Let's go to the Circus

[gafftaper]

So I took my two little boys to the circus last weekend. I was really surprised at the level of tech going on there.

First off they hung a MONSTROUS grid. The arena floor is hockey rink sized and the grid covered the whole space. They had lots of moving lights. Most appeared to be older Studio 575's but they also had 12 DL2's... which were working constantly (Lot's of cool looks with fabric and video).

The crew was huge... must have been over a dozen people in black running around. The choreography of changing sets from scene to scene is amazing. They work really hard to keep your attention fixed on one end of the arena while the crew is doing a huge set change somewhere else.

I was amazed at how much stuff was built into the grid. It wasn't just lights and sound. The tiger cage was built into the grid (two concentric rings of slightly different sizes with "chain link fence" in between just lower it all down and raise the top ring up). They had a wheel of death sort of mechanism built into the grid, just lower it down. Lot's of other gags built in. There was even a mime/magic scene performed upside down 40' in teh air. They had a living room set upside down suspended from the grid. The actors appeared to be harnessed under their clothes and attached upside down to the floor by one foot... CRAZY stuff. The effect was really great... and it kept our attention looking far away from another set change.

Then there was the human cannon ball... I noticed the use of laser sights to aim the cannons and get the airbags lined up. Clearly it's beyond the TOS to discuss how the cannon works but I'm fascinated by it. It wasn't a canon. There was boom but it was just a well timed pyro effect. The cannon must be some sort of pneumatic or hydraulic mechanism... but exactly how it works has me a little confused. If you know please PM me! They flew about 70' through the air.

Before the show, you are allowed to go down on the stage and watch several warm up acts up close. As I was leaving the floor I walked past the pyro control system. Sitting with a dust cover on it... but no crew person guarding it. Hopefully, there was a secondary level of safety somewhere that I couldn't see. But having thousands of people walk two feet from a pyro control system is not my idea of a good idea.

[dvsDave]

Any pics from the Circus?

[gafftaper]

No... only pictures of the kids. I wasn't thinking about posting a tech report at the time. Next time I'll grab a picture of me in front of the pyro control board about to press a button.

[mstaylor]

Sounds like a RB&BB circus. If so they are usually very good at having someone near the pyro board all the time. Hopefully if he wasn't near he has the lockout engaged and the key with him. I know the upside down act you are talking about, I have rigged that show.

[gafftaper]

How many crew do they have with them? It looked like half a dozen general stage hands and another half dozen riggers. Perhaps one or two pyro people on the floor as well. Am I close? Is everyone a rigger?

[porkchop]

Was it a Ringling Bros's circus? If so I can look into any questions you have, they are one of many Feld productions.

As a side note if it is RB&BB they use a double key pyro console, so you could push the button all you like but without the keys that the pyro guy has you can't even power up the slaves yet alone get close to actually firing an effect.

This is the exact console that I'm told every Feld show has:

[gafftaper]

Yes this was "The greatest show on Earth", although when it comes to greatest shows I think Ka has it beat. Plus I sure do like Les Mis. Then there was this hotty I met in Vegas who put on quite a... wait no, that was actually dvsDave

Yep that's the controller I saw. Nothing was lit up so I assume that means it was off and the key removed and therefore safe. However, I'm paranoid enough I still wouldn't want thousands of people walking past it unattended.