelsofly (Jun 27, 2014)

BillConnerASTC said:


> If you do stay with counterweight, you must have a loading bridge. The probability of a runaway is very much higher without a loafing bridge and simply not acceptable. Consider as a mpre economical alternative counterweight assist.


 
<sits up/> "loafing bridge"? It's perfect!


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## Euphroe (Jun 28, 2014)

drama3022 said:


> I am a middle school theatre teacher with no background in rigging. The system in my theatre just does lights. I know it is not set up right and not correctly weighted having tried it once. The district has no one to train me in its use. I am suggesting a motorized system for safety. I know some stupid 12 year old will do something to it and cause an accident. Sometimes the fear of death does not work as middle schoolers feel they are immortal. It seems that motorized is the way to go in this case. Opinions...



I don't know the theatrical vendors/contractors in your area. But one way to get help is to ask a theatrical supply house with a rigging department to come quote a motorized system, or curtains, or anything. Once they're on site you can pick their brain more or less for free. Try to reciprocate by giving them whatever business you can -- lamps and gels, etc. Build a relationship. These guys are a resource, and all they want is first crack at the paying work when the district finds some money.

My old boss liked to seal curtain-replacement sales by offering to throw in new window curtains for the principal's office. Sometimes this is a way to get the principal to authorize money for the theater. 

If you can hire a guy like Bill to consult, that's great. But a lot of schools aren't in that position and the salaried guys at the theatrical supply houses can be an alternate resource. Relying on contractors for consulting is not risk-free; they're not infallible and are looking for profit. But if you build a relationship with a good one it's a win-win.


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