ImagineerTom

I don’t know the broader technical implications but I do know that the bbc time code pips on the hour are only accurate on FM broadcast because when transmitted over DAB the lag can be seconds in some case and varies because of different receiver decoding processes. Since shifting audio 1/4 of a second out sync can make something unwatchable I would expect that trying to encode, transmit and decode through DAB is a non starter for a paid drive in movie experience

Use a spade to slit the turf 4-6 inches deep, drop the cable in. About 2 hours for an unskilled person to cut and lay the cable...

I also work in the real world (and a lot in the middle east) where most have a rather lax view of the importance of many H&S policies but bird poop dust is probably one I would stake my reputation on. Check out the UrbEx community - people who will happily climb cranes, canoe through abandoned sewers, spend hours climbing in and through long abandoned bingo / cinema buildings at the point of collapse and all without any sort of PPE; but also you'll notice that any time they are exploring anywhere there's likely to be a build up of bird poo out come the masks because of the high number of injuries and illness THAT COMMUNITY have experienced from it rather than from the more obvious dangers. It would be better for one or two controllable stage staff to go in fully masked up and survey / remove any major build ups whilst fixing the missing panel then allow the normal cleaners to bumble around at their leisure and create a very very significant risk of illness.

....and seriously; the dust from bird droppings (and the odd dead bird) have some serious health implications. If it’s more than a 5min cleaning job then face masks etc are an HSE minimum. https://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/healthrisks/hazardous-substances/harmful-micro-organisms/other-diseases.htm#

You really should be prioritising going in and making the repair now - bird ingress is exponential and just leaving it a couple more weeks could easily result in twice the damage, The PPE and working practices for dealing with bird debris are far in excess of the PPE required for Covid works so you're well past the "it's too dangerous and non essential" stage t

yes - one that is specifically made and advertised for the theatre / events industry and which has a manufacturer or local distributor with industry specific knowledge that can give you qualified advice. ...you're in for a heart attack when you find out just what the control cable for a proper, trustworthy, appropriate electric hoist costs; you've almost certainly bought cars that cost less than you'll be spending on a single trustworthy hoist.

As soon as you bring motorisation in to flying you loose the direct contact the flyman has with the load - if you're bringing something in and it catches or hits something you can feel it instantly and take action. Quite aside from the practicality issues others have flagged up if you're going down the motor route then you need some sort of formal monitoring of the area (i.e. night vision cameras covering the whole stage looped back to a monitor the person pushing the buttons can see) and you need a robust "dead man handle" system and really an e-stop system so that movements can be stopped instantly by multiple people. I've never encountered a situation where adding motors to a flying / rigging setup that is currently done manually has been a cheap and frankly you would have a much better solution by instigating a training program and oversight process's so that outside volunteers could be able to use the flys on non-revenue shows.

Maybe less relevant for amdram practitioners? Still relevant - if your only or primary hobby is built around theatre and you have no social or hobby links outside the am-dram sector then you really should be developing other interests or social links for exactly the same reason a pro should ensure they have some industry cross over skills.

More relevant now than ever.... have a backup. It's highly likely that we will have a similar shutdown in the next few years so having a skill or social circle outside the industry that you can escape to wold be a very wise move.

That's a counter-intuitive way of doing it - you should use the power for the shortest amount of time so since most trucks spend 99% of their life /not/ moving it follows that you should use the lift system to engage the wheels for moving so that for 99% of the time you are not using up power. Obviously if it's a truck that's in constant motion and only very occasionally sits still then it might make sense to put the locking legs on air but that would be a very rare circumstance

Aside from the legal stuff Brian has linked you also need to check your script / music licenses carefully. Whilst if you were using some sort of proprietary or controlled radio system (where you gave each listener a special receiver and used frequencies / technologies that enable you to tightly control who can listen in) you would probably be ok under your normal script/music licenses if you are using FM transmission that can be received by “anyone” (ie people not buying tickets to the show) then for copyright licensing purposes this would almost certainly be classed as a radio performance and the licensing for that is expensive and often handled by a completely different licensing company to the one who handles simple theatrical presentations. I would hazard a guess that a “silent disco” type headphones arrangement with an intensive and very visual cleaning process between uses would cost you considerably less than just the licenses for an FM system would. Perhaps purchase a lot of cheap Bluetooth speakers and invest in a Bluetooth hub/server that can broadcast sound to them if you’re looking at something less “touchy”

fortunately the templates even have a direct link to a widget that tells you who your MP is and the various ways to contact them.

