Scary Day

[Big Dave]

After reading all the recent threads about rigging/access etc I thought I'd share with you todays experiences (names and venues withheld). I had been pre warned that today was going to be a nightmare job so was prepared for some problems but not what we actually got.

 

Turned up this morning at a major London venue this morning to install sound and lights on a stage for a show thats runs over the next few days. Someone (not the venues recommeded supplier or infact any of the major rigging companies) had installed 3 dead hung tri-lite trusses for us to hang off.

 

Problem 1, truss hung apex down. Problem 2, Steels were resting against the roof trusses of the building. Problem 3, the points that were attached to the truss in such an uneven way that the moment we put anything on the trusses, the oppposite side of the truss would of shot into the roof. Problem 4, no form of LOLER certs had been filed with the venue or provided to us (just a note to say that my client had provided a loading/rigging plan)

 

Anyway, after a small comical meeting between my client and the venue H+S, we placed a call to the people who had put the truss in. An hour later we were still trying to explain to these people what LOLER was (they had never heard of it), their obligations under law, why we were not prepared to hang anything on their truss and that if they couldn't provide any certs, then the truss was coming down.

 

And that was all before 09.30 this morning!

[WiLL]

It worries me that a major venue would use a company which don't even know THE major cert for rigging.

[Guest lightnix]

Sorry, Will, but Dave did say:

Someone (not the venues recommeded supplier or infact any of the major rigging companies) had installed...

Even so, it seems a bit odd that the venue's H&S man wasn't a bit more on the ball.

 

Dave, any chance of naming and shaming the so-called "riggers" responsible, so that we can all avoid them in the future. Surely under the circumstances, it could hardly be defamation ? LOLER has been around since 1998 and they must have been wearing a major set of La La La I'm Not Listening hats to have missed it (or had their heads firmly wedged where the sun don't shine).

[slim_mcslim]

hmmmn....

 

not sure exactly what the problem is....

 

Problem 1, truss hung apex down. Problem

 

Is this not the best way to hang tri truss, so that the load is evenly balanced, centrally between the other sides, if there is less area to hang lighting on, then there is less chance of you over loading the truss. I generally hang truss point down, unless I know that I have a lot of stuff to hang, and then will hang it point up to give me more loading space.

 

 

Problem 2, Steels were resting against the roof trusses of the building.

 

Not sure exactly what you mean, but if you mean that the steels where resting over the edges of the RSJ's or Beams then how is this a bad thing? I am aware it is not the ideal situation, but if it is safe, then it is ok. If the truss had been hung on 0.5mm steel rope then its a different story, but if the truss is hung on good thick steel rope 9mm or more then it really shouldn't be an issue, a lot of it comes down to common sense surely.

 

Problem 3, the points that were attached to the truss in such an uneven way that the moment we put anything on the trusses, the oppposite side of the truss would of shot into the roof.

 

Doesn't this always happen? Isn't this basic physics, turning moments etc? If loading the truss from the end is goin to causes it to shoot up into the roof, then why not start in the middle?

 

Problem 4, no form of LOLER certs had been filed with the venue or provided to us

 

Why do you need LOLER certs filed with the venue, in the time I spent as a freelance lampy I hung truss all over london venues, all of the big hotels, and those where we couldn't hang it we put up goalposts, and in this time I never provided anyone with any certificate nor did anyone ask me for any kind of certificate, the venue know we are there to get a job done and leave us to get on with it. I have had chats with the H&S guy after the rig is up and pointed out safetys etc, however if they had ever tried to interfere with anything that I was doing I would have told them where to go. For example the ballroom of The Grosvner House on park lane, a very popular venue, used all the time for awards shows, the end client pays somewhere between £12,000 and £18,000 per 12 hours to hire the venue, the last thing that the venue want is some H&S guy pissing off the clients, or the clients contractors. Nobody wants to rig anything that is going to fall on the audience and cause them injury, and equally nobody should.

 

However there are large differences between the conference world and the theatre world, I am just assuming (and I might be wrong) that to use pyrotechnics in a theatre, you would need a trained pyrotechnician, a stage manager, probably a qualified director. In a conference you just get the lampy to do it, and as long as it is done safely then there is no problem. I am not a qualified pyrotechnician however I am a competent pyrotechnician, which (in my books at least) is much better.

 

the point I am trying to make, is that in a conference/live show you just have to get on with it, and it annoys me that people hide behind regulations and paperwork rather than just coming out and doing a job. One of the worse purportraitors of this is the HASAWA (health and safety at work act)

 

 

Paul...

