The
arbor pit is a fundamental part of the rigging
system, and is built to save money. When running any rigging set up and down, the
arbor, not the pipe
batten, hits its up and down limits of travel first. The
arbor can be 9' long or longer. This loses roughly 9' of travel. Therefore the
batten high
trim is limited by the
arbor length far below the
grid. The pipe can't travel higher because the
arbor has already hit the floor. This wastes the expense of building a high
grid and high
stage house. It is possible to regain the use of the otherwise wasted space between the high
trim and the
grid in several ways. We find the best way is to use an
arbor pit. This pit gets the
stage floor out of the way under the arbors and so extends the
arbor travel downward below the
stage level so the high
trim can be extended up to the
grid.
This all sounds like hocus pocus until one takes the time to
lay out the rigging both ways and compare the differences. An
arbor pit has the same
effect on the high
trim as raising the
stage house roof, and it's a lot cheaper.
Arbor pits are not recent inventions, but still many people haven't heard of them, possibly because
arbor pits are tucked out of the way and sort of invisible. Even though they are not often noticed
arbor pits are mainstream
stage technology today. Most new theaters have single
purchase rigging and have an
arbor pit.
