A plea to fellow High School Theatres

[EdSavoie]

Yesterday I had a rather sudden awakening. An electrician came in while I was trying to balance amplifier levels between sets of speakers. This electrician has a background in Theatrical Lights and Sound, and we went around talking and looking at everything. As it turns out, I being a student, and I of course not being qualified the way he is, knew that there were some problems, but not to the extent he showed me. I made the mistake of assuming things had been inspected, and as it turns out, they're not. Our systems are a Hodge Podge of components from decades past, the result of many individual contractors being given work orders for individual bits and areas of our systems without anyone having inspected the entirety of it in far too long.

Please make sure that inspectors come, and have access to these places. A call to an inspector has been made in our case, and it isn't going to be pretty.

 

[EdSavoie]

Outside the scope of electricity, it turns out there are several other deficiencies that would create considerable danger in the event of fire. The original asbestos fire curtain was removed at some point, though never replaced. The roof vents are stuck closed, the fly gallery has no inspection records that can be located, and there are no emergency lights within the theatre.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

Well, if those things are truly non-compliant with regulations, in my experience there are probably many other shortcomings.

The fire safety curtain - could it have been removed because the codes changed - as they did in the US - and it's no longer required? I've done that on a number of projects - basically where the stage height his 50' or less and especially in the case of asbestos.

I assume you pulled the release on the vents to know that the springs won't overcome the "stuck"? They are pretty strong.

By fly gallery, do you mean the rigging? While it is certainly good practice and well advised to have it inspected by a qualified person annually, there is no law in the US requiring it.

Can't speak to emergency lighting or what you were looking for. Seems like an unusual thing to be missed but as you say, a number of small maintenance jobs may have disabled the original transfer gear.

 

[EdSavoie]

The release levers are gone from the vents, they are completely locked in place, there is no way to alter their position.

Even if those are in fact OK, we don't have documentation on potential hazards, and as there are some community rentals we get paid for, it crosses into workplace safety territory.

To reiterate, I'm not an expert, I accept that. It's nice to hear there's a good chance the fire curtain simply isn't required anymore. That being said, I can not legally say I'm competent on that in the fields of safety, I'm going off what someone who is legally competent told me for the electrics.

Mostly our electrical systems are in a particularly shoddy and dangerous state, to the extent of almost everything qualifying to have a lockout placed on it.

 

[MikeJ]

It would probably be better to have a consultant like Bill come in and take a look. Someone who specializes in theaters is going to know the codes, and also things that are not codes, but just general practices that should be followed, much better than a typical building inspector.

 

[EdSavoie]

Extra precautions should also be taken as none of the technicians who operate it on a day to day basis are by any official means qualified. There's no money to hire someone qualified to make sure us students don't get ourselves hurt. All we have is common sense and our teachers.

I can't speak for the Catholic board schools though, as I've heard from students there it's significantly better funded and maintained...

 

[What Rigger?]

Also Ed, I'd say don't lose too much sleep over this. As you said, you're a student- none of this is on your head. I'm not sure why a school would let just this electrician walk around telling a student what's wrong with the place when that clearly is within the sphere of an adult employee. I'm hopeful you learned some stuff, but something sounds off about this. Again: this is for the employees of your school to handle, you aren't the one this should be going to. Hand it off, and good luck.

 

[bobgaggle]

I'm guessing Ed is a dedicated student. I always tried to be around when there were trades working in my high school or around the auditorium. Tried to ask questions and learn stuff. I learned how to wire a plug by watching a contractor while cutting class. And who would have guessed, I wire a lot more plugs now than I recite civil war facts.

 

[Dionysus]

Hi Ed, as the only person in Ontario here to respond who may be familiar with local codes I think I should chime in a little. Especially since I have the training to install fire alarm systems and such.

I can't recall the rules for fire curtains here, and the codes have just changed again so I don't have the most up to date copy. The requirement here is less than 50' however I can't remember the number off hand.

Emergency lighting is required to be inspected along with other fire-related life safety systems (such as fire extinguishers, alarm systems, etc) once a year by law. It MUST be kept in working order, some of our fire codes are much stricter than the American ones. You are SUPPOSED to do a monthly inspection yourself of emergency lighting, however this is not actually enforced. However it is good practice regardless.

There is NO official requirement to have your rigging inspected annually, however I feel that there should be. Especially so in a setting such as a school.
You ARE however liable if there is a failure with the rigging due to negligence, so therefore technically you need to inspect it periodically.

In my experience unfortunately our building and electrical inspectors in general have no clue about theatre and shows, even though they are the ones who are supposed to enforce the codes we do have. And the new rules requiring engineer stamped drawings of many more structural things (such as truss) here is generally ignored or people aren't aware of the change in the rules.

And yes, NONE OF THIS IS ON YOU. Its up to the people who actually work at the school, and the school board.

 

[EdSavoie]

Thanks for responding. As it happens, things are moving forward and there is now great force behind cleaning things up at the local schools. Not going to lie, I was a *little* worked up when I wrote the post...

As for the emergency lighting you mentioned, there actually is none within the theatre, there are a few dim seat lights that Do a terrible job of lighting the way up, so those don't count.