 

(wheres the spell check button gone?)

[RoyF18]

The point of the regulations is so that no one gets killed or seriously injured. Rigging is one of the most dangerous tasks within the industry to undertake and the consequences if something goes wrong later on (i.e. during a show, conference etc) are more likely to be dangerous. The LOLER course is the industry standard and it trains people to a very high standard of ability and also to understand the huge health and safety implications that rigging carries with it.

 

If at any point there had been any sort of accident involving you or the trussing that you had hung in these venues then you and the venue staff would have been up sh!t creek without a paddle. The HSE have been known to put large, big money venues out of business by fining them such huge sums of money when there has been an accident. Not something for anyone to get complacent about.

[Tomo]

slim_mcslim, you just scared the living daylights out of me.

 

The HASAWA is there for a reason, and that reason is to protect you, your workers and the public by:

a) Making it less likely that something will go tits up.

b) Making it less likely that you PERSONALLY would get sued if it did.

c) Making sure that your insurance company would pay up.

 

If you don't follow the rules and regs and something goes wrong, it's likely that your insurance won't pay the damages - leaving you PERSONALLY liable for them.

 

In my time working as a silver service waiter, I've seen some conference and banqueting halls that had been rigged by someone who thought that way about LOLER, and I simply refused point blank to walk underneath them.

You DON'T hang fixtures from cable ties!

 

(As to the apex up/down issue - that's one reason I don't like trilite. I'm never sure which way up it should be!)

[Chris Higgs]

As often the case, too big a subject and too difficult to discuss on a web forum.

Trilite is designed to be used primarily (unfortunately for some) apex down, but as ever check with the manufacturer before changing use.

Blue Roomers, though well meaning, are all incorrect in part.

BTW, what is 'the LOLER course', please?

The responsibilities here are the venue via their client contractors, because they have a duty of care, the installing contractor for the standard of installation and the contractor applying load.

No one is excused, all have a part to play.

Communicate!

It is very easy to criticise when one is ignorant of specific circumstances and I would be not be surprised to find that this is a classic case of bad information.

I think 'tales' about the HSE putting big companies out of business is unhelpful and in our industry, mercifully, untrue.

Can we have more detail?

I am sure Roy, Slim and Tomo mean well, but IMHO it ain't helping, guys.

Interestingly, I had a call from a worried but well known lighting company about a job astonishingly similar to this on Thursday.

My advice?

If you are unhappy for any reason when you get to site and see the trvss, walk away.

I wonder if they did and this post is from the next company to get involved?

[Guest lightnix]

slim_mcslim, you just scared the living daylights out of me...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

...and me ! Although I would agree that there are several examples of H&S "gone mad" these days, I think that certain parts of slim's post show something of a casual attitude towards the safety of his clients, audience and fellow crew members.

 

While I'm not qualified or competent enough to comment / pass judgement on the specifics of Big Dave's show, there are a couple of general points in slim's post I would like to take issue with...

 

I have had chats with the H&S guy after the rig is up and pointed out safetys etc, however if they had ever tried to interfere with anything that I was doing I would have told them where to go.

I'd just love to see that, I really would. Especially the bit where the H&S guy came back with a piece of paper banning the show and you had to explain it to the client. I may not know a lot about rigging, but I do know there's more to safe rigging than just wrapping safeties around the truss.

 

the end client pays somewhere between £12,000 and £18,000 per 12 hours to hire the venue, the last thing that the venue want is some H&S guy pissing off the clients, or the clients contractors.

No. The last thing the venue wants is a rig falling onto the audience, killing and injuring them; it's very bad for business. Anyway, if everything is set up safely and legally, there should be no need for the H&S guy to "piss off" anyone.

 

However there are large differences between the conference world and the theatre world...

Not in H&S terms, there aren't. They are both covered by exactly the same rules and regulations.

 

...to use pyrotechnics in a theatre, you would need a trained pyrotechnician, a stage manager, probably a qualified director. In a conference you just get the lampy to do it...

No. In a conference you still need a trained pyrotechnician. There isn't one set of pyro regs for theatre and another for conferencing, to the best of my knowledge they are the same. If anyone hands me pyro to rig / operate, I refuse point blank, politely explaining that I'm not trained in the use of pyros and therefore not competent to do it; that if I do and it goes pear shaped we are all in deep do-do and that if it's "only a couple of flashpots", then it shouldn't be beyond the ken of the person trying to dump it on me to sort it out themselves. I've done it in the past, more than once and still kept the client for several shows thereafter.

