kerry davies

From the sublime to the gorblimey? Eight feet is the height of my ceilings and I can touch them, you can't hang anything from that, it is way too risky and I am even more confused at playing badminton in somewhere like my living room. Can't be done. Take a step back and try to get things right but I am generally of the same opinion as Jivemaster, general purpose theatre fixtures will be more value and more use than "disco" lights. I personally like the flexibility of stands especially for community use where they might end up in a marquee on the village green or illuminating a mayoral speech outside the local school. Keep it portable. Got any photos of your village hall, that might help. E2A. I know I can come across as a miserable old scrote but in life I am very positive and well above glass half full. In work however, which to me this subject is, I was paid to seek out the worst possible scenario then prevent it. I am sure that there are solutions to your questions but I think you need to define the parameters a lot more precisely. Apologies if I seem negative.

Your best bet is going to be lighting stands and floor mounted kit. Not just because of what Ian writes but because 8 metres is serious work at height in a village hall context when it comes to focusing, maintenance etc. You may be fine with WaH but there are infinite varieties of village hall user. If the main hall is low ceiling height and the stage is 8M there must also be a serious step up where fixtures could be mounted.... or am I confused again?

It just might be worth you guys cooperating and if there is storage space setting up an "analogue graveyard." Dai Steam , whom I knew 45 years back, became famous and his legacy still reverberates around the world just by having the space to store hundreds of scrapped locomotives. I know that when our local marquee company folded there were half a dozen LX consoles and loads of fixtures disappear that were still working and could have supplied parts.

As Ynot writes soft furnishings should already be IFP and solid wooden furniture is no fire risk so you may be jumping to confusions if nobody has yet asked specifically about these items. Incidentally, in all the tours I have done to venues as diverse as cathedrals, castles, village halls and theatres nobody has ever asked to see my fire RA or challenged me on fire proofing and I used candles and naked flames every chance I got.

This has been bugging me since resurrection because I have seen these things in various former lives. They are variously described as "L bolts", foundation bolts or anchor bolts and can be bought off the shelf in various sizes with both screw thread and woodscrew fixings. If you search the web try using the three descriptors then using combinations like "L-type anchor bolt." You can get them in all sorts of combos including rawl bolts or with washers welded on. I still can't empty the rummage box of my brain for how I know these useful little beasts but it will come to me sometime. If then I can remember why I was searching for the memory I will return.

Everyone around you started from where you are now and one or two are still "winging it". Everyone else who knows what they are doing welcomes the opportunity to pass on their skills, knowledge and experience. It makes us feel good and reinforces our own skills and knowledge. Strangely enough that is precisely what happens here on BR so continue asking. If the experienced crew are jittery then you may just be picking it up from them. Just do your bit as well as you can and forget everything else. The ASM probably asked about your struggles in order to help not to tell tales to her former tutor whom she is hardly likely to seek out. I think that at one time or another every single one of us identifies with the lyric to Once In A Lifetime.

Tom, what about the line between direct and indirect hire or reward? My reading is that if you have a van load of lights and then use them to earn they become hire or reward even if you don't get paid or get expenses to transport them. It doesn't matter if they can only be used by you, any payment in cash or kind makes it hire or reward. It gets so complex just in the UK that school minibus use is not affected for charitable schools but in fee-paying schools it becomes hire or reward. Our authorities might ignore this stuff but right across the EU there are guys whose sole purpose in life is to out-jobsworth the Germans.

You don't need qualifications in the UK, you need "competence". Qualifications may or may not indicate competence. This system is sold as a DIY install on E-bay for a few hundred quid and, as per the Fire Regulatory Reform Act, it is down to the "responsible person" to make or have made a Fire Risk Assessment. It is then down to that self-originated FRA what category fire alarm is required and what level of competence needed to install it.

If just a roll-up-to desk/lectern then any number are available by searching for "standing/adjustable desks/workstations." Probably easier to design one on the lines of a metal information stand and get a local fabricator to make it up.

Stannah and P-Lift do all sorts of wheelchair lifts but try looking to adapt a hydraulic or electric motorcycle lift which is a fraction of the costs. You could always rip one off the back of a council mini-bus. (Only semi-serious suggestion.)

Limited experience but with the very heavy duty welded Harlequin and the surface on Alistage the only difficulty is preventing numpties banging nails and screws into them. They are all very unforgiving of abuse. Oil tempered board is about a tenner a sheet here which still makes it "disposable" in comparison to Harlequin.

Go back a stage and the problem is that you don't have adequate access to work at height. The suggestions to use girder clamps to undersling the truss may or may not rectify that thus making it easier to rig and inspect but the root problem is getting up there, as far as I can see. Anecdote time? We had to cross a river with a rope and one of the hippies appeared with a lifeboat maroon. Crossed the river OK, and the field beyond, and the woods on top of the hill and just missed the farmer ploughing 4 fields away. As they said to Harold; "You'll have your eye out playing with they bows and arrows."

