ImagineerTom

It is amazingly good fun to run outside the wheel. And yes- solo wheels are counterbalanced to make them behave just the same as a full duo wheel. The art of circus (and magic) is in making something feel like an amazing once in a lifetime experience when in reality it’s something you do on demand

Ok lets go for a deep dive on circus safety / design principles using a specific example "The Wheel of Death" and a particular performance that includes a deliberate "accident" which perfectly illustrates how controlled and safe the environment is. Firstly the design of the wheel is deliberate - you'll notice that every single bar and tube on this wheen (and every single wheel out there) is made of thick round bar; so absolutely any part of the wheel you grab hold of is the perfect size for a human grip, has no corners that could cause any injury and is structural. This means that if ever a performer slips or stumbles (or conversely if the ground crew need to get involved) then absolutely anything they grab is rated and the best possible material and because gravity is a constant if you do fall off the wheel by definition the wheel that you can grab on to for safety is going to be moving at virtually the same rate you are so you have much more time to react. Although it looks like each of the drums on the end are solid they are actually an angled mesh which means they look solid from this angle but the performers inside the wheel can clearly see each other. The wheel is suspended on high quality bearings to keep the movement perfectly smooth and the three point rig used to suspend it means that the wheel spins perfectly vertically, is held solidly in place and yet can be rigged / removed in less than a minute. All wheels are one of three sizes (solo, standard and arena sized) and because all circus ring's are the same size, all circus tents have the kingpoles on the same spacing and have the same height / style of central rigging point (the cupola) a performer can learn the routine on their own wheel then take that wheel in to basically any circus on the planet and instantly be able to rig it in the style and way they always have. Despite looking quite dangerous the centrifugal / centripetal force means that both performers are destined to travel through virtually the same path in space whether deliberately controlling or suddenly falling; this path means that if you loose consciousness inside the wheel then you are pinned to the side of the wheel automatically (demonstrated as the lay-over trick) and if outside you "fall off" the wheel the height you will actually fall before hitting the ground is only 3m absolute maximum (as demonstrated in this performance by the performer "falling off" accidentally and by his showy dismount at the end) and as you can see the path the falling performer takes is almost identical to the path he would otherwise have taken. It is incredibly hard to DELIBERATELY get off the wheel let alone have it happen accidentally because of the design of the prop itself. If you do fall off it is within a 2x1m crash zone on either side of the wheel. In that demo video you also note that when the performer is on the ground the wheel passes above him (another industry standard policy - ALWAYS rig your wheel 12inch off the ground) and note that just before the "accident" there's an extra stage crew (actually his cousin) who just happens to be in the perfect place to stop the wheel. Using one extra person on the ground you can stop a wheel dead in just 1/4 of a turn- if there wasn't an assistant on the ground then the remaining performer in the wheel can stop it dead in less than 1 turn. The performers are NEVER ensemble or changed - you learn a routine with your partner and however freeform or crazy the routine seems you ALWAYS perform the same routine with the same "mistakes" or "improvisation" at the exact same times. Some duo's are talking to each other during the routine to stay in sync, others are doing it based on step count or rotation count. The performers will practice several times per day and if either performer is ill or injured the routine is cut. The speed of the wheel is very predictable and self regulating if one performer is faster than the other they find themselves with a steeper walking surface which makes their movements less efficient. Finally the performers will only have this act and one other act (traditionally something ground based) that they perform, twice daily, seven days a week for their whole professional career. Oh and spoilers... the blindfold is never a blindfold, it's mesh so there's basically no impedance of the performers vision. So in short, by design it is virtually impossible to fall off the prop whilst conscious because the forces are making you stay on it, if you do fall whilst conscious you have a lot to grab on to and even if you miss all of that the most you can fall is 3m. If you did mysteriously become unconscious during the routine (almost impossible since fainting is a symptom of injury or illness which would normally cause the whole routine to be nixed) then inside the wheel you would be pinned safely to the wheel until the maximum one revolution needed to rescue you and outside the wheel you'd fall 3m maximum on to relatively soft ground. There's 8 wheel of death acts performing in the uk at the moment, every one of them will have a stumble/mistake/fall that the audience will swear blind was real yet has actually been practiced extensively. I believe in the last 35 years there's been one UK fatality from the wheel (falling on to concrete) and 2 people with minor broken bones across the literally hundreds of thousands of performances in that period. Ironically Cirque du Soleil have the most dangerous wheel's in operation because they tend to rig them over voids / pools which means that when performers fall off they have much further distances to travel and it tends to be these distances which are causing the injuries rather than the wheel itself. So sorry for the long posting but I hope this goes some way to explain how something which looks pikey, wreckless, dangerous and likely to result in horrific injury is actually one of the safest stunts you could imagine because of an ethos and mindset that means every single stage is designed, developed or choreographed to be inherently the safest it could possibly be.

