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Agreed, although they keep those joins strong by using more metal and thus you do also increase the self weight a fair bit too!!

Along hopefully with certification,so if it was to fail you've got your backside covered. To be honest, your backside is covered anyway providing you can demonstrate that a custom engineered solution was fit for purpose. (And if you can't prove it's fit for purpose, then how did you know it was? And if you didn't know... well, you deserve for your backside to not be covered!!!) CE marking is of course the easy way of demonstrating conformity but there is nothing to stop you buying the relevant standard(s) and ensuring your own solution conforms.

Just going to be straight up and say there's no way you're going to find a projector which, at 12m throw on a 6m high RP screen, can compete with stage lighting and be bought brand new for £750.

It's not a new option or anything but what about VL1100 TS/TI? For me it's a fantastic fixture... I really do think optically it outperforms pretty much anything else of the same application. You get the tungsten look you desire (obviously) and very quiet movement that's geared towards the market you're operating in. I'm also happy to report they do not share the reliability issues of their predecessor, the ones I had in a theatre a few years ago were nigh on maintenance-free.

Glad to hear it's not just me then! During lockdown there was no work on and I made a semi successful business, driving all over Merseyside buying rusty, dusty and forgotten-about Raleigh bikes (all Nottingham built, 501 or 531 frames) and re-building them, then selling them eBay, a few went for over 1000% mark up on my costs. I got a bit attached to a 1980s Elan and still ride it - the local bike club ride around my way a lot and I always get admiring looks for my steel frame and friction shifters

I don't think that because somebody wants to know the width of the catwalk, they're inherently unsuitable for determining the rigging requirements... As for roof loads in a warehouse... my unit has a roof capacity of 60 tons... most of my neighbours the same. We all have gantry cranes and some people's sit on pillars, others hang from the roof. Modern warehouses I agree it's less common. But again I rigged a well known international circus with 75 ton show weight in an old warehouse without any crane, two years ago. I wouldn't consider it surprising at all - many warehouses have strong roofs.

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That's a big question... you need to think about power (yes - 100 panels will almost certainly want more than a 200A 110V supply, just for itself), rigging (100 panels + rigging is coming up on 2 tons), and what you're going to control it with. It doesn't just come with an HDMI input ready to plug in a laptop. Also question... you're aware it's 15mm pitch? That's quite low res - it's designed for the audience to be fairly far from the panels. Most people say 1 metre audience distance per 1mm pitch. So a 15mm pitch screen wants the audience to be no closer than 15m (American terminology - 50 feet) from the screen. Otherwise you see black lines between pixels. Where are you buying it from? If it's ex-hire then it may well have had quite a tough life thus far. BR15 has been around for more than a decade. My advice: If you're serious about making this investment, get somebody in who knows what they're talking about. You'll pay them less for their advice than you'll waste by messing this up.

Many years ago I was a flyman for a receiving venue with a powered fly system, we had a show come in with very poor stage management and a clearly under-rehearsed cast. People were running in all directions and the stage management were contributing to that problem, not reducing it. It was total pandemonium on stage. And in addition to that, there were a number of high speed scene changes where things had to fly in and out, fast. In a show which was just over 100 minutes long, the record was the E-Stop being used (as an E-Stop, not as a disable-whilst-I-go-for-a-wee) 14 times. I think it's a topic we often think we don't need to talk about... but we actually do. Flying safety in shows. I think it's become an accepted practice that we can fly things in to a populated stage, on the premise that rehearsal ensures people are not under it when it comes in. My personal inclination has always been that it's not enough... I do appreciate that track record disagrees with me. Then some shows do agree to have spotters on the deck, which is great - but to keep costs down, the shows will often then expect the spotters to carry ASM responsibilities. Meaning the spotter isn't actually spotting when they're meant to be - they're dealing with all the various nonsense ASMs are subjected to on top of their show jobs. I'm sure this will be unpopular opinion but I genuinely believe that it either needs to change or change will be pushed onto us by the HSE, after the incident.

https://www.studiopeople.com/ I've worked with these guys on numerous projects in the UK and they are great. Yes most of their work is geared towards recording studios, but physics is a constant. I know they have done auditoria too.

Same here. I have a Zylop socket set and the Joker spanners. Very high quality. But as you say the price is very premium. I think my mid-size Wera socket set was circa £300. As a middle ground, my recommendation is Expert by Facom. High quality European-made goods, IMO on-par with Snap-on. MachineMart has the toolbox size 1/2" socket set for £180 https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/12-socket-set-47-pc/ That said - on the subject of MachineMart - the Clarke Pro stuff is perfectly good quality and about half that price again.