I know none of this is on me, but if I let the things roll out their natural way, they'd either do nothing as has happened for several years, or they'd try and pull a stunt like gutting our fly house and replace lighting with some contractor's vendor's iffy permanent static system.

 

[BillConnerFASTC]

I'll just add that thanks to Canadian research, the codes used in the US are much better than they would have been otherwise. I won't bore you with the details but very valuable contributions to safety for all of us.

 

[teqniqal]

In Canada, you want to have your administration get in touch with Janet Sellery at Sellary Health & Safety (www.selleryhealthandsafety.com). She is your go-to theatre safety person in the great frozen north.

 

[StradivariusBone]

Persistence is key. I reported a failure of one of our electric headblocks (not catastrophic, but made it mostly unusable) and 3 years later they finally authorized the funds for the work. Granted they're trying to get it done in the middle of our spring show build, but progress is progress. Education, for better or for worse, is a bureaucracy and being a polite, yet squeaky wheel gets progress eventually. Knowing when to raise hell vs. when to be patient yet firm is a big challenge sometimes, at least for me.

 

[EdSavoie]

The biggest root problem is that there is a policy that the board maintenance staff cannot touch anything to do with stage. They actually leave that to the individual school, which has to maintain it out of their stressed budget, which is then compounded by the fact that we always manage to pull off events, which gives the illusion of A-OK.

Thankfully, the wheels are turning and that policy is changing. Our new problem is where to spend a chunk of money we got for lighting without getting in the way of the board's eventual gameplan for removing central dimmer systems. Whatever finally clicked with them is finally rendering the excellent space we have safe to use and modernized, so my tone has shifted rather dramatically.

This is one of those moments editing the thread title to something less dramatic would be nice...

 

[StradivariusBone]

The biggest root problem is that there is a policy that the board maintenance staff cannot touch anything to do with stage. They actually leave that to the individual school, which has to maintain it out of their stressed budget, which is then compounded by the fact that we always manage to pull off events, which gives the illusion of A-OK.

Same thing here. Our district tries to offload certain things to the schools, for example the Genie lift inspection/maintenance. Which is fine until they usurp a deal we made with a vendor with another deal we must use that costs twice as much. With our rigging it was a battle between plant maintenance and safety to life as to which department would end up footing the bill. Meanwhile we can't effectively do our jobs, but still manage to make it look good. So what if it takes three techs pulling to move the electric an inch?

 

[gafftaper]

@EdSavoie be sure to stick around CB and ask your questions and read read read! You may not have proper training or an adult mentor, but you have a lot of experts here to help you. Plus we've got @Dionysus around here he's a good guy who knows his way around a light board and doesn't live to far away from you. It's not the same as having someone there to teach you, but we can help you.

Finally, I want to congratulate you on your attitude. The older folks around here talk about some high school kids developing "King of the booth Syndrome". It's a common thing that develops with students in a similar situation to you. You have to figure it out on your own with no one to teach you. Somewhere along the way you start to develop an attitude because no one else knows how to turn on the lights. They get power, become the chosen one. I knew a kid who called himself the "lighting god".... didn't know how to program a cue... but he was a "lighting god". The problem is kids like start to think they know everything (they are told they know it all by their teachers and other students) and they aren't willing to listen to someone with years more education and experience. It's a easy trap to fall into for a student in your situation. So keep up your curiosity, your good attitude, and keep asking lots of questions!

 

[StradivariusBone]

I knew a kid who called himself the "lighting god".... didn't know how to program a cue... but he was a "lighting god".

Holy crap in a hat this drives me up the wall. I've always had a handful that once they get a few shows under their belt figure they know all there is to know, but then stumble on basic things like patching a mic in or changing a lamp. My favorite is when they pull the "that's beneath me" attitude as a cover for their ignorance. I never put a kid down for not knowing something, but I will jump all over that attitude of not trying something for fear of failure or being found out as being slightly inexperienced.

Feeling like I know nothing is a constant for me, I can't fathom these youngsters feeling mastery when they can't (or won't) put a gel frame in an S4 correctly.

 

[Dionysus]

Holy crap in a hat this drives me up the wall. I've always had a handful that once they get a few shows under their belt figure they know all there is to know, but then stumble on basic things like patching a mic in or changing a lamp. My favorite is when they pull the "that's beneath me" attitude as a cover for their ignorance. I never put a kid down for not knowing something, but I will jump all over that attitude of not trying something for fear of failure or being found out as being slightly inexperienced.

Feeling like I know nothing is a constant for me, I can't fathom these youngsters feeling mastery when they can't (or won't) put a gel frame in an S4 correctly.

Yeah Ive run into this enough in a few walks of life. Drives me NUTS. The Kruger-Dunning effect is the name.
Really drove me nuts when a show that was "designed" by this one "kid" (really a young adult) won a local award (honestly don't know how the "judges" choose) for lighting design, where myself and another tech in the venue did 90% of the lighting design. But apparently this "kid" knows it all, etc, etc.

Those of us who really know what we are talking about aren't afraid to admit we don't know everything (at least to the right ears).

 

[EdSavoie]

We've had experiences here with fellow students going that way. Hell, students have been barred from crew because they got so full of themselves they started being nasty towards teachers and clients (Not that some of them didn't deserve it sometimes, but professionalism must be maintained)