Seems to be their own brand version of hologauze. I haven’t used it but have hologauze. You loose a lot of light so need a big projector and need to design scenery upstage to cope with the spil. It’s also very low resolution surface so content needs to be created carefully and deliberately if it’s to look half decent

Acorn event structures are “the guys” for this sort of stuff

It’s certainly not my intention to suggest that circus is beyond question and the largest part of my job is interfacing between the circus and non circus world to make sure that everything is safe and regulations followed. It is clear however that the very core mindset of circus stunts (and stunts in general) is a million miles away from the mindset of theatre. To me someone saying “I’m very sensible and safe but when I got up at 2am in an uncontrolled situation I injured myself therefore circus performers must be crazy reckless rule breakers” is akin to me saying to someone in theatre “I’m good at electronics and I once got a shock from a desk so you theatre people with 125amp three phase electricity must be crazy fools who are just lucky you aren’t killing yourselves with electricity every day” Any Arialist, any stunt performer, any circus consultant, any circus rigger will be more than happy to answer serious questions about their work and processes - but don’t start by rehashing the old cliches that they’re a bunch of pikey chancers who don’t understand safety and who work outside the law just to spite everyone else....

You're right, it's much much stricter - every time a circus pops up in the town park (except shows of under 450 people capacity) they will have had to submit hundreds of pages of safety paperwork, structural engineer calculations, certificates, risk assesments, method statements and all the other documentation required to PROOVE that what they are doing is safe. It gives me a heart attack to walk in to concert/theatre gigs and see people who are working 18 hour days for weeks at a time being expected to master dozens of quite technical skills and build complicated structures and cable runs that have never been independantly scrutinised, checked or specifically inspected and signed off by an outsider and often doing so under the influence of various strengths of narcotics and intoxicants. The reason these stunts tend to be done in other countries is precisely because they have very active (and experienced) pilots who earn their daily living lifting odd loads with a helicopter. the downdraft from a copter is very good at deflecting minor to moderate wind and flying birds. However you are misunderstanding the mindset of the circus/stunt performer - if there are strong enough winds that the performer doesn't benefit from the protection then the stunt isn't done..... We are subjected to the same H&S laws as anyone else, but the industry is also filled with people who have exceptional levels of speciality leagues more precise and practised than any roll I can think of in the theatre world and wholes whole mindset (and literal life and career) is focused on being 100% fit, able and safe to perform the highly specialist skill they have mastered in the very specific conditions it has been developed to be performed in. Because someone who spends their whole life hanging at weird angles / upside down is physically better able to cope with being hung at a weird angle whether they are conscious or not than someone who does an hour of rigging once per month and who has blacked out for the first time whilst still slightly hungover from the night before. Also EVERY circus "safety line" isn't a static point as used in theatre /arena rigging - every safety we use is designed so that if someone has a problem they can be gotten to the ground as quickly as possible. In a circus tent a performer who blacks out on a flying trapeze and falls into the safety system is on the ground and surrounded by colleagues/experts in about 5 seconds. In that helicopter stunt I can see clear empty patches of ground at virtually every point on the route; if she had somehow completely lost consciousness and couldn't self rescue then she would have been on the ground (and thus off the harness) in much less than 30 seconds. Everything in theatre relating to an unconscious person in a harness is based on the premise they are not an athlete, that they are already tired, that it takes time for colleagues to harness up and get across to them and that it then takes even more time to transfer them from the static point they are attached to on to a lower-able one to get them to the ground. The circus method and mindset is leagues more safe and efficient at dealing with the problem than the theatre one

Is it? I make it 240 people,maybe 480 if its a 2 person act.I doubt theres 175000 people employed in the whole of the uk circus,thats a lot of caravans. Well since you’re being picky I should have stated 175,000 person/risks per year