Question: Who does your bars etc...? Can they not do this? And it's kind of a weird one, if I refer you to the Work at Height Regulations 2005, it states: (2) Every employer shall ensure that, where the safety of work equipment depends on how it is installed or assembled, it is not used after installation or assembly in any position unless it has been inspected in that position. (4) Without prejudice to paragraph (2), every employer shall ensure that a working platform— (a) used for construction work; and (b) from which a person could fall 2 metres or more, is not used in any position unless it has been inspected in that position or, in the case of a mobile working platform, inspected on the site, within the previous 7 days. So... are you going to have an inspector come in every time you build it? Because if not - you're going to act as the inspector for fulfilling this requirement. What stops you being the inspector for other requirements? I do sympathise too, though. The college probably have a generic safety policy which says that this sort of equipment needs inspecting every-so-often and they want a nice shiny certificate to show it's been done. It's not so much even about the inspection, it's just about the people feeling as though their backsides are sufficiently covered in the event that something goes wrong. Perhaps the easiest way to achieve this is for you to do a daily inspection of the tower (from a work at height perspective) and keep records to that effect; and then have an annual thorough examination of the equipment (from a lifting/LOLER perspective) carried out by a third party. I could come and do it for you - I have family in Oxfordshire and could combine the two visits. I run a company with PII and PLI that will satisfy the college's needs. We can do the inspection together (rather than me charging for a second person), you can show me the system and how you use it, I'll look at all the things which (from my experience of inspecting similar equipment) might be prone to wear, degradation or failure... then stick a sticker on it and provide a report of thorough examination. This gives your people what they want. Keeps it simple. You stay involved. And for the daily work at height inspection, I could set you up with an interactive smartphone app to inspect all the things, take pictures of issues, create works tickets for repairs etc; and be able to export PDF reports of all such inspections to keep the bureaucrats happy. You just bash this out every time you use the tower, WAHR compliance is achieved, and if your people want certificates to that effect, the software will generate them for you... As a further thought, have they supplied a pulley with the expectation you provide the rope, or have they provided a rope and pulley? For the purposes of simplified inspection, I would recommend that a rope stays with the pulley; and this is your lifting equipment. Of course, there's no reason you can't have multiple different ropes... but especially in the college environment, having multiple ropes for the same pulley leaves a lot more potential for the situation that you end up with students using a rope which is not an "approved" (ie right specification, in-date examination). Furthermore, if the rope stays on the pulley, the complete assembly can likely be considered lifting equipment and be inspected 12-monthly. If the ropes are removed and swapped with others, they would become lifting accessories and require a 6-monthly inspection. (BR note - if this form of 'direct' advertising contravenes the rules... I'm just trying to be helpful... if an order arises from the post then a donation will be made to BR funds?). Dan is not the designer. The manufacturer is. Unless he literally sat and produced detailed engineering drawings and specified materials and welds to the nth degree, and supplied them to the engineering company for manufacture to that specification. But more realistically, he told the company what he needed making. They made the calculations, they made the drawings, they identified the materials required. They are the designer. There is nothing in LOLER which says that a bespoke piece of lifting equipment can only be inspected by its designer. It is daft indeed. A lot of this pricing comes from the construction industry. It's like the ludicrous hire prices you see at Speedy and HSS, where tools cost as much to hire for a month as they do to buy. It's all down to big construction contracts, where high list prices are published and then substantial discounts are offered when things are hired in large quantities for long periods - because these hires require very little work from the hire company. But it leaves the casual customer out of pocket. I'm very happy to try and combine this into a trip home - Abingdon is very close to home for me (Didcot!) - and make the price sensible so you can spend more of your budget doing things which really genuinely benefit the students on a day-to-day basis.

This does sound a little suspect. My belief is that it falls under the banner of performer flying, so therefore I would direct you towards the ANSI 1.43 standard for performer flying; which will give you some idea over roles and responsibilities in how you manage this. I would be very reluctant to do it with hemp flying (which is what you seem to be describing) and fairly reluctant to do it with counterweight. A minor human error in calculation or handling could result in serious injury or death. However I'm going to guess from your profile that your organisation probably lacks the funding to contract a performer flying company to do this for you. You're looking at thousands of dollars per day. One simple suggestion above is to lift from below (the connotations thus are a little different and it would no longer constitute performer flying) or I'd say this is probably something you could do with multiple chain hoists or a hoist-assisted fly bar. So my inclination would be that if a performer flying company is out of the budget, a good entertainment rigging company may well still be within the scope of suitability.

Just as a thought, that with my touring hat on I would always much prefer to use venue hot power if it is not remote controlled and literally switched from a breaker somewhere. Of course, tours tend to carry dimmers/distro as much as possible but there are always occasions where venue dims/hot power can save hassle... difficult positions ie booms, circle bar, advance truss etc. But I am always reluctant where these are controlled by house DMX. One erroneous plugging in of something into house data, or recalling a show file, or somebody playing with the house console... and we have unpredictable power loss and a troubleshooting nightmare. So for me personally, total bypass is preferable, even if that's at the expense of losing an electrician for 10 minutes during load in to go up to the top floor of the building an energise the relevant channels.

