Part 2 of an 8-part series on the COUNTERWEIGHT SYSTEM, which will be posted every other week.
(Tip: Even if you don’t have a counterweight system in your theatre, your vocational students will probably work with them in college or in the real world, so a ‘theory’ lesson is always a good idea!)
High school students – and anyone who will be operating the counterweight system - must be taught the theory and practices of operating the system safely. The operator is a part of they system. Whether a rope or cable fails or whether the operator fails, the system is compromised as a whole.
The fact that as soon as your student lays hands on a rope s/he becomes a part of the system, is pause for thought. For this reason, you must have a strict protocol about using the fly system, and although teenagers can actually be trusted to use the fly system safely (high school techies do tend to take ownership of the protocol), they must first be trained. Students should also be taught to be aware with their senses (this goes for any component system of a theatre). They should be taught to look, listen, and smell, and to report anything unusual.
You simply cannot send a untrained high school student over to the ropes and ask them to lower a set wall or a drape. This not only includes the actual flying of set pieces, but how to hang things properly from the pipes and how to re-weight appropriately (it’s not recommended that students do this, but more on that later).
As the name suggests the whole system relies on counter balancing, or “counterweighting”, objects. Every time you change the weight hanging on a pipe by adding scenery or lights, or by taking off scenery or lights, you have to “counter weight” them with something commonly called pig irons or bricks. Pig irons are iron weights that are stacked on the “arbor” which is the structure that holds them in place.
Not only does this counterweighting have to happen, but it has to happen in a specific order. It is very important to keep the majority of the weight on the stage side, so that when you load weight you load the sets or lights first, and when you take away weight you take away from the arbor side first. Each of these procedures is designed to ensure that a heavy weight will not come crashing down onto the stage where people may be standing.
In addition, counterweight systems are generally built such that, while re-weighting, the lock can hold an imbalance of about 50lbs while re-weighting, but there are precautions you must take in order not to rely on the lock.
So serious is this procedure that there is an industry certification available for those doing stage rigging. The Entertainment Technician Certification Program certifies theatre technicians in the use of counterweight systems, and the mechanical and hydraulic systems that are usually permanently installed in theatres. To find out more go to www.etcp.plasa.org.
That said, in practice most high school theatres don’t have ETCP certified riggers on staff. Even professional theatre technicians have initially learned at their own high schools, universities and/or on the job over the years. Not all high schools even hire theatre technicians, so that means that the Drama teacher has to be trained in rigging techniques and safety, but even that doesn’t usually happen. And when the Drama teacher doesn’t understand, or feel comfortable using, the counterweight system s/he will come to rely on students, who self-train themselves. At one high school theatre that I started working at there was a student who had taken an interest in technical theatre, and took charge of all the rigging, but had no formal procedural or safety training on running a fly system. After he graduated I actually hired him as a technician and I made sure that he went through a rigging training program through a local company.
It’s not only important to make sure your students go through the correct training, and have their parents sign a waiver form (see the Safety chapter) before they can operate the counterweight system, but it’s also very important to supervise them at all times and to make sure they continue to follow the proper procedures. Also – keep a list of who has been trained by your fly system! It’s my philosophy that shows should be entirely run by students whenever possible, however there should always be a theatre technician present to supervise, even if it looks like on the surface that they aren’t doing anything. As I often say, you don’t send the babysitter home after the children are in bed.
More on flying procedures coming soon….
