Swipe Card entry system

[TimMc]

All this?? What ever happened to the good ol' stage doorman?

Facilities would rather spend $200,000 on access controls, computers, remote access, etc than pay wages to humans. That was how our PAC director got the city to pay for the system that was installed. They most like the idea that it's a one-time expense (kind of, sort of... ).

 

[TimMc]

As someone that works in high school theatres a lot where everything uses a physical key it would be so much nicer to have key cards as they can be issued more easily to people that are external contractors or even students but each can have they’re own access levels and doors they can actually unlock with having to constantly go and pester staff members that are focusing on directing the show and running rehearsals for their keys to unlock something especially as a lot of the doors lock when closed.

I’m also sort of interested in what everyone’s opinion on here is about having access control systems such as keycards in high schools specifically in theatres?

I think that's a question that needs to involve the district's security director as well as building administration. The SD will want everything double-locked, bullet proof, and require a note from a deceased relative... the Principal will be slightly less restrictive (the note may not be needed). And in general, giving students "keys" of any kind is seen as a security issue in most schools and that's been the case for decades.

 

[Ben Stiegler]

and there's logs, and no sick shifts to cover, etc. Often optimal is a hybrid - access control at the portals, but enough cameras so that a campus or city-wide security officer can view/talk/provide access if a card fails or an elevator needs to be unlocked.

 

[TimMc]

and there's logs, and no sick shifts to cover, etc. Often optimal is a hybrid - access control at the portals, but enough cameras so that a campus or city-wide security officer can view/talk/provide access if a card fails or an elevator needs to be unlocked.

Our PAC system was not well thought out. No call boxes, no way to contact *anyone* if one does not have working cell phone coverage - and there are places where one can get trapped where there is no coverage and no egress whatsoever. It happened 2 summers ago with a building tenant's build crew. Their card access is invalid between midnight and 7am, and a few carps were caught in a freight elevator lobby they could not escape from. They finally got a sliver of RF and called a supervisor with 24 hours access. I suggested this be reported to the fire marshal. I don't think that ever happened because the city extended the access to 1am and the tenant considered that sufficient.

Midnight was the original choice because city staff left at midnight after checking all exterior doors...

 

[GameCrasher545]

I think that's a question that needs to involve the district's security director as well as building administration. The SD will want everything double-locked, bullet proof, and require a note from a deceased relative... the Principal will be slightly less restrictive (the note may not be needed). And in general, giving students "keys" of any kind is seen as a security issue in most schools and that's been the case for decades.

I wasn’t so much meaning the entire school more so just the theatre because of the amount of different students that use it and more so locking access to things like the bio-box/booth to only people who actually need to be in there or into certain store cupboards, and other areas backstage.

Not all students working on a production need to have access to all parts of a venue, and being able to more easily restrict patrons from areas they’re not meant to be in by using keycards or pins to get through a door sort of makes sense to me. And especially in schools students do like to mess up settings on gear so the ability to lock them out of somewhere easily unless they are in there with someone who is sort of supervising them seems like a good idea. It also means that teachers aren’t having to lend out their keys and therefore they shouldn’t go missing as often which happens quite regularly with some teachers at my school because they lend out their keys cause they’re in the middle of directing the rehearsal and can’t really leave to go unlock it and it still ends up interrupting the rehearsal and then they forget which student has taken them and that then also regularly interrupts rehearsals.

And in general, giving students "keys" of any kind is seen as a security issue in most schools and that's been the case for decades.

I know schools and have been to schools where all exterior building doors are locked by keycards, fingerprint or code and students are given keycards with access to unlock any main entrance doors in the buildings they need access to and there has been no issue with security.

Also I’m in Australia where we don’t have school districts or at least don’t in the state I live in, so desicions like these would be down to the individual school unless the department of education made it mandatory for each school to have keycard locks on each door then my assumption would be they would also have to directly fund it otherwise it comes out of the schools pocket or projects budget if its a new build that they’re putting them into.

Edit: Accidentally clicked post so finished off writing the post.