 

I am not a qualified pyrotechnician however I am a competent pyrotechnician...

Really ? Go on then, define your "competence". You may have done it many times before without incident, but how do you actually know that you've been doing it 100% safely and haven't just been lucky in not blowing yourself or somebody else up ?

 

the point I am trying to make, is that in a conference/live show you just have to get on with it

That's all well and good, as long as "it" has all been properly planned to begin with, otherwise the consequences can be fatal, as has been more than adequately shown in the past.

 

...it annoys me that people hide behind regulations and paperwork rather than just coming out and doing a job.

An interesting choice of words. Are you implying, slim, that people who want to do a job safely and according to the rules are guilty of some sort of cowardice ? It takes a lot of courage to stand up and say "no", but I suspect you wouldn't know that, having never had the courage to do it yourself.

 

One of the worse purportraitors of this is the HASAWA

So are you saying that it should be scrapped and that there should be no safety regulations ? I hope not !

[paulears]

I think this all relates to a balance. The rules are there to protect, the difficulty is when rules make practice impossible. The main issue for me is twofold. Most important is that what I do is safe and I could stand up in court and justify my actions. The second is the end product. Can I, if asked, offer alternatives that would also let me be comfortable with my primary goal. If I can, I will. If I can't then I'm happy if someone else takes the responsibility (especially if they are 'the management') . In this case, as long as I don't consider it dangerous, I'll go along with it. I just make sure there enough pieces of paper, witnesses etc to CMA. If, what is suggested is dangerous then I walk away. I've only ever done this once.

 

In the case cited in this thread, if the trussing I was going to hang from was poorly installed, then nobody should hang anything. Management in this case wouldn't be competent to tell anyone to do it.

 

It is quite possible to tell outside H&S officers they are wrong. We had a visit from a newly graduated officer who told some of the crew that ALL laders must be footed, INCLUDING the permanent, steel, hooped vertical access ladder to the flys. He had the yello and green book and had simply misinterpreted what was said about ladders. I won this one. I lost the other issue - the door from the band room under the stage into the pit is now permanently sealed. No amount of common sense arguing helped here.

[Brian]

RoyF 18...

The HSE have been known to put large, big money venues out of business by fining them such huge sums of money when there has been an accident.

IIRC the largest fine imposed on a venue was £92,000 for Earl's Court, see here. I'm not aware of any venues going out of business as a direct result of an HSE prosecution.

 

It may be that some smaller venues have closed as a result of not being able to afford to bring those venues up to date with current regulations but that is a very different matter.

 

slim mcslim...

However there are large differences between the conference world and the theatre world, I am just assuming (and I might be wrong) that to use pyrotechnics in a theatre, you would need a trained pyrotechnician, a stage manager, probably a qualified director. In a conference you just get the lampy to do it, and as long as it is done safely then there is no problem. I am not a qualified pyrotechnician however I am a competent pyrotechnician, which (in my books at least) is much better.

 

To clarify for everyone...

 

There is no such thing in the UK as a 'qualification' for stage pyrotechnics.

 

There are training courses you can do but your attendance on these does not make you qualified. Any such experience simply goes towards your claim to be competent, such competance is for others to judge.

[Chris Higgs]

There is no such thing as a 'qualified' rigger either - yet! - It's coming, I promise...

 

There have been some quite disturbing comments recently bordering on bravado.

Chaps, if you are not taking an enterprenuerial risk (that doesn't look right) you are an employee, H&S wise.

If you are genuinely self employed, you better have got yourself the best training and system of work available or when you do have a problem they will throw the book at you these days, because both are available.

Bear in mind that the Local Authority or HSE inspectors in the field are unlikely to be experts in rigging/pyro etc..

What they will have is training to look at the actual hazards and the law and guidance/best practice that exists in relation to those hazards.

There is a lot of printed material on best practice available from trade associations, books and so on, and not a few Standards.

We get very wound up in detail because it is our work. They are more likely to be concerned with global and secondary risk rather than certificates and equipment.

[Guest lightnix]

There is no such thing as a 'qualified' rigger either - yet! - It's coming, I promise...

Can't wait :** laughs out loud **:

 

Chaps, if you are not taking an enterprenuerial risk (that doesn't look right) you are an employee, H&S wise.

