ImagineerTom

There’s 400+ theatres in the UK, many is not the same as “most”. That aside within 30miles of where I live I can list several major venues that either don’t have or have decommissioned the irons because the ongoing upkeep of them is disproportionate to their usefulness. I’m also involved in 3 new build venues in the uk and none of them have a fire curtain. They are useful for providing a sound barrier during the interval for resets but even in venue that “use” the irons in show scenarios I’ll bet you many don’t have it listed as a primary fire prevention device and as soon as their next refurb comes around they will be derated because the cost of making good a (usually) asbestos based ancient machine is significantly more than more modern fire control techniques. Are there irons out there being bounced…. Yes, would I be buying shares in a fire curtain manufacturing or maintenance company; absolutely not.

Fire curtains are not generally required or inspected in anything like the same way they used to be; many places have decommissioned them completely and the regs, implementation of the regs and the licensing requirements around them varies wildly. You first question shouldn't be "what BS standards" but rather what the requirements and expectations are of the licensing and fire officers in the specific area it's being used.

The people who will be responsible for creating plug in points at fair sites / markets / show grounds for funfairs and circus are the same local authorities who have had budgets slashed and can barely provide school meals- we are years away from them being able to invest in proper power infrastructure for “soft” events. and most festival / event sites are used for a single event per year- it will be decades before grid power solutions are available for those scenarios.

Showman’s guild are one (of many) trade associations not government bodies with legal powers. As I said (and speaking as somone involved in a group representing many showman’s organisations in these discussions) how do you craft a system that actually works rather than randomly penalising honest members trying their best to do the right thing whilst having no control at all over wholesale deliberate fraud by non members? also the regs you mention relate to using red for transportation - not something that’s in question. The question is if red can be used for showman activities (ie powering stuff at a funfair or circus) then exactly how much circus or funfair is needed relative to how much non expressly showman activity to qualify. One heater in a 2000 Circus tent, one burger van surrounded by 20 funfair rides is pretty clear…. But what about one burger van with 5 rides at a village fete…. 1 van with a bouncy castle…. Are these all 100% red allowed or?

If a multi million pound, annual, predictable, stable festival like Glastonbury (with it’s heavy eco focus) can’t even get close to justifying mains infrastructure installation what possible hope does a small funfair (itself made up of dozens of small business and freelancers with no long term stability) have of installing mains hook in and distro at the 20+ different sites they visit per year? electric powered forks / teles are a decade away from being even vaguely comparable to diesel powered units in real world situations. What do we do in the intervening period- double the fee overnight and hope the market keeps growing?

As always, the details of this change in the regs haven't been thought through. For example showmen exemption remains (red diesel to power funfairs, circus's etc) but no mechanism or clarification as to how that is to be monitored; if it's a cold night and we pop the (diesel powered) heater on do we have to paypal the government? Funfair rides on red diesel is simple enough but what about burger vans powered from the same system.... what about staff welfare, admin offices, all stuff that is in the business of running a show but not exclusively "showman" use... if I set up a bouncy castle next to a burger van in a layby does that count as exempt? As others have pointed out red has dyes in it that are designed to last; is every last generator and plant machine in the country supposed to be stripped, cleaned, machined, re-sealed or are we going to have a 5+ year window when it's actually impossible to accurately tell if red or taxed fuel has been consistently used? And finally there's not a proper system in place for the fuel suppliers to handle their customers who are still exempted and so at present many are simply abandoning supplying any "red" because it would appear that the final system will be that they will have to pay the duty initially then produce a mountain of paperwork to show what percentage they sold to rated and non rated users and what steps they have taken to ensure it's not escaping into the other tax bracketed use.

Who amongst us hasn't, at some point, dreamt of riding a Wurlitzer hovercraft across a stage in front of a crowd of thousands?

Because all the video in the show is rendered live it enables them to cope with technical issues better (if problems mean the car doesn't move on stage the video re-renders to "vamp" until the automation is ready for an important upcoming cue for example) but they also use it for the preshow / interval projection which shows the date/time, weather and (if you look carefully) news/data/images that the server is pulling from the net and rendering into the display just to show off that they can do it.

I don't want this to turn into a slamdown on anyone but they provided A car that's used in the show at one point (yes a memorable point, but one of many) the car (and all the hardware that makes it do wonderful things) that you see for the entire rest of the show isn't that car/hardware from them; It's a traditional secret how many car's there are in the show but I can tell you it's more than one. There is also a huge amount of magic in the show that (deliberately) doesn't stand out as magic but instead enables the show to present as cinematic - in many scenes for example, you will see a character walk offstage left and a second later enter (from stage right) into a piece of scenery that represents a different location so that the live stage show follows the visual flow of a movie. There's several instant costume changes, some "stunts" and a whole range of practical effects and gadgets peppered through the rest of the show, not to mention that (absolutely breath-taking) time jumps at the start and end of the show. It is a huge team effort and to heap all credit on one part of that team whilst ignoring the contributions of all the others is unfair to all involved.