Yes, granted, it would add great value for the students however add little value to the college. I'm going to be curious at the cost of custom designed tower. Sounds expensive! Also with stair stringers, you're definitely going to need a wide thing. Personally I would suggest whether it might be possible to get somebody to produce some sort of davit for your existing tower... ie so equipment can be hoisted up outside the tower, and then manoeuvred into the platform. Rather than being transported up the inside. Yes, as standard, they'll tend to prohibit weight being added outside the footprint of the tower. However that might be open to engineering on account of (a) 2 people in the basket each weighing 60+kg counterbalancing a fixture of max weight 30kg; and (b) the outriggers being deployed in the lift area. The SWL of your Span 500 is surprisingly high, so I wouldn't be at all surprised to find something along these lines being possible.

This is also a great point I think. I wonder - as a total aside - what the process would be to get the OP registered as a PASMA trainer / assessor. Wouldn't it be great if students could be taught the correct 'PASMA' process for erecting the tower, and leave college with an industry ticket too?

I am not being funny but like... simple solution alert (I'm from the school of thought that simple solution is often best solution). The Span 500 Manual says that for a single width tower, you can go up to a maximum platform height of 8m (that's a working height of around 9m). So, 6m is well within the specification of the tower you already have. All you need to do is buy an extra set of uprights (probably just half height ones, assuming your handrails are already at circa 5m), some extra diagonals, maybe an extra platform too - depending what you've got so far. Cost wise this is bound to be the most efficient approach. Even if you are attracted to your monkey tower... why not give the extra scaff tower a shot, see how it works out for you? You'll always find having a scaff tower useful, whatever else you might buy in addition later on. As a thought - I don't know if you'd considered this - but remember the monkey tower will need a thorough examination as per LOLER. 6/12 monthly might be slightly open to interpretation but I would probably err on the side of 6-monthly since, whilst it is not lifting people (which is a mandated 6 monthly), it is supporting people on its mechanisms. You may be able to lump that in with your other annual lifting inspections (if you have any?) to save money but if not, remember to budget probably not much short of a grand a year having 2 visits from a lifting equipment inspector. On the access tower, by contrast, I would dare say you can inspect that yourself. A visual examination of all parts to be free of damage, deformities etc would fulfil your obligations under the WAHR/PUWER, providing that records are kept to that effect. As a final thought, you say this: My experience, and I'm sure that of countless health and safety professionals... would only be that equipment which is a pain in the a** to use is the last equipment to be chosen for a job. I've witnessed 3 hospital-stay falls during my career. Despite 10 years of climbing on structures and rope access, neither were of that variety. 2 were a small fault (a lantern slipping off focus, and a lamp blowing) right before doors where somebody said "quick, grab the ladder and go fix that", the other was changing a lightbulb in the office by standing on a swivel chair which, once off-balance, spun wildly and buckaroo'd the technician. Time is always an issue in theatre. Fatigue is usually an issue in theatre. Equipment which people relate to as having poor time and fatigue efficiency, will be the first to get substituted for a ladder, or for climbing on something which isn't a ladder. I'm not being grumpy and saying "don't do it" ... but honestly that video of windy-up-windy-down fills me with dread. I've done enough time on a Genie superlift that half way through tech week if it came to dragging that trailer out of the wings to do a sweaty great arms workout on the winch to then climb up to the basket to do a thing, only to have to come down and do 2 more arms workouts to reposition it 10 feet along the bar... I'd probably be the first one guilty of running up the Zarges. I guess maybe in an educational setting you might be able to police that a little better than a commercial theatrical environment. But equally if your goal as per point (1) is inclusion of all body types, having to do 2 gym sessions for every 6 feet of lighting bar might be problematic for some people (of all genders!).

I'm not being daft but how do you figure that your bars have insufficient weight capacity to haul moving lights up on a pulley, but sufficient weight capacity to hang those moving lights in use? That makes no sense to me. They're not heavier when being hauled up...

Urm. Are you suggesting that push/pulling the tally or standing to one side watching is a fatiguing activity? Compared to climbing 7 metres up a vertical ladder all day? With 4 outriggers extended, the footprint is no greater than that of a pusharound Genie or scaff tower. In fact I see that as a strength of a tallie - on clear stages it has the benefit of being pushed around with a tech in the basket. When on a cramped stage, it can be used more like a ladder, in a similar footprint to that of a ladder, whilst satisfying more of the requirements of a work platform and leave the technician free to use both hands. I see no mandate for AAP to carry out the training. A competent person can train, surely? I am sure that you could satisfy the terms of HASAWA by training internally providing it is planned and executed properly. Again, for anything other than a gentle rake, you're no better in a Genie and may require a specialist access tower anyway. As a result theatres employing a raked stage are better off seeking a specific solution for that. If the OP has a raked stage I'm sure they'd have mentioned it... raked stages don't happen unforeseeably.

