Who Left-out the Steel? A new endangered species: Gridirons.

As both a facility designer and a rigging systems inspector I have come to notice a disturbing trend in Theatre Stage House designs: No walk-on gridiron deck.

This disease generally takes two forms: The rigging is all attached directly to the stage house roof beams (right) [don't get me started about fly systems without a weight loading bridge],

or the loft beams have been installed with no infill between them. Either incarnation is troubling for many reasons:

Day-to-day Operations: In the mounting and striking of many shows it can be very helpful to drop a rope from the grid deck to stabilize a piece of tall scenery, to drop a spot line to hang the moon, or a chandelier, or even to drop balloons, confetti, snow, or other props that ‘fall from the sky’ (hopefully, with careful blocking of the actors below).

Teaching Rigging: As students learn about technical theatre (be they techies or actors), it is vital that they understand the theatre production plant. Going up to the grid shouldn’t be a terrifying experience, but instead an interesting trip to see how all the machinery above a stage works. Understanding the tools with which you ply your trade makes for a better performer, regardless of your job description. A trip to the grid also makes for good safety training as it helps everyone better grasp the safety issues of secure attachments, good work lighting, and hazard recognition skills.

Service Calls: If you have a lift line jump free from a loft block, something squeaky, creaky, or ‘just not right’ in the fly system; it can really help to get a set of eyes on the problem. And it’s not just the rigging that needs attention: Smoke Vents are here, this is where roof leaks make themselves known, and sometimes this is where the roof access hatch is located. There are sprinkler pipes and sprinkler heads, air ducts, work lights, and fire detections devices (smoke detectors and rate-of-rise heat detectors), too. In some systems, the Motor Control Center (MCC) is located at the grid deck level, too, so something a simple a resetting a tripped circuit breaker or blown fuse requires a trip to the top.

Inspecting the Rigging: Most of the elements described above require quarterly, annual, or semi-annual inspections. All of the fire protective systems inspection schedules are defined in the NFPA code books (or similar definitions in other countries), and there are very few jurisdictions where this is not in effect. Annual inspection of the stage rigging system is required by OSHA, and they are a really good idea even if you are not directly under OSHA jurisdiction. A thorough rigging system inspection requires access to the loft blocks to see that they are secure, aligned, running freely, and don’t have any signs of abnormal wear.

With a walk-on gridiron deck, this can be done in less than a day for most facilities, and only requires one inspector and an assistant. However, if the loft blocks are 40-65 feet (12-20 meters) above the stage, with no access to them, then this means that a boom-arm lift or scaffolding must be brought-in, typically at great expense. You have to find-out what equipment will fit into the building through the available passageways [don’t get me started . . . ], figure-out if the floor structure can handle that much concentrated load [don’t get me started on this, either], rent the equipment, have it delivered, get it into the building, onto the stage, and set-up. One must then work themselves around between the fly battens, curtains, lights, power cables, and other obstacles like sprinkler pipes, electrical conduits, and air ducts to get eyes-on for each piece of the rigging. This can be very slow going, and take as much as a week to accomplish. Oh yeah, did I mention that you’ll need at least one other person to be a ground spotter, and maybe more depending upon the scaffolding or lift arrangement you are using? And that you may have to put-down a layer of protective decking to keep the lift or scaffolding from damaging the performance flooring?

Imagine the same scenario for any of the other system to be inspected or serviced. If a lift line gets fouled at five minutes before show-time, with a walk-on grid there is a good chance that the problem can be resolved before the curtain rises. Kiss that hope good-bye if you can’t get to the rigging.

Safety: Without a walk-on service deck your facility designer and owner are inviting ‘make-do’ solutions to everyday tasks. Will your staff try to climb out on that beam or ride a batten to the loft? Will they have proper fall protection equipment? Will they know how to use it? Will they have an emergency rescue plan should the worker end-up suspended in the harness? Are there proper load-rated fall protection anchorage points? I see tell-tale signs of personnel climbing out on beams all the time. Scary. Is your crew doing this?

Whatever little bit of money someone thought that they were saving by not designing-in a walk-on gridiron deck is ‘penny-wise and pound foolish.’ Yet I see them all the time.

So, how does this happen? Poor or misguided design decisions early in the project design cycle is the logical answer that defies logic. Who’s theatre are they designing? Yours (the end-user), or theirs (for the suspender-popping glory of saying “I did that! And we saved money by not putting in all that 'extra' steel.” It is vital that you be engaged with the Architect’s design team (one that should include a Theatre Consultant) to see that a safe stage house structure is being designed. Budget concern? Get a donor to pay for that Crystal Chandelier in the Lobby.