Rope Supporting reference

[kuming]

Hi, ALL Theatre Friends ,

 

I just discover that Rope cannot not use as rigging gear for scenery in Hong Kong's "Governmental" Theatre.

In their regulation, steel wire rope is the only material,which has mention, to do that.

But why can't I use black rope instead of that?

 

So, I would like to ask you guys, does any theatre working the same thing in your city/country? And what their reason(what standard) to do that?

And what can I do or where can I find some references to make them believe "Rope" is really safe for rigging in theatre?

 

Thanks all of you, Cheers,

J. Ku

[paulears]

If it's a local rule, there's nothing you can do, but here in the UK hundreds of venues still use hemp, and it's still able to be used in a new installation. As the manual operation has sensible limits, what you can actually lift weight wise is covered by some rules/guidelines and a bit of 'law' - but in general, proper rope is still ok. We're talking natural fibre rope, like hemp. The nasty plastic stuff is still seen, but the trouble with it means it's not a product of choice.

 

However - I'm interested to know how you would use SWR to replace hemp as a hauling line. You could have a drop of wire rope, but how would you manage this stage side? I'm thinking of a spot line - maybe just to drop something verically. You still need something to pull.

 

There are plenty of downsides to actually rigging scenery on hemp. Hazard wise it's clearly more dangerous, difficult to do, impossible to keep level and very labour intensive - so a rule that means counterweight not hemp flying sounds rather a sensible idea to me. What is the background?