Qualifications and courses

[Tammi]

Hello,

I have come from Australia and have a basic riggers qualification through the government that allows me to work in any field (theatre, construction etc) as a rigger but with a few restrictions.

I have noticed since being here that there seems to be no equivilant course in the UK. People have told me to do a rope access course but that is not a specific theatre rigging course. Is there a specific entertainment rigging course or is it just other skill related courses that I have to do. IS there somewhere that I can look up government standards, qualifications etc?

I heard through the grapevine that a company in Europe is looking at creating a theatre rigging course that will encompass all legalities in theatre rigging covered under a EU style standard? Anyone else heard this?

Any information or links you can pass my way would be great

Thank you

Tam

[Seano]

I have come from Australia and have a basic riggers qualification through the government that allows me to work in any field (theatre, construction etc) as a rigger but with a few restrictions.

I have noticed since being here that there seems to be no equivilant course in the UK. People have told me to do a rope access course but that is not a specific theatre rigging course. Is there a specific entertainment rigging course or is it just other skill related courses that I have to do. IS there somewhere that I can look up government standards, qualifications etc?

I heard through the grapevine that a company in Europe is looking at creating a theatre rigging course that will encompass all legalities in theatre rigging covered under a EU style standard? Anyone else heard this?

 

You're quite right, there is no UK equivalent of the Aussie Rigging (or Dogging) licences. There is not qualification that anyone is legally required to have. This applies to roped access too - there's a popular belief that an IRATA qualification is a legal requirement for people working on ropes, but that is not true. (Not a myth that its in Irata's interest to 'bust', obviously.)

 

You'd also be right in thinking that IRATA (and other roped-access qualifications) wouldn't really be relevant to rigging in our industry, and imo spending upwards of 500 quid for a level 1 course would not be a good investment. (Not that the training itself wouldn't necessarily be very useful and interesting.)

 

There is a new national rigging certificate in the pipeline, the first generation of assessors for this are themselves being assessed right now. There are some details here:

http://www.plasa.org/rigging/ (Follow the "update bulletin" link for a 1.3Mb pdf update on progress so far.)

 

If you need to do a course to learn/update/refresh your skills, I'm sure there'll be some recommendations along in a bit.

 

If you're already competent to do the work you want to do (and assuming you're entitled to work in this country), then just get looking for work. You can use your Aussie rigging qualification as evidence that you've already had some training, that should help.

 

Sean

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[Simon Lewis]

You're quite right, there is no UK equivalent of the Aussie Rigging (or Dogging) licences.

 

Rather OT, but is this another case of two languages using word for different meanings? Dogging has a somewhat different UK meaning, just as I believe that there's a brand of Australian Sellotape called Durex ....