yep yep that sounds right! Thanks ship!
Our
fire curtain has several of those melting links in its cable so it will
drop. It also has two handles like you said, one on each side of the
stage, that can be manually fliped to
drop it. (all techs have been informed that our school still has not gotten enough sense about it to create a fire procedure for the
auditorium (they did the rest of the school, but forgot about the room with the most flamable stuff!) but they know to flip the swich, one person steps out and calmly asks the audience to exit the others help everyone out of backstage and gets out themselves)
the one thing that kinda weirds me, there is a box that the cable runs through, it has a magneticly held arm that will
release the cable if you push a
button on it (kinda like another handle), but it has wires running into it and I am not sure if those just
release it if the rest of the fire alarm is going off (doubtful, b/c the fire alarm has gone off without it droping, but then it might not have been an alarm over the
stage that was going off). Those wires might also cary a signal back the fire alarm though...
while we're talking about fire stuff... my
stage also has two
trap door type things that are counterweighted to open and vent
smoke out. the not very reassureing thing was when small puddles started forming on the
stage, and I asked them to look into why, the guy went up on the roof (unknown to us) and all of a sudden, as we were working on the lights, we heard a bang and then 2 nuts and 2 bolts slamed down on to the
stage, and the lighting looked really different.... and we here "oops, that wasnt installed right!" lol the doors had opened when they wernt supposto and almost hit us in the head with the bolts that wernt put in right, (and we couldnt test the lighting b/c we were fighting the sun).
If you want more scary storys, about
safety equipment not properly installed.... (nothing in my
auditorium was installed properly!) we have special batery powered emergency lights that flip down out of the ceiling (so they are flush when the
power is on). except some of our wernt installed right, so they never stop trying to open and close when the
power is off (and sometimes after it is on again). the
effect is really odd, kinda like all of a sudden our auditorum has a half dozen moving lights all swinging back and forth in different directions at different speeds!
oh ya, and the emergency lights over the
stage (battery backups right inside the flourecent work lights) insist on beeping 3 times every 5 seconds until you push the reset
button on them each time after the
power goes out, the only problem, they are a story up, above all the chains and cables of our fly
system, where the Giene lift wont fit without 3 extra people to pull all the wires to eather side out of the way!!! talk about annoying!!! lol
ok, enough of me ranting!!! Fire and
safety equipment is important and everyone should make sure it is installed and working properly for everyone
safety! (yes, maybe you are superman, but remember, actors and audience members work in the same areas you do!!)