This is technically politics but I think in the circumstances its probably allowed. Please join in with the industry-wide "contact your mp" campaign. There's more details and template letters to download here https://www.abtt.org.uk/eventsforthefuture/ MP's getting a few letters won't make much impact but if every affected technician and supplier in the country writes in it becomes one of those big movements that MP's can't ignor.

PSA have come through with a very comprehensive step by step guide to applying including answers / corrections to give when councils say no and references to specific clauses to use as a rebuttal. We've used it to appeal.

Brilliant thank you - I've emailed them

Hi all We've just been officially rejected for the grant "because people don't come to your property specifically for the purposes of leisure" (we are essentially an equipment hire company!) and that's that. We're aware that this is a contradiction of a question specifically answered by the chancellor ( ) and obviously are preparing a formal appeal but it would be useful to know if any other members here who are "equipment hire companies" have been successful so that as part of the response we can say "XYZ councils have deemed The Big spotlight rental co as a valid recipient" to hopefully push them to reconsider. t

I’ve completed it but that is a terrible survey that seems obsessed with business rates. My company (like many others in this sector) have CONSIDERABLE outgoings each month that aren’t business rates or staff wages - we are signed up to various purchase contracts that we have to meet, we have standing charges and “mothballed” operating costs of around £30k/month after the rates relief and the limited support that staff salary support provides. There is NO support in place for this and we have all work for at least 6 months cancelled - our accountant recons we should expect to spend half a million quid riding this out

And rather weirdly all the help listed so far is contingent on being a business with dedicated (and substantial) physical business premises that are exclusively used by you. So most industry creatives (who tend to operate out of shared studios or “maker spaces”) don’t qualify, running a home business doesn’t qualify.... there’s still a lot of gaps in this plan

Because any time someone stands behind a lectern microphone they either crouch down and get close to the mic or grab hold of it and try to “helpfully” reposition it. It’s precisely because it’s something you wouldn’t think about being handled and covered in spit that it should be a high risk assessment.

A number of uk festivals for the easter - may bank holiday stretch are warning suppliers to expect cancellations. Ticket sales have dropped off a cliff.....

Las vegas could go bankrupt from this - virtually all the conventions and meetings have been cancelled; major hotels are at 50% bookings and a couple of the shows I work for are reporting audiences a fraction of the usual levels

That’s a. REALLY good idea - you can buy a second hand pallet truck for less than you’ll spend on just one air castor.

True, but most of those multiway sockets would directly take the two pin American plug for which the dodgy adaptor is intended., thereby rendering the adaptor needless. Sorry bad punctuation - in Bahrain & Saudi every hotel & office I've been in has used a plug socket that looks like a UK plug but without the shutters. When I've been in various asian countries the "absolutely everything fits" socket was fairly normal except in hong kong where again the "uk style but without the good bits" shape seemed to be the norm. So whilst this is a useless adapter for some countries there's a market of 30-40million people where this could be vaguely useful if a rather imperfect choice. Oh and according to IEC the "uk style" plug is used in a lot of countries but they specifically highlight that the UK has the added shutters which implies all the other countries don't. https://www.iec.ch/worldplugs/typeG.htm

It wouldn't work in the uk but there's several places in the world that use the "uk shape" plug/socket but without the mechanical earth shutter action - for example huge chunks of the middle east & asia where the default socket is a weird multi-way socket that takes about a dozen different styles of plug would have no problem with these

...and do double check the rated strengths of the wire rope you are using for the dead AND on the flown bar - lots of effort is put in to keeping the weight evenly spread across multiple lines so that thinner ropes can be used. Once you start flying a bar at an angle the weight distribution across each of the pick-up points (and your new dead) changes dramatically - It wouldn't be difficult for you to end up with 80% of the weight being carried on a single wire once the bar gets to a jaunty angle and as you raise/lower it the load on each of the wires will change quite dramatically and in a way that the brackets / connectors might not have been designed to take.