"Can I tender for this project? "Certainly but you need to be an approved supplier." "How do I become an approved supplier?" "You need a track record of successful tender delivery." This was a genuine conversation with a university for whom I had delivered several major events as a consultant. They ended up paying twice as much for a marquee that fell over.

An apology. When you said apocalyptic I never considered a year's worth of rain for Eastern England falling in just 3 days. In all recorded history Adelaide has had 8 days of rain over 200mm yet they just had 3 days in a row over 200mm. If that's the sort of climate change we face I have no idea where to begin emergency planning. Let's hope that is it for a while.

As Brian indicates, if you get as far as fire extinguishers you went wrong a way back down the trail. Think ERICPD and eliminate, reduce, isolate and control before thinking about protections. We held dry powder for transporting fireworks but used metal army surplus ammunition boxes to keep everything in anyway and once set out the only "extinguisher" was a bucket of water to dump misfires into. Once anything ignited it was all about the risk assessment you made earlier. The maritime flares they talk of above won't get extinguished and end up with red hot or even molten metal tubes burning holes in the tarmac.

You have carpet on your dance floors? How novel. Mind you that gentle sinking feeling would be preferable to a real collapse.

Time may be against you but when I was doing decor and inflatables in tents I had a mate who made and repaired tents run up a bunch of varying length loops of the white webbing as shown in the above photo on his sewing machines. Used with carbine clips etc. they were a fast, flexible way of attaching lightweight kit up to and especially my hammock.

Bit early to speculate but it used to be Stour Space, cafe and gallery while the bar is now called Two More Years because that's all they have on the lease. Stour seems to have gone under "due to lockdown" though they don't seem to have been too bothered about accounts for a few years. It looks like someone bridged between two girders/ I beams with 4x2 timber then laid chipboard flooring panels as a floor. It looks like the 4x2's just snapped. Wonder if they had one of their advertised DJs up there?

My old favourites Alistage might suit especially for smaller stages. They have the great advantage that to level the units up one removes a cap/plug and with the crank handle supplied adjust the screw jacks which slot into the legs of various lengths. They do all sorts of bespoke adaptations to their standard decks, though saying that they have dozens of different shapes and sizes as "standard". Never the cheapest but far and away the most helpful. They are near the A1M/M25 South Mimms services, Jct 23.

Just a word of warning for the OP. I once had an LD hire a smoker which looked brilliant in the hire company car park. He set it on timer and by the time he managed to switch it off he had filled the venue solid, scared a backing singer who fled for the fire exit which was linked to the power to stop noise complaints and we lost sound and lights onstage. Test it in a similar space under similar conditions but be ready to cut it off and do have plans to ventilate the space.

NO powered climber does turns, eh? Guess you didn't watch the original link so take that, oh ye of little faith. 😉

A decent sack truck with a well balanced load on a flat surface they reckon takes 2% effort to move so a 150Kg load can be moved by pulling with 3Kg of force. Stair climbers take vastly more effort in my experience and have a strong natural inclination to bend anyone over five foot and a farthing in back breaking half. They also display a strong desire to descend dragging the already crippled victim with them. As in all manual handling matters assessing the load, environment, distance, strength of person and availability of assistance should be first step and my preference is always to use mechanical aids like forklifts, hoists etc but if you have to lug heavy stuff around sites with stairs then either hire a Samoan prop forward or get yourself one of these little beauties. N.B. the reference to Samoans is a tribute to the late great John-Henri Mills who bought wheeled dollies as mech aids only to find his giant South African rugby players carrying around two Steeldecks each as if they were tissue paper.

A long time ago the normal method of attaching a cable to a catenary wire was tape and buckle clips then as PVC tape became better quality it was OK just to tape the two together and I was told that properly taped with cut not torn ends and carefully aligned and tight but not stretched three turns of one inch PVC would lift a ton. Like most things in life, take the time to do things properly with decent quality gear and it lasts forever. I loved using tape amalgamating but not for this purpose, spiral wrap is useful but I don't like it where looms are frequently installed and removed, heat shrink is good but more permanent than semi which the OP asked for. In the end it all comes down to what suits the individual in what circumstances and like most things in life there is no perfect panacea.

Since the Regulatory Reform Act changed the emphasis placing the duty on a "responsible person" to create and implement the specific Risk Assessment for site, procedures and personnel the regulatory aspect has lessened. Fire curtains were already becoming less welcomed and many have indeed been decommissioned when renovation or replacement time comes around. FWIW the regs on fire curtains are I believe BS8524-1 and BS 8524-2; Code of practice for application, installation and maintenance respectively. However as the UK is less than enthusiastic about enforcing on fire it may be best to look for a US forum or to ask Bryson what happens in Canada. Fire curtains are still installed more frequently over there it seems. Just to note, Gregory. BS are not regulatory though laws may quote them and BS EN may or may not survive Brexit.

My local square has a three phase supply in a cabinet that is never used. The council cannot agree insurance between departments so it sits there locked up while generators rumble away when required. The entire town is festooned with 16 amp supplies for Christmas lights and nobody seems to know who pays the meter but you ain't getting into that 3ph, no siree.