And Inland Revenue-wise, too. (by the way, it's spelt entrepreurial :D )

 

At the risk of taking this thread totally OT: For the last couple of years at least, I have been coming to the conclusion that, what with the welter of H&S legislation, guidelines and ACoPs, not to mention hearsay and rumour, it is now virtually impossible for individual freelancers to work legally as self-employed subcontractors in the entertainments business.

 

Despite the idealistic tone I frequently take in the Blue Room, I will freely (but not happily) admit that I don't have a generic set of RAs, or a list of Terms & Conditions that I present to each client before taking on a job. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that if I do, nobody will use me.

 

Even though I've downsized my career in stage lighting to just doing small conferences, I still find myself my pants at the prospect of what will happen to me if something I've done goes pear-shaped.

 

My one remaining regular client recently issued a set of safety guidelines to all its freelancers, along with a form to sign saying that I/we will abide by them. I have no problem with this in principal, except that a number of the working practices we are supposed to adhere to (such as marking out a no-go area around a scaff tower with a rope barrier and "Warning: People Working At Height" signs every time we move it) simply aren't in operation. The people who book the crews haven't even seen this document. So what do we do ? Sign the form and carry on as normal, in the hope that everything will be OK; or sign the form and insist that we do everything by the book, only to be dropped from the crew list for being "inflexible" ?

 

Let's face it: the self-employed subcontractor "game" has been played for far too long by this business (and others) purely so that the employers (which is what they really are, be honest now) can avoid (or so they like to imagine) income tax, NI, H&S and Employment Law responsibilities and dump them onto the crews. Isn't it high time that these people (e.g. production and hire companies) accepted full and proper responsibility for their workforce, instead of cutting costs to maximize profits at the crew's (and client's) expense ?

 

To finish off with (for now): I found myself on an unusually interesting conference the other day. It was for an audience of Human Resources workers, on the subject of Employment Law. Most of the morning was taken up by a pair of Employment Lawyers, who made a very entertaining double act. By illustrating their presentation with a number of existing legal judgements, they explained very clearly that in any case involving an aspect of Employment Law, a court will look at the relationship that actually exists between a worker and a client, regardless of what the contract says. Examples were given of cases involving both agency-supplied workers and self-employed subcontractors, where the courts ruled that the actual relationship between them and the client companies was that of an employee and that the client (as an employer in their view) was liable for whatever had happened, regardless of what the contract said or intended. They also said that the courts are currently seeking to prove that an employer-employee relationship exists, even where none was originally intended.

 

In short: if "they" are telling you when to start work, when to stop, what to do in the meantime, when to eat, where to sleep and how much they're going to pay you, the chances are that "they" are your employers and (IMHO) it's about time "they" took their heads out of their arses and faced up to reality.

 

If this requires a topic split, then that's fine by me.

 

[/RANT]

[mini mansell]

There is no such thing as a 'qualified' rigger either - yet!  - It's coming, I promise...

 

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

there actually is.

I spend many years working in the petrochemical construction industry and Rigging is a recognised trade, with qualifications and training.

 

that was where I did my training in rigging.

[paulears]

"there actually is.

I spend many years working in the petrochemical construction industry and Rigging is a recognised trade, with qualifications and training."

 

(oops = lost quotes)

you wouldn't get a rigging job in the offshore industry around here (east coast)without a proper ticket

 

actually - the firms who do offshore work are great to get theatrical jobs done. Their welders are all coded, they have portable x-ray kit and think 6mm wire rope is toy stuff compared to what they deal with. They do 'theatre' style work in ther slack time at very good rates.

[Big Dave]

oooh what have I done!!!

 

I'm not going to go into any more detail on that particular event because I don't know all the facts and wasn't party to any of the pre production.

 

Some of the above comments are very interesting. Since a good percentage of my work is in the corporate sector I also work in some less than ideal venues and situations but everything I do is done as safely as possible. If I'm not comfortable in doing something or I don't believe something is being done properly then I'll speak up.

 

It deosn't matter what venue or location you are in, if the local licencing officer turns up and asks for test certificates for your rigging/truss, if you can't produce them they can and will stop your show from happening. Just because it's never happened to you doesn't mean it won't.

 

Since Grosvenor House has been mentioned (and I've just spent the last 48 hours in there), the house tech team there will stop you if they see something they are not happy with - cause thats part of their job. The rigger from VLPS who was there this weekend wasn't happy doing one of the things that the production manager asked them too so they found another SAFE way to do it. Fortunately, 99% of the companies who pass though their doors are professional at what they do.