Mountain School

[rochem]

So in the interest of furthering my theatrical education, I've been looking to take a good rigging class to learn a bit more about what I'm doing. Rigging has always interested me, and while I've read a few good books on the subject, I'd really like to take a class that can give me some focused-in, hands-on exposure to the concepts and practices. One of the classes that caught my attention was Mountain School, offered through Mountain Productions in PA: Mountain Productions' 26th Annual Hoist School :: Home.

Has anyone taken this course, or heard anything good or bad about it? I've been looking at it for a few weeks, and it looks very interesting. While my primary interest is in theatre as opposed to arena work, I've already received pretty advanced training on theatrical flying systems (both operation and building/designing) and I'm more interested in expanding to the use of chain hoists and rigging points and temporary rigging techniques. Fortunately, it happens to fall squarely within a break from school, and because it's pretty close by, travel will be cheap as well. However, I was surprised that I didn't find much discussion on it anywhere, so I wanted to solicit some insight from others.

Also, if anyone has any other rigging seminars they'd recommend, I'd appreciate it. Mountain School seems like a pretty good deal for me at this time, but if someone has a significantly better alternative, I would definitely go for that too.

Thanks!

 

[derekleffew]

It's excellent. Do it. Bill Sapsis usually teaches a portion of it, but won't be there this year due to scheduling. Chain hoists are being used in the theatre more and more. I think you'll get a lot out of it.

 

[jstroming]

I went. It was fun, I went mostly to refresh my memory on basic rigging as I had some shows coming up that summer that required extensive rigging and I wanted to make sure I didn't sound like an idiot when talking with the Production Rigger. I was definitely the youngest one there (I was 21 at the time), although there were a few mid-20 year old's I met from BML and one from Full Sail.

Sapsis was there the year that I went, and some of the side comments were interesting to say the least, as there is some competition between SRI and Mountain.

Honestly the best part of the whole thing were the nightly events, which entailed myself (definitely NOT a roadie-looking character) and about 40 other very "interesting" characters patronizing late-night bars and strip clubs. Imagine 40 roadies coming off a yellow school bus heading for your strip club in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.....I'd run for the hills! I don't remember most of the lectures, as did most of the people I became friends with, because we were too hungover the first few hours of each day.

The first day they broke us off into 2 groups and we alternated "rooms" they had cordoned off in their drape shop with pipe and drape. The lectures definitely dragged on....You could tell the respect all the riggers had for Bill, Jim, the CM reps and all the lecturers, but I wanted to kill myself by about hour 3. I just don't have the need to know about the 25 different ways to wrap a spanset around truss and then hear the arguing from all sides of why which way is and isnt correct. There were ALOT of opinions and arguing, but like I said everyone was very respectful. Plus we got to meet the guy who was on the motor controller when the mothergrid failed at the Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera show, to which he pretty much responded "I just hit the buttons, not my problem".

I would go if you're serious about getting into rigging and have prior experience, or if your company pays for you to go then you might as well go to have some fun at night. If your rigging expertise is limited to having bolted together some triangle truss for a wedding DJ at the local VFW hall, I would forget it, it just gets too complicated at times. Plus we did a decent amount of math, which my friend Gator found to be quite the rage but I just wasn't digging.

Jim and his wife do a GREAT job as hosts, and they do not hide the fact that they host this at a loss for Mountain in the hopes that you consider buying from them in the future If you do the math on how much you're paying and what you get for it (transportation, food, entertainment are all taken care of) you realize there's someone else helping to cover the cost. The hotel was pretty terrible, but based on the clientele I didn't expect the four seasons! HAHA.

Plus you can hang some cool certificates in your office that say you're "Motor competent" and "Truss inspection certified" like I did!!!!

 

[avkid]

I've seriously been thinking about some sort of rigging training, but the timing is horrible in regards to funding.

A one day Lodestar class in the Northeast would be great, but the closes one is in Virginia.

 

[mstaylor]

I went. It was fun, I went mostly to refresh my memory on basic rigging as I had some shows coming up that summer that required extensive rigging and I wanted to make sure I didn't sound like an idiot when talking with the Production Rigger. I was definitely the youngest one there (I was 21 at the time), although there were a few mid-20 year old's I met from BML and one from Full Sail.

Sapsis was there the year that I went, and some of the side comments were interesting to say the least, as there is some competition between SRI and Mountain.

Honestly the best part of the whole thing were the nightly events, which entailed myself (definitely NOT a roadie-looking character) and about 40 other very "interesting" characters patronizing late-night bars and strip clubs. Imagine 40 roadies coming off a yellow school bus heading for your strip club in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania.....I'd run for the hills! I don't remember most of the lectures, as did most of the people I became friends with, because we were too hungover the first few hours of each day.

The first day they broke us off into 2 groups and we alternated "rooms" they had cordoned off in their drape shop with pipe and drape. The lectures definitely dragged on....You could tell the respect all the riggers had for Bill, Jim, the CM reps and all the lecturers, but I wanted to kill myself by about hour 3. I just don't have the need to know about the 25 different ways to wrap a spanset around truss and then hear the arguing from all sides of why which way is and isnt correct. There were ALOT of opinions and arguing, but like I said everyone was very respectful. Plus we got to meet the guy who was on the motor controller when the mothergrid failed at the Justin Timberlake/Christina Aguilera show, to which he pretty much responded "I just hit the buttons, not my problem".

I would go if you're serious about getting into rigging and have prior experience, or if your company pays for you to go then you might as well go to have some fun at night. If your rigging expertise is limited to having bolted together some triangle truss for a wedding DJ at the local VFW hall, I would forget it, it just gets too complicated at times. Plus we did a decent amount of math, which my friend Gator found to be quite the rage but I just wasn't digging.

Jim and his wife do a GREAT job as hosts, and they do not hide the fact that they host this at a loss for Mountain in the hopes that you consider buying from them in the future If you do the math on how much you're paying and what you get for it (transportation, food, entertainment are all taken care of) you realize there's someone else helping to cover the cost. The hotel was pretty terrible, but based on the clientele I didn't expect the four seasons! HAHA.

Plus you can hang some cool certificates in your office that say you're "Motor competent" and "Truss inspection certified" like I did!!!!

It sounds like you were in my class. If Gator is a long haired guy, he works for me. We had three guys there, my head rigger, Gator and myself. I was one of the math geeks in that class. I also helped with the rigging demo. Gator and I were partners in the CM breakdown. I was the guy that knew what "wallered" meant.

 

[derekleffew]

...I was the guy that knew what "wallered" meant.

As in "I wallered in the mud with the pig"?

 

[mstaylor]

Nope, the first thing during disassembly of a CM motor is to check for waller.

 

[rochem]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys. As a follow up, I did decide to go, so I'm all registered and I'll be taking the class in mid-March. At least I'll be able to say that I know what "wallered" means!

 

[mstaylor]

Wallered:
A round hole that is now oblong. Can also apply to bearing races.

 

[bishopthomas]

I've wanted to go for a while but just cannot cough up the $900 to attend. I don't currently do a lot of rigging and I feel that I could at least get the basics by hiring a local rigger and having him show me the basics at various venues. Eventually I'll go, but certainly not this year.

 

[jstroming]

Yup I was the young kid in the class, about 21 at the time. Hung out with them and a few people at the hotel I think about the second night, maybe you were there for that.

 

[mstaylor]

I spent some time in the hotel bar, went to the dinners but stayed away from the after hours entertainment. I'm not much of a partier anymore and I don't like going to party and have control over when I leave.