A cheaper option (just in terms of what's available in more consumer brands) might (I say might - I don't know) be an HDMI-over-Ethernet system and then an Ethernet extender system. It's a bit of a hotchpotch solution but it does work (done it myself) and with Chinese-made consumer/prosumer branded gear may be cheaper than commercial video equipment. Of course, you do tend to get what you pay for but I also respect that for some people just don't have the upfront cash to spend what other people in this industry would consider "about right" so take this as being 'an option' but not necessarily the best one.

Do you know if it can be moved with the basket raised? Unless your technicians are expressly looking for Hercules arms, you may find that winding it up and down 4 times along each bar gets tedious quickly. It looks to be a large and therefore relatively heavy basket - so lifting it up will be some effort. I suspect you'll also find that as a result - people try to get more out of it than they're meant to - they'll want to reach as far out of the basket as possible, to save having to reposition it so many times. This is where your accident will occur. Traditionally the AAP Tallescope is the favourite for this. It's made for the unique needs of our industry. For me I vote Tallescope with the upgrade kit and rescue kit. Psychologically, yes, some people dislike the flexing of the stiles - but it's nothing to worry about. It's a rite of passage to crap yourself a few times up a tally before you become fully comfortable. It ticks all the boxes - you get the height you need, it's quick and easy to set up, it has a built-in rescue function, and the compact basket makes it much easier to set up around set and lighting. And unlike most other products - with the upgrade kit, it's approved for being moved around the stage with a technician in the basket. This can be very beneficial in health and safety terms - reducing fatigue (with, I believe, most of our industry's workplace accidents having the root cause either being fatigue, or people taking shortcuts to avoid fatigue) by reducing climbing time. Towers of most types are often (usually) too big to fit in the often compact spaces we have to focus in, whilst Genie baskets are better, but the setup time means that people are often reluctant to reposition them if the basket ends up a little in the wrong place - resulting in dangerous over-reaching. I'm not suggesting Genies are dangerous - but anyone who's done a long focus in a Genie knows what I'm talking about. For me it's why the tally is still the best of the bunch - the combination of small footprint, and quick time to reposition and setup - promotes the safest working practices. Once you get past the initial disco legs I think it's the best product out there. If it's a struggle for some people, then I really liked the Boss Solo 700 scaff tower I supplied to a venue with a 6m grid height. It's a very compact scaff tower which with its clever folding frames can be put up on your own (if so desired). The tower construction rather than ladder-like construction makes them far more stable which, whilst not actually any 'safer', can be comforting for some people. And I hate to say it but for short duration focuses in tricky spaces, there's still not much out there to rival a 12-rung Zarges. I guess what I would say in any case is this - Aluminium Access Products (AAP) who manufacture the tallescope, also do sell towers, ladders and powered access. They have a lot of experience in supplying products to the theatre industry - it's probably their main business. So I would say you could do a lot worse than to call AAP, maybe email them some pictures of your space and how you generally use it, and ask what their recommendation would be. They're certainly well-placed to know the options, the costs, and what other people in similar spaces do.

A friend of mine is a well-known LD who has no doubt seen a LOT of shows in his time. I know that after seeing Come From Away he was deeply affected by it. He ended up taking a week off work to get his head around it all.

There's also the opposite situation - although not really relevant in this scenario. I manage an environment that has around a thousand devices (network switches) which run 24x7. Many will have been powered on for several years continually. The fans have been running continuously. If they are powered off and back on some time later, it's not uncommon to get "stiction" in the bearings as they cool, and the fans don't start turning again. Give 'em a tap, and they'll run happily for another couple of years. There was one particular model of equipment that was prone to this, and we had hundreds of them. If we ever had a power cut, when power was restored most of the systems would restart just fine. But we'd then start getting failures later, as some fans would have failed, and the PSUs cook themselves after a few hours or days. I did some work programming industrial automation last year - 6-axis 3D milling robots mainly, and some flatbeds, some of these robots are switched on for a year at a time and produce components completely autonomously. (Yeah it's kinda scary seeing a robot flinging around a high speed cutter on a spindle completely of its own accord). Some of the really critical cabinets have optical sensors on the fans so that the sensor can decide if the fan is running or not, which in combination with the temperature sensor inside, can help the PLC decide if there's a problem or not, and advise the operator if somebody needs to go give it a nudge. Yes - in due course I'll add a little servo so the PLC can kickstart the motor itself!

I agree. And to add to that (as this is something I'm currently doing) - even if you're not in a position to use the wifi, or the wifi doesn't have the range to achieve this over the LAN, you can do it over the internet using Teamviewer.

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