Twins provided a piece of technical equipment used at one point in the show, however 99% of the “magic” in the show was designed by Chris fisher & his team of associates, working closely with set designer Tim Hatley who works absolute miracles with scenic engineering. It is very much a team effort.

Weird but true fact…. The car automation doesn’t sync to the video- it’s the other way around. Video content is being generated and rendered in real time based on positioning data received from the car (and from lighting cues) as they realised that automation wasn’t accurate and dependable enough and so it was easier to render the cgi backwards from the vehicle.

I agree aiming higher isn't intrinsically a bad thing but there is a point when over-engineer / over-staffing / over-safetying becomes a grossly disproportionate response to solving a problem that doesn't really exist. Whilst you're not a fan of the "typical" circus winch I linked to previously and you don't feel that the safety and operational procedures used are appropriate we do have to remember that in the Uk alone there's dozens of this type of winch, being used in the way I described, at least twice daily, 40 weeks a year for at least the last 50 years without problems (from memory I can only think of two serious injuries to Aerialists caused by equipment failure in the uk in my lifetime) which suggests that the "best practice" is probably pretty close to the setups being used now and probably isn't improved by adding multiples of staffing and equipment purchases. This topic is getting difficult to follow because the different genres of "flying" (circus performer in a tent, circus performer in a theatre, circus performer in an arena, actor in a show, circus performer replicating someone else's routine, magical effects, stunt effects) all have very different technical needs and operating practices that are specific to their sectors and inappropriate to other sectors; I wouldn't dream of using a circus winch to fly a nervous celeb 30m up in an arena production of Peter Pan but conversely a multi axis, fully automated, touch screen controlled flying system with 3 specialist crew and a full time schedule of testing and maintenance wouldn't be appropriate for lifting a lifelong circus performer up and down 4m in a hoop whilst they do the splits either. I'd love to hear others points of view on this all though

The op hasn’t engaged in the conversation but this is a valid topic none the less so I’m keen to explore it further. I still stand by what I’ve posted- the bulk of performer “”flying”” (by several factors) is undertaken, without injury or incident, within the “reduced” staffing framework I have outlined. If you feel it should have more staff involved I’d love to hear why you feel that but I do need to hear more than “because that’s how a niche operator” does it to justify a change of operating procedures than I and the majority of performer flying workers need to change our procedures.

There’s a lot to unpack here but let’s start with the fact that cirque (and it’s clones) fundamentally are NOT representative of circus as a whole. In circus world a performer or performers will spend their whole life developing an act, having props (and rigging systems) designed specifically for that act and will have an intimate knowledge of how all the equipment their arial act uses works and is maintained as they will be expecting to trust their own lives to it twice daily for the rest of their career. They will typically install their own kit in the performance venue and will pretty much always be the one who makes the final connection moments before performance. cirque et al (because of how their global business model works) don’t employ circus people to do their act but typically employ gymnasts and dancers who are trained to perfectly replicate the act someone else created for this show and so don’t arrive at the performance moment with the same investment or experience that a trad circus performer will. The same goes with the technicians and crew involved in the process and so to ensure replicability and scalable safety the cirque model is to over-staff with very niche specific roles for each crew/performer so that replicability and precision can be achieved by people with (comparatively) little skill or experience in the genre they are performing. As to “how can only two people possibly do these 20 different jobs?” Well I’ve already explained how rigging practice in a traditional circus means that the need for whole Rescue teams is eliminated because the systems are developed to fail in ways such that bringing people to the ground is still easy and fast; the entire infrastructure of trad circus is designed to be safe and viable with a few people. The entire infrastructure of Cirque is designed to be safe and viable for (relatively) unskilled/inexperienced people who can be interchanged as required by global touring requirements. Don’t even get me started on the height issue- in trad circus and theatre it is effectively impossible to fall (from failure in some sort of aerial sequence) more than 8m because of the height of performance venues which whilst a painful fall is rarely a life changing fall. Cirque etc have aerial performers 15-40m above often concrete or steel surfaces where a fall is thus considerably more serious and so understandably extra safety precautions are taken I would argue that “best practice” we should be striving for is probably closer to the system being used thousands of times a day, world wide, for 100+ years with an astonishingly small number of accidents (in comparison to number of performances) by circus’s, theatres & pantos across the globe than it is to the operating procedures from a single creative family that have a completely different set of priorities, have spent the last 15 years lurching from financial crisis to crisis because of their phenomenally high operational cost and who have (unfortunately) a higher rate of accident and injuries in aerial performance than the trad circus and panto “rent a track and teach the crew how to use it in a weekend” industries have. There’s lots I love about cirque & clones, there’s lots they do that I love; but they operate in an ecosystem that is entirely unique and of their own creation. caveats - I have worked extensively for cirque and trad cirque companies. By “cirque” I’m including all the companies that operate in a similar global product way that is the anthisis of the operating model of trad circus and regional theatre. Cirque du soleil, the many Dragoné, La Reve, Ringling Brothers productions all fit under the “cirque” term I use above.

