My interpretation of a Oleo is far different it seems than most of yours. To me it’s a center
stage black or otherwise colored drape that is flown. That’s about it. A
traveler is a
traveler, a
roll drop is a
roll drop. The
traveler scrim while interesting would require a lot of
wing space for a plus or minus 40
foot scrim and pulling it would by
hand would be hard on it. You would have to rig the
traveler which is even more expensive yet and a lot of length to be drawing
in one direction. Especially after you get rid of the idea of more economical T-track rails because they don’t work very well in the first place. I’m also a big fan of tight scrims thus pipe at the bottom if not even
stage screwing the pipe to the
deck or
wire guiding the
scrim and installing locks on the
wire guide to hold the
bottom pipe - especially when it had to be paged
up stage.
I would also avoid doing a
roll drop. Not only is it next to impossible to do a 40 some odd
foot roll drop, much less on a shoe string budget, any wrinkles in the
scrim would not
lay flat when it hangs, they would become creases during the show. Worse yet, any foreign objects that got on the drape would have the possibility of tearing and snagging the drape once unrolled. This would be very bad short of getting out the ladder and saving the drape given it’s known. Just takes one small splinter of wood and you could have a large snag in the
scrim.
I assume that your lighting
grid is not at ceiling height, instead it’s hung well below it or your Lekos and
drapes over the
stage would be about useless. That or you really don’t have the fly space available.
There is a third option not considered and that’s doing a West Coast
spot line off the lighting
grid. Assuming the
grid is stable enough to handle
dynamic loads and moving scenery, it’s just a question of tying off to the
grid with say some repelling loops and attaching some shivs and
idler pulleys or eyelets to keep the rope organized and neat. This than could terminate into a
pear ring or clue
block as Wolf mentions, be it a
wire guided clue for better control, or free floating. At the
pear ring or better yet clue
block you attach your
hand line and any weights you might be using were they necessary. However with this
system, as opposed to flying the
scrim up to the ceiling, you would be lowering in the pipe during a
blackout and cast and crew would run in with tie
line to tie the drape up to it’s
batten. Than it gets flown back up to the
grid and hopefully out of sight. Given the
scrim was sized to hang from the
grid, it might be necessary to cheseborough some short lengths of pipe above the
grid to attach to and have room for the pulleys to hang plus room for knots. At that
point forged eye bolts and quick links or carabineers could be used to directly attach to the pipe lengths. Such a
system could work ok given a
blackout, and be safe enough for the TD to engineer. It also would not require any special ladders or lift equipment to install or move about. It might be necessary to do a 3:1 mechanical advantage with it so you have enough room to work the rope much less add any sand bags necessary which won’t hit the floor and be out of balance after they hit.
It’s possible given your ceiling height, your theater was designed to hang and fly stuff, it just does not have the
gallery much less
grid or fly
rail. What is holding