 

[JimOC_1]

And in general, giving students "keys" of any kind is seen as a security issue in most schools and that's been the case for decades.

That would be an interesting poll. How many of us had keys to our HSs and Churches back in the day? I suspect most.

 

[RonHebbard]

That would be an interesting poll. How many of us had keys to our HSs and Churches back in the day? I suspect most.

The macho guy with the most keys wins then the lesser men began adding small bells between their keys to maximize their jangle.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[TimMc]

That would be an interesting poll. How many of us had keys to our HSs and Churches back in the day? I suspect most.

I had a key to a couple of things in high school. That lasted until the administration found out, had the locks changed and fired the teacher.

 

[TimMc]

I wasn’t so much meaning the entire school more so just the theatre because of the amount of different students that use it and more so locking access to things like the bio-box/booth to only people who actually need to be in there or into certain store cupboards, and other areas backstage.

Not all students working on a production need to have access to all parts of a venue, and being able to more easily restrict patrons from areas they’re not meant to be in by using keycards or pins to get through a door sort of makes sense to me. And especially in schools students do like to mess up settings on gear so the ability to lock them out of somewhere easily unless they are in there with someone who is sort of supervising them seems like a good idea. It also means that teachers aren’t having to lend out their keys and therefore they shouldn’t go missing as often which happens quite regularly with some teachers at my school because they lend out their keys cause they’re in the middle of directing the rehearsal and can’t really leave to go unlock it and it still ends up interrupting the rehearsal and then they forget which student has taken them and that then also regularly interrupts rehearsals.



I know schools and have been to schools where all exterior building doors are locked by keycards, fingerprint or code and students are given keycards with access to unlock any main entrance doors in the buildings they need access to and there has been no issue with security.

Also I’m in Australia where we don’t have school districts or at least don’t in the state I live in, so desicions like these would be down to the individual school unless the department of education made it mandatory for each school to have keycard locks on each door then my assumption would be they would also have to directly fund it otherwise it comes out of the schools pocket or projects budget if its a new build that they’re putting them into.

Edit: Accidentally clicked post so finished off writing the post.

I'd account for geography making for much of the difference....

And I agree with your observations about people (students, mostly) needing to get around, but that access is typically viewed as a compromise of physical plant security since the drama dept has rehearsals when there are few/no other school personnel present (most are gone 30 min after the last bell, about the time rehearsals get started). Schools tend to be leery of students without supervision after hours, but perhaps things are different in Australia.

When I say "school district" I refer to the administrative and taxing authority for schools in a defined geographic area. In the US, typically it's a city or county, or some division thereof. Does each school in Australia have their own taxing / financing authority, or are schools financed by direct tuition payments from students/families? Just curious...

 

[GameCrasher545]

I'd account for geography making for much of the difference....

And I agree with your observations about people (students, mostly) needing to get around, but that access is typically viewed as a compromise of physical plant security since the drama dept has rehearsals when there are few/no other school personnel present (most are gone 30 min after the last bell, about the time rehearsals get started). Schools tend to be leery of students without supervision after hours, but perhaps things are different in Australia.

When I say "school district" I refer to the administrative and taxing authority for schools in a defined geographic area. In the US, typically it's a city or county, or some division thereof. Does each school in Australia have their own taxing / financing authority, or are schools financed by direct tuition payments from students/families? Just curious...

So most schools that I know of and certainly the one I go to is a completely seperate entity from the state government and is run independently but they are still governed by all of the rules set by the department of education, and are funded by both state and federal governments. While parents pay a small amount each year it is generally only around the $500 AU mark but varies on what electives students pick for that year. There are some private schools here where parents do pay quite a substantial sum to sent their kids to school but then those schools also generally receive funding from the government.

