@Kittin In 1990, I was with a Canadian / American co-pro of "Buddy Holly The Musical" in Broadway's Shubert when a fire erupted in the 'Music Box' or 'Jewel Box' (if memory serves) around the corner where a tour of 'Lettice and Lovage' was parked with Maggie Smith and Maggie Tyzack.
48 slot / 96 x 2.4 Kw racks were flown from the
grid by Load Stars basketed to the
grid with Spansets. The NYFD were NOT favorably impressed by
dimmer racks plummeting down through the dense
smoke when the Spansets melted due to the intense heat at
grid height. I believe this was the fire that resulted in the development of GACFlex fire tated Slings.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
Oh, it was a large cart....like larger than a set cart....one that held all the
dimmer racks, pretty much it was all of
dimmer beach/LX's work arwa on a cart so it could fly and stay airborne, allowing show LX to take care of whatever was needed by climbing up. So not at all close to the
grid height, plenty of air flow around it. The had at least 4 motors, I wish I could remember if they used gak or what. Id ask my husband if he were in town right now.
They flew them to give room enough on
stage for a pretty large production (23+ trucks maybe? As a hint...prior to the productions stop, the
house had to have a new I-beam put in to carry weight of a somewhat notorious chandalier). Another one that was less weight but equally as large was automation's cross
stage flying cart which I believe was actually the
stage/show spot for one of the automation guys. Not my side of the
stage and I only checked
power and paid attention to my guys, so I wasnt paying much attention to their guys in the air after noting that everything was leashed. I saw a couple of them up there a lot though.
It wasnt the first production that has flown a large portion of a department for the show. We have a decent amount of backstage work area, but so many big shows need a heck of a lot more than we have. We honestly removed every
bit of
house gear that we would not be using including shell ceilings, meat racks, and anything else we could to make room enough for their production to have just about what they required in space. Took 3 days of prehang, and we dont keep a
house plot hung or
etc, so none of that was removing lights and cabling other than removing them from the ceiling of the shell. Was 4 days of
load in, I believe, and after the matinee show 2 weeks later (4pm maybe?), we worked until about 11am the next morning on the
load out. Then came back the following day for
restore. So, although I dont recall the exact number of trucks, it was a lot of gear brought in.
I wish I could give the exact way the cart was flown, from my limited memory of it, I think the deduction was that someone didnt pay attention to how the shackles were attached, making it slip and kaboom. I know it was done correctly the second time, when they got it up, and we had no more problems after that, or on the second one that flew. Honestly, the most vivid memories were of watching my husband and the TD walking by the
rail, under it and one of my dept guys being on the upstage side near the
rail when it came crashing down. Then the complete silence until I saw my husband and the trembling TD standing about a
foot away from where it crashed, and my guy on the other side trying to hold it together. Once I took a breath, I ended up breaking the complete silence by yelling at my husband for always trying to terrify me...jokingly. I'm scared of heights, so bad that when I started back again about 5 years ago after a small hiatus in marketing, I could go 2 steps up a ladder and started freaking out....the first time I climbed the ladder to the pin
rail, I was so terrified that I destroyed my back so bad I couldn't lift my arms straight out even halfway to making a
line with my shoulders. Now I'm a lot better, even have my own harness and have done some rock climbing gym stuff. I dont freak out anymore, but id never want to do what my husband does, and he was a lot cockier about what he was willing to do before he lost 3 rigger friends
in one year to accidents and saw his best friend ride a genie lift down from 30' to
deck when someone decided a cable was okay to run over when the lift was in the air. Not to say i dont trust my husband to do his job, but he's the type of guy who will put himself in a dangerous position that HES comfortable with if it might help/save a colleague. And by the grace of God, he was able to push our TD fast enough (TD is about 6" taller and has 75lbs on him) when he noticed the shimmy, since no one else noticed and it was incredibly sudden, the TD didnt know what was going on other than being pushed and told to move, move, move... Then it crashed down.
It was user error, not a failure of gear or under rated materials being used. Just lucky that everyone got out. I spent about an hour after the accident fielding "are you okay" queries from everyone, since I went right back to work (I was just like, hello, now we're going to be running behind since show crew all had to fix their cart). TD needed a
bit before he came out of his office after that. I let my luckily-not-flattened elec take a minute to
smoke and reflect on his decision to move out of the way instead of trying to save a piece of gear, and my husband went to explain the whole thing to the
steward (no idea after that).
I am *not* a huge fan of flying something that large and heavy above my head for the entirety of a show. But needs must. If I could simply
build a giant vending machine for everything into the wall, I would. But not entirely
practical. Nor are conveyer belts or sitting everything outside and hoping to avoid rain. So until I figure someting else out, I'm completely sans inspiration to avoid large heavy things hovering above my head