Drilling or Bolting into a Stage

Hello all! What's is everyone opinion on this? Do most theatre's allow this? If the hole can be repaired should one be allowed to Bolt or Drill into the ground?
Thank you all so much! Just curious for fun.

Depends on the stage and the types of events. Stages in rental houses are more likely to be used for all kinds of things where the stage floor is either clearly visible or needs to be a smooth surface. They also have such a high turnover of events that if they allowed everyone to screw into their floor, they'd be replacing their floor much more frequently no matter how well you think you can plug the hole up afterward. In this application, most shows coming into the theater are there for a day or two, or a week max.

Conversely, a repertory theater may stage a dozen shows a year, they may own their stage or be a substantial stakeholder in the venue, and have an understanding that they'll be painting the floor or bolting into it, and then leaving the set in place for a 6-week run.

The other factor here is budget. Is the venue making enough dough off of the productions to pay for replacing the stage floor more frequently ( --- again, only so many times you can plug the floor before it's Swiss cheese). A venue with no maintenance budget may be wise to do everything in their power to keep their facility in tip-top shape and take as few risks as possible.

Also important to consider from the venue's perspective that while everyone may be well-intentioned, good intentions don't pay for the venue employing stagehands after the show loads out to get the holes plugged. I see this most often with people who want to paint a stage floor. They're happy to paint it black afterward but lack of time, opportunity, or whatever and suddenly someone is stuck at the venue until 4am painting the floor black again because the production didn't keep their end of the bargain and the stage needs to be ready for a symphony to be on it the next day with a black floor.

Matters what the floor is made of too. If it's hardboard on plywood, that's pretty easy to work with. If it's oak because the floor was originally intended to be a stained hardwood for a concert hall, then the only way you're getting that screw back out of that stage floor is to grind the shank off flush to the floor.

Most rental houses don't get an option, if the show that comes in needs to bolt to the floor it gets bolted to the floor, our house is a sprung pine floor. We fill by drilling out for a dowel cutting to flush and spot stain

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I have no problem with multi-purpose screws into my floors. Dance companies bring in their own marley. I limit large holes to the availability of appropriately sized dowels to plug them. We generally have plenty of time between events.

"There's no way you're screwing into the floor at our Theatre. Lets look at weights, reinforcing the structure or otherwise bracing it, in order to keep it in place."
A regular conversation I have here.

Ric said:

"There's no way you're screwing into the floor at our Theatre. Lets look at weights, reinforcing the structure or otherwise bracing it, in order to keep it in place."
A regular conversation I have here.

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I have the same conversation at mine. I work at a non profit that has a full theater for community/business/and other high profile events. As such, were not into replacing the flooring or patching after every show. Nothing gets drilled, no staples, no glue, no tape other than spike or gaff. No exceptions.

With this in mind, I feel like I still repair the stage floor regularly, and paint it often.

I just assume all stage floors will be screwed into.

We don't allow screwing or bolting in either of our rooms. To much activity with no turn around time plus we have a vinyl floor under our maso glued with glue containing asbestos.

Footer said:

We don't allow screwing or bolting in either of our rooms. To much activity with no turn around time plus we have a vinyl floor under our maso glued with glue containing asbestos.

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Good deturant to keep ppl from screwing or drilling your floor.