Again the issue here is that you’re not understanding the circus world and mindset - a circus performer would have flat out refused to be in the situation you found yourself in. Numerous times (on corporate gigs) I’ve had circus performers come to me and say they simply can’t perform- I’ve made sure they are paid and I have fought for them tooth and nail with the client to make sure they aren’t penalised because they weren’t happy with the performance conditions. There are around 40 circus’s working In the uk, two shows per day, each show with at least 6 “”death defying”” acts in them - that’s 175,000 people “””risking their lives””” per year and yet the circus industry in the uk has one fatality or serious injury every 10-15 years. It’s clear that the processes and safety protocols the industry has are league ahead of other branches of showbizness and that the paperwork we use is more than adequate

I have answered that point - the answer is literally a lifetime of training in a highly specific skill that is only ever applied in highly specific circumstances, highly controlled and supported by people (and equipment) who similarly have insanely high levels of experience and practice at this highly niche skill. There’s a reason why almost every touring circus tent in the world has a roof/rigging points At the same height and kingpoles on identical spacing - circus mastered global standardisation of entertainment technologies decades ago

Without wishing to make this sound like an insult - you’re assuming that your lack of knowledge is the same for all the people involved in planning / performing this stunt. Without topping the gaff there’s absolutely no possibility she could free fall off that and the routines, shapes (and occasional repositioning) she does are making sure that at no point is the safety going to end up knotted should she fall. The cooter could have her back on the ground in less than 30 seconds and by definition Arialists who spend their whole day being suspended in odd ways are much less susceptible to susnspwnion trauma / complications than bob the lamp ie who’s been on a one day harness course. As to your fly man example... if the fly man spent 20 years training just how to climb THAT ladder, who practices (with safety ropes and crash mats) every single day, who has a gym routine and planned diet to make sure they are at the peek of fitness to do the climb and who are employed on a contract that expressly allows them to not climb the ladder (with no penalties) if they are ill / exhausted / injured then I’m pretty sure writing the RA To let them climb the ladder without a harness in the show would be very simple. To address your other points - because of how helicopters work it’s basically impossible for bird strike, wind or anything else to affect the performer. The biggest risk to the performer in that stunt would be death by pilot. For copter lifts the pilot has to be able to (easily) push a button to ditch the load he is lifting so that if at any point he feels the load is causing the copter to loose control he’s obligated to sever the lift (potentially killing the performer) to save the copter because if the copter crashes the explosion would kill dozens.

Speak to your hologauze provider about getting a turnkey service that involves supplying the screen, projector, lens and all the other specialist skills needed to set up and make this kit work properly - it will cost you a lot less time and money that trying to learn and do everything in house.

Since your project involves quite specialist projection surfaces (which have very specialist rigging/setup requirements) and large specialist projectors which have very particular needs when used with the projection surfaces you are projecting on to I really think the best advice anyone can give you is that you shouldn't be trying to coordinate this project in house and should instead be handing the technical side of this project to a company who've done this before; someone who knows all the technical problems and complications you are going to face and who has the expertise to avoid them and make the project seamless; all you have to do is tell them what you want to achieve. By definition whoever you're planning to get the Hologauze from will be able to put you in touch with multiple companies with experience of doing exactly what you are trying to do; ask a couple of them for a quote and save yourself a lot of stress and hassle.

Circus stunts (which you have to remember are performed at least twice daily, 7 days a week) are designed to look dangerous but be, by definition, incredibly safe. I know who the pilot is, I know who she is, I know the stunt was designed by a team who are recognised as the world experts at doing this, I can see the choices made with the moves she does to reduce the ones that are risky and give herself the most additional safety, I know what safety line she’s using and what harness it’s actually connected to and I know how many decades every person involved in this stunt has spent training to be able to do EXACTLY this sort of “”dangerous”” stunt again and again safely. If you found the wallenda copter stunt scary then definitely don’t watch Bello doing his copter promo stunt

No specific model to recommend but make sure whatever you get has a qwerty keyboard layout and has the common symbols easily accessible - We have thrown out every non-qwerty unit within days because you type at 1/4 the speed and there's one Brother unit we have that has + - / on three different sub menus which again slows your usage right down. +1 for using the cheaper ebay tapes; I've yet to find a noticeable difference in stickiness and durability between official brother tapes and the generics.