In rehearsals at my school there is always at least one staff member on site who is generally our main drama teacher, but sometimes we might also have our head of arts depending on the day and the show, so students are never at rehearsals or on school grounds after hours without a member of staff present. My whole argument is just to try and reduce the disruption of rehearsals and giving students and other working on the show that need access to areas the level of access they need and only the level of access they need. I also note that one of things that someone else mentioned earlier was the ability to make access conditional of someone else being in the venue so you could restrict cards to not being able to unlock any doors when there are no members of staff in the venue, but still allows students and people working on the show to access places they need when required such as accessing restricted backstage areas and backstage in general, biobox/booth to only tech crew and directors, gantry/catwalks to tech crew only, dressing rooms (would certainly put units with pin code functionality on anything that cast would need to access while in costume as I wouldn’t expect a cast member to be carrying around a swipe card while in costume, and then would leave doors to dressing rooms unlocked during actual shows so they don’t have to mess around with codes or swipe cards during show or you have a backstage team member with a card swiping people in to maintain the security that you get by having keycards)

Yes I know some schools are very strict on what they let students do and what they are allowed to have in the way of keys, etc but certainly at my school there are a lot of times where I need keys to get into cupboards and into things that are normally locked I can go and ask certain members of staff and they a lot of time will just give me their keys and I can do or get what I need and then just give them back. I don’t mean that you get access all of the time just during rehearsal times or when staff overseeing the production choose to allow you access outside of production times if they do, and then you hand back keycards at the end of the show unless you actually have a reason for needing post show.

I mean I personally see a lot of advantages in having keycard systems in school theatres particularly in situations like mine but obviously each one would differ and would have to be looked at on a case by case basis and actually seeing what benefits it would give and what would potentially be the downfalls of having a keycard system in place.

 

[JonCarter]

That would be an interesting poll. How many of us had keys to our HSs and Churches back in the day? I suspect most.

I seem to remember having all the maser keys for every school I attended after about 7th grade. Either borrowed several individuals & made masters or borrowed masters & copied them. Still have them--somewhere. But the buildings have all been torn down long ago.

 

[GameCrasher545]

I seem to remember having all the maser keys for every school I attended after about 7th grade. Either borrowed several individuals & made masters or borrowed masters & copied them. Still have them--somewhere. But the buildings have all been torn down long ago.

I’ve got photos of the master key for my school theatre, and then I’ve also got a photo of the Grand Master Key for the entire school and then also the genie key but the masters are both restricted so would need to 3D print a key then take it to be cut otherwise they wouldn’t cut one, might do it at some point but not sure whether it’s actually worth it.

 

[RonHebbard]

I seem to remember having all the maser keys for every school I attended after about 7th grade. Either borrowed several individuals & made masters or borrowed masters & copied them. Still have them--somewhere. But the buildings have all been torn down long ago.

@JonCarter When I discovered our commercial AM station's studio master key had less metal than my tech' master, I invested several over night hours VERY carefully filing down my tech' master to a Grand Master. It worked superbly and lightened my load.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[gafftaper]

As someone that works in high school theatres a lot where everything uses a physical key it would be so much nicer to have key cards as they can be issued more easily to people that are external contractors or even students but each can have they’re own access levels and doors they can actually unlock with having to constantly go and pester staff members that are focusing on directing the show and running rehearsals for their keys to unlock something especially as a lot of the doors lock when closed.

I’m also sort of interested in what everyone’s opinion on here is about having access control systems such as keycards in high schools specifically in theatres?

We have key cards at my school to disarm the alarm and unlock a limited number of exterior doors. All of my techs have keycards. My main lead guy has a set of interior keys checked out to him all the time. There is a second set of keys in a combination lock box in the lobby. So whomever else is there can always grab a pair of keys. There are four people in my position in the district and our cards can be used to open any of the other school PACs. They have keyboxes in their lobbies too. So, we can easily run over and support each other in Emergencies.

The only issue I have is the slow district process of getting new key cards and adjusting permissions. But once they are set up, it's a great system. It's great if one of the techs disappears or you don't want them back as you can simply have their card disabled and they are locked out.

I wish we had a keypad on the stage door, that we could give out codes to the kids with a supervisor lock out so they can get in once I'm there but not before. We just leave it unlocked with a cast only sign and parents around. It "works" but its not a serious security solution and could lead to issues.

 

[GameCrasher545]

We have key cards at my school to disarm the alarm and unlock a limited number of exterior doors. All of my techs have keycards. My main lead guy has a set of interior keys checked out to him all the time. There is a second set of keys in a combination lock box in the lobby. So whomever else is there can always grab a pair of keys. There are four people in my position in the district and our cards can be used to open any of the other school PACs. They have keyboxes in their lobbies too. So, we can easily run over and support each other in Emergencies.

The only issue I have is the slow district process of getting new key cards and adjusting permissions. But once they are set up, it's a great system. It's great if one of the techs disappears or you don't want them back as you can simply have their card disabled and they are locked out.

I wish we had a keypad on the stage door, that we could give out codes to the kids with a supervisor lock out so they can get in once I'm there but not before. We just leave it unlocked with a cast only sign and parents around. It "works" but its not a serious security solution and could lead to issues.

Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to add the keypad to the stage door would it or is it more the issue of actually giving codes out to the kids. It’s things like this that I see as the biggest advantage for having systems like this in place.

It’s interesting that you mention that you’ve got a lockbox in the lobby that has a set of spare keys, how many different keys does it have and do the keys in the lockbox only work for that specific schools PAC or do they work for every schools PAC in the district?

I would sort of see it as another potential security issue if they are as if someone that shouldn’t have the keys acquires them then they could get into any PAC in the district. I mean the same sort of goes for any key that is common between schools a prime example at my school would be the gate key as it is the same at every school in the state which means any one with it can get onto a different schools grounds.

Nice though that you have a network of techs that can all support you when you need whether it be in accessing a building or I would assume with a show.

 

[gafftaper]

Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to add the keypad to the stage door would it or is it more the issue of actually giving codes out to the kids. It’s things like this that I see as the biggest advantage for having systems like this in place.

It’s interesting that you mention that you’ve got a lockbox in the lobby that has a set of spare keys, how many different keys does it have and do the keys in the lockbox only work for that specific schools PAC or do they work for every schools PAC in the district?

I would sort of see it as another potential security issue if they are as if someone that shouldn’t have the keys acquires them then they could get into any PAC in the district. I mean the same sort of goes for any key that is common between schools a prime example at my school would be the gate key as it is the same at every school in the state which means any one with it can get onto a different schools grounds.

Nice though that you have a network of techs that can all support you when you need whether it be in accessing a building or I would assume with a show.

Clearly you have never dealt with school district facilities departments and security. You can't just decide that you want to put a keypad somewhere. Everything must fit into the district master plan. Odd ball pieces of technology in one location are a huge headache when you are trying to manage over 100 buildings. They don't care about your amazing idea for your space, they just want every building to meet the district wide operations plan and to work correctly. Odd technology just complicates their job and does not get approved.

Each school PAC has different locks and a different needs for keys depending on the age, design, equipment installed, etc...

We have four PACs with four PAC managers and a pool of about 20 part time stage hands who can work in any venue, although they tend to specialize given the different equipment in each space. It's a pretty good system.

 

[GameCrasher545]

Clearly you have never dealt with school district facilities departments and security. You can't just decide that you want to put a keypad somewhere. Everything must fit into the district master plan. Odd ball pieces of technology in one location are a huge headache when you are trying to manage over 100 buildings. They don't care about your amazing idea for your space, they just want every building to meet the district wide operations plan and to work correctly. Odd technology just complicates their job and does not get approved.

Each school PAC has different locks and a different needs for keys depending on the age, design, equipment installed, etc...

We have four PACs with four PAC managers and a pool of about 20 part time stage hands who can work in any venue, although they tend to specialize given the different equipment in each space. It's a pretty good system.

You are right in saying that I’ve never dealt with school districts because as I’ve mentioned before in this thread I live in Australia where at least in my state we don’t have school districts and decisions like that are up to the individual school.

