Stage Rigging Options

[Tecnical Bradder...]

The red paint usually is red oxide primer, it has longer life than the standard paint but basically a cheaper alternative to galvanising. I use it allot when welding its great as an under coat and stops new welds from oxidising and rusting.



As for the grid I would find out the load bearing of the grid I would probably expect that the grid was designed for generic lighting couple of source 4’s, compact Fresnel not moving lights. From experience schools usually purchase the minimum lighting, sound etc as it is not really in the schools interest. There interest is teaching you what the government say which is not technical (presuming this is a secondary school) yes it good for the school to have a rig to help enhance assemblies and school shows but its hardly a working theatre that needs 50 plus moving heads; There for I hardly expect its designed for 5 or 6 35KG moving heads but the best thing you could do is find out the load bearing on it.



As for shouting at the installers probably not the best idea especially the fact its not your grid and technically your not responsible for it, if you rang me up and had a go I would put the phone strait down on you that’s after you knew what I thought of you. And just remember one thing watch out for the toes you tread on today as you may have to kiss them tomorrow (they may be potential future employer)

[barlowj331]

as it all looks fairly new, by all means phone up the contractor and ask if he has any record of the work done and the specifications of what was done, but remember they don't have to do this so being nice will be the key.

But, if your closing, why bother?

Jon

[david.elsbury]

as it all looks fairly new, by all means phone up the contractor

I wonder if you missed seeing the fact that the OP is a student? Which means he is hardly the right person to be directly contacting the installation contractor.

Kerry put it well in post #2-

If, as you say in your profile, you are a student then you are certainly not "responsible for " rigging or any other technical feature of theatre at your school. One of your teachers is responsible even though you may do it all with little or no supervision.

David

This post has been edited by david.elsbury: 11 Mar 2010, 11:41 PM

[barlowj331]

as it all looks fairly new, by all means phone up the contractor

I wonder if you missed seeing the fact that the OP is a student? Which means he is hardly the right person to be directly contacting the installation contractor.

wel if he is nice and polite as suggested he shouldn't have a problem and if he doesn't, what does he have to lose?

[cfmonk]

I find the "student not contacting a contractor" rather amusing. At my school (admittedly is was a public school so slightly different) it was not uncommon for several of us students to contact contractors, collect quotes, take the quote directly to the bursary to get it approved, engage the contractor (although using a PO issued by central admin obviously), supervise them carrying our the work and then say goodbye...

I can see in this case that with a ? safety issue then yes, the problem should be flagged immediately to higher authorities but I see no problem with a student then explaining that he is going to contact the contractor to ask for clarification?

I think some people may need to broaden their ideas of what students are capable of...

Oh and any contractor who the school used (in the theatre, live events, art department, school radio among others) who DIDN'T treat a polite enquiry from a pupil with respect would find rather quickly that that department would not be using their services again (I refer to the Size 10 boot comment).

[jacet]

I find the "student not contacting a contractor" rather amusing. At my school (admittedly is was a public school so slightly different) it was not uncommon for several of us students to contact contractors, collect quotes, take the quote directly to the bursary to get it approved, engage the contractor (although using a PO issued by central admin obviously), supervise them carrying our the work and then say goodbye...

Surely your reference to contractor is with regards to hiring lighting / noise equipment and arranging an engineer to baby sit is it not? I find it quite hard to believe that a school would allow students to plan and execute major alterations to the fabric of the building (which the installation of a theatre is) as they see fit...

[LXbydesign]

DIDN'T treat a polite enquiry from a pupil

I think your find that the pupil was actually going to be 'shouting' at the contractors concerned. Dosent sound like a 'polite enquiry' to me

[soundiesam]

Bottom Line is that there is a problem and what the OP needs to be doing is talking to the teachers not ringing the people who installed it! As people have said on many posts on this forum students cannot be incharge of the technical stuff at schools because in the end the resposibility cannot be dropped on there heads.

My suggestion to the Op would be talk to you teacher and explain the situation. Dont try and contact the supplier because that is not your problem.

sam

[Andrew C]

Red Pipes...
"I'm the architect and I say it will look nice!"

We've got lots. And that is the reason. Same architect put the platforms for follow spots above the roof trussing.

[IRW]

Red Pipes...
"I'm the architect and I say it will look nice!"

We've got lots. And that is the reason. Same architect put the platforms for follow spots above the roof trussing.

At least you have followspot platforms...!

On topic, so long as the teacher in charge/caretaker has been spoken to, and is happy for the student to contact the original installer to politely ask if they happen to have a copy of the original SWL certificates in a filing cabinet somewhere, I can't see a problem with them doing so.

Obviously there would be a line as to how far the student could take this enquiry. For example, if the company said "no, but we could come and re-test for you for £xxx if you like", this would be crossing it, but if they said "yes we do, would you like us to fax you a copy" then the documents could be sent through FAO the teacher/caretaker. No harm done, and a lesson has been learnt by the student in both dealing with companies and safe working practices, the teacher/caretaker hasn't been distracted from their 'normal' duties, and the school now has the SWL data on file.

I agree that the student bears no responsibility for the actual safety of the structure, but going through the process of phoning up on behalf of their teacher/caretaker (with their permission) would surely not cause any harm?

Ian

This post has been edited by IRW: 12 Mar 2010, 11:53 PM

[J Pearce]

Student lead is the current buzz-word in education.
We do get students to phone companies from time to time. This helps them to develop commercial communication skills and build confidence.

Obviously they can't commit to spending, but then when it comes to it, neither can I! They can obtain quotes and get their teachers to sign off the purchase orders, in the same way a lot of us here would get the boss to sign off purchase orders.

[cfmonk]

Surely your reference to contractor is with regards to hiring lighting / noise equipment and arranging an engineer to baby sit is it not? I find it quite hard to believe that a school would allow students to plan and execute major alterations to the fabric of the building (which the installation of a theatre is) as they see fit...

Ummmm... no..... try the design, construction and equipping of a broadcast radio station in the basement of a school building....

And yes, in this instance perhaps it wasn't going to be a polite enquiry and I rarely see a reason to not have good manners, my point is more that if a contractor has messed up then I would not see a difference between a staff member contacting the contractor and a pupil doing so. Especially if it is the pupil who has the relationship with the contractor.

This post has been edited by cfmonk: 14 Mar 2010, 1:23 PM

[jacet]

Surely your reference to contractor is with regards to hiring lighting / noise equipment and arranging an engineer to baby sit is it not? I find it quite hard to believe that a school would allow students to plan and execute major alterations to the fabric of the building (which the installation of a theatre is) as they see fit...

Ummmm... no..... try the design, construction and equipping of a broadcast radio station in the basement of a school building....

Wow, that does surprise me that students were given the power to award building contracts as they saw fit! If you wanted to do something like that in a commercial environment you would have to go through several tiers of management who would often out source certain aspects of the design and supervisory processes.
It must have been a great learning experience for the students involved (not to mentioned phenomenally rewarding upon completion)!

[cfmonk]

It's not a case of "as they saw fit" there was a committee who raised all the sponsorship money for the project (having Sir Howard Stringer as an Old Boy certainly helped with getting cheap Sony kit!) and budgets and expenditure was chosen by then. As I said final sign off on spending of that magnitude had to come from the bursary and all building work had to be signed off by the facilities management people but my point is that pupils had no more or less of a say in the decision making and money spending process than teachers did.