Plus the official arduino forums has a whole getting started section with lots of commentary on the basic sketches. It seems an odd system at first but it is honestly one of the best learning / tuition systems I have ever encountered.

File > Examples > 1.Basics > Blink.

Don’t use a book to learn how to program an arduino.... The in built tuition sketches will have you up and running in no time; after that the archive of shared sketches in the online community and amazing user support / sharing ethos means you can learn and solve absolutely everything without ever leaving the arduino environment.

So essentially what you're trying to create is a water pistol.... so why not use a waterpistol and just extend the squirting tube? you definitely definitely don't want to be messing around with compressed gas when you don't even know the basics of how it works and when it's a completely overengineered sledgehammer being used to crack an already de-shelled nut.

Only if it’s for the purpose of committing a criminal offence. Artistic expression/endevour is a legitimate defence.

As someone with lots of grandstand.... that’s a very good price you’ve been given. Modular grandstand requires at least 3 experienced crew and 150 seats would fill a 15ton sized truck (or alternatively 3-4 round trips for a transit van) and take 3-4 hours to fully install. As others have pointed out seating takes up a lot of space plus the regulations covering temporary grandstands are extensive meaning that any operator needs a lot of big heavy stuff and a lot of skilled people to use it.

And both the flame retardant and non versions are very fragile - moisture or a badly finished corner will sections of the board to sawdust in days

For boring physics reasons it’s almost impossible to get a continuous burst (of any practical size) with anything leas than a 2kw heater chamber so if you need long or continuous run then immediately discount any machine with a power rating of less than 2kw

Just to jump in here - you need to check if that's the maximum load or the "safe working load" for these brackets or indeed anything else you ever use for rigging things over people's heads. A SWL is usually allowing 300% safety factor (ie something with 100kg SWL is actually designed to withstand 300kg) right up to an 800% factor depending on the product and manufacturers tolerances. This is especially important in theatre because of all the incidental forces applied whilst doing the job as a whole - suppose you had a bar with a maximum load of 200kg, you have 150kg of "lights" already on it and you decide to add a 30kg moving light; because it's heavy you use a rope and someone pulling on the ground to lift it up.... you're almost certainly going to be well over the maximum load for the part because a) everyone forgets or underestimates the weight of cables/clamps and b) the dynamic load caused by someone on the ground pulling the rope that goes up over the bar can easily exceed 30kg weight of the object so you potentially have a problem. Conversely if the bar you're rigging from has an SWL of 200kg then you don't need to be too concerned about going (briefly) over-load because there's a safety factor built in. There was an incident at Ringling Brothers Circus a couple of years ago where a dozen aerialists hanging from a frame were dropped to the ground suffering life changing industries - after all the investigations the main factor was that someone had used a component rated at XXXXkg and assumed that was actually its SWL so didn't take in to account the extra forces applied by the moving performers nor the inevitable decline in the parts strength as it sustained wear and tear. There's also added complexities that loads don't distribute evenly to the pick up points used so even if you have got a bar with 3x200kg SWL clamps on it that doesn't mean you could hang a 600kg object from the bar (unless it was multiple objects, evenly distributed and the bar itself was very strong) this is why there's lots of specialist engineering firms with expensive computer simulation software to calculate what really happens with the forces in play. I don't want this to sound like I'm criticising you in any way - by admitting you were not sure and doing some research you are already more safe and more sensible than the majority of people, I just want to make sure that no one else reads this little bit of knowledge and misuses it somewhere else

From a technical point of view the fabric doesn’t matter - the best fabric possible with an uncooperative lighting designer will be terrible; cheap poly cotton with a understanding and committed lighting design can be mind blowing. 99% of all black art in the real world is done using the venue generic surge and twill curtains. Contrast is the secret to successful black art. Over illuminate everything else on the stage and your “black” spaces will be even blacker - often the answer to “visible” black art props is to slap more lights on to the stage (either pointing at the audience or actively over-illuminating other props on the stage) to increase the contrast and thus make things more invisible.

Further research - the gentleman named above as registering the brand just happens to be an executive of the company that distributes the Gripton brand in this part of the world whilst several local crew have named the same Chinese generic manufacturing co as the actual manufacturer of these parts. For anyone reading this thread in the future- I am refusing all permissions to use Gripton brand products since I can’t get any believable data/certificates and somebody has gone to an awful lot of trouble to make a shell “reputable” brand to try and stop people asking too many questions...