Then I have to say your experience of performer flying is very much an outlier and not representative of what’s happening in the bulk of the industry be it Theatre, arena or circus. Thinking through the “legit” shows I’ve worked outside of Cirque & it’s clones the reality is always one or two “flying” people at most.

As I said, your suggestion isn't wrong, but it doesn't represent what's out in the real world actually being used day in and day out. That winch is very indicative of what the majority of motorised circus flying systems comprise of, a design that has evolved over 70+ years of "automating" lifts in circus and the design incorporates the majority of the features you described (especially around safety and evacuation) in a way that is practical and viable for the majority of circus's to actually implement on a daily basis. For example the unit is traditionally installed at the edge of a tent, at ground level, with the rope going diagonally up to a pully point in the centre of the tent then downwards to the lift subject. The unit is held in place by a couple of stakes (lots of good data about how solid and resistive proper circus stakes are) so that it doesn't go anywhere. Because the unit is at ground level it can be inspected by the performer (and whoever the tentmaster is for the structure) before every single performance, repairs/adjustments can be easily made. If a fault occurs and the unit stops operating there's 3 ways to get the flying subject down, each one much faster than could be done by a traditional aerial rescue team - there will be an electric over-ride to page out the wire, if that doesn't work there will be a physical release to allow a controlled descent, if both of those don't work and the unit is jammed solid then plan C (which I've only ever seen use as a training exercise but it was a relief to see that it works) is for a couple of heavy guys to sit on the "cage" or the winch is mounted on and the shackles (connecting the unit to the stakes) disconnected. It is then possible for those two people to (in a surprisingly slow and controlled way) lower the stranded performer by allowing the unit to slide along the ground (thus shortening the hypotenuse) lowering the performer without anyone or anything ever leaving the ground. These types of winch and these rescue / emergency procedures will be very familiar to the people working in a circus. In the event that the lifting fault is with the pully point stuck in the air.... well EVERY tentmaster in has his own rope / ladder / access route to get up to the cupola in a matter of seconds so he could either climb up and release the blockage, or use one of the several different winches / ropes / pulleys that other acts in the show have installed to affect a rescue. Counterweight performer flying is popular both because it's a bit fashionable but also because it takes even more paperwork out of the process and bypasses lots of local rules about winch equipment that were crafted to protect people using cranes, not performers. (and if we are willy waving - I consult for the same circus company problem solving technical issues in unusual locations precisely because I straddle the engineering sector and 100+ years of family history in trad circus. Cirque is not Trad Circus, Trad circus is not cirque; they are their own things with surprisingly little crossover)

Performer winches in circus is VERY different to performer winches in the theatrical and concert world so whilst the previous answer isn't "wrong" it is not the right answer as it doesn't represent how 99.9% of all circus flying / winches are operated. If you're performing in theaters / arena's in America then Foy are the name everyone trusts and they have specific circus people & knowledge. www.FlyByFoy.com If you're performing in circus tent's then whoever owns the tent will have a preferred (circus brand) performer winch system and way to install it in their tent. An example of one supplier of CIRCUS winches in America is https://www.circusbyus.com/item_description.php?item_id=1&category_1=56&category=category_1 It is very common now to use performer counterweight systems for flying things in circus

A reference from a producer / director / creator’s show who is themselves just out of uni is worth substantially less than the paper it’s written on. If that’s all you’re doing the job for then quit now - employers will always rate several “so so” references from well established companies / theatres considerably higher than a reference from someone they’ve never heard of with no pedigree.

As far as I can tell yes, it does autostart when powered up. It also seems to autostart when the usb / SD card is inserted - basically it seems to be constantly looking for a file that starts 000 and will loop that immediately. Only downside is the remote control, it feels cheep and the buttons aren't the most responsive but since everything else is amazing and the remote is barely used I think I'll give them a pass on that.

Thought I'd link the manual here for reference http://www.medeawiz.com/assets/Sprite-DV-S1-Manual-4_00.pdf

Just received the sprite - it's REALLY good. The engine under it might well be some generic chinese thing but the instructions and interfaces are all clearly well developed, very clear and the product is definitely going to solve my problem quickly and easily; in my instance all I need is 2 files, one is constantly looped (so in my case will be blank) and the other is played when the button I attach to it via screw terminals is pressed. I am very impressed with how well thought out this little unit is

£25/week gets you a spot on brownfield or farmers yard type sites, £65 gets you concrete yard with floodlights.

Just for clarity - it's not the looping and autoplay I need; it's the "do nothing until I press a button, then play the video once, then do nothing" bit I need; all those clone chinese units seem to have a wealth of menus and onscreen graphics to get in the way plus require multiple inputs via IR to play anything. On the face of it the Sprite appears to be what I need.

I had considered that but non of the generic model specs have anything that hint at those features whereas the sprite clearly comes with some extra cables and has lots of data about the control ability. For the sake of £50 price difference in happy if it’s an off the shelf product that just works instead of having to tinker with the generic models

That looks to be exactly what I'm looking for! Thankyou