Having different keys is good but depending on how many different ones you’ve got then i would imagine it would start getting annoying, for our PAC we have 3 levels of key; Master, PA1 and PA2. Master obviously unlocks everything in the building then PA1 is restricted to the main theatre, classrooms, cupboards and doesn’t include anything like the cleaners cupboard then PA2 only allows access to the main theatre and classrooms in the building and might allow access into some other area but takes away access from our BioBox/Booth and our tech cupboard.

While they may specialise in certain pieces of equipment in different PACs they should in theory still understand the overarching theory behind things that you can potentially get help with. When it comes to sound some who is able to mix on a different console to what you have is still going to be able to mix on your console they may just not quite know their way around and may need to sit down for an hour or so and just go through it to get to grips with it. Same sort of goes for lighting any technician is going to know the top level non console idea of what they are wanting to do, it’s probably a bit harder when it comes to lighting because consoles have different syntax’s in which you use the desk.

 

[RonHebbard]

You are right in saying that I’ve never dealt with school districts because as I’ve mentioned before in this thread I live in Australia where at least in my state we don’t have school districts and decisions like that are up to the individual school.

Having different keys is good but depending on how many different ones you’ve got then i would imagine it would start getting annoying, for our PAC we have 3 levels of key; Master, PA1 and PA2. Master obviously unlocks everything in the building then PA1 is restricted to the main theatre, classrooms, cupboards and doesn’t include anything like the cleaners cupboard then PA2 only allows access to the main theatre and classrooms in the building and might allow access into some other area but takes away access from our BioBox/Booth and our tech cupboard.

While they may specialise in certain pieces of equipment in different PACs they should in theory still understand the overarching theory behind things that you can potentially get help with. When it comes to sound some who is able to mix on a different console to what you have is still going to be able to mix on your console they may just not quite know their way around and may need to sit down for an hour or so and just go through it to get to grips with it. Same sort of goes for lighting any technician is going to know the top level non console idea of what they are wanting to do, it’s probably a bit harder when it comes to lighting because consoles have different syntax’s in which you use the desk.

@GameCrasher545 Your term 'BioBox' puzzles me. I'm envisioning a glass-fronted display case in the lobby showcasing 8" x 10" glossies with mini-credits and biographies. I hope it's not biology samples scraped from your venue's floor.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

 

[GameCrasher545]

@GameCrasher545 Your term 'BioBox' puzzles me. I'm envisioning a glass-fronted display case in the lobby showcasing 8" x 10" glossies with mini-credits and biographies. I hope it's not biology samples scraped from your venue's floor.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard

@RonHebbard so the Bio Box is basically what we know as the booth or FOH but when compared to FOH it is more used to describe the enclosed position where the techs are whereas anything outside of the box is classed as FOH so if the sound op decides he/she/they want to mix from outside of the box then where ever they decide to pop it then that becomes known as a FOH Mixing Position sort of similar to at concerts.

Here is a good article that explains the origin of the term biobox expect from these days a biobox is generally bigger than they used to be and instead can accomodate about 4 to 15 people depending on the size. In one of the ones that I’ve done work in recently that is a brand new build that was only finished about 5 months ago, the bio box is big enough to fit LX op, Sound Op, VX op, then LD, and even more people but with space along the main bench for about 5 people seated depending on size of consoles being used. But there is enough space that if needed you could set up another row of tables to add additional positions for more crew for example if using robo cams then you could set up your robo cam ops of the additional tables. But basically the biobox is the same as what others know as the tech booth.

 

[Crisp image]

Surely it wouldn’t be too hard to add the keypad to the stage door would it or is it more the issue of actually giving codes out to the kids. It’s things like this that I see as the biggest advantage for having systems like this in place.

Adding a keypad is not that hard and the keypads I use are card readers too. However you need a way to add and change the code without applying to the almighty administrators of a school or those who control such things. I am fortunate that person is me and I can do all sorts of things to my system. There are devices like these Keypad controller which is a stand alone device that can control 1 door but it has limitations such as no time control and you also need a power backup because if the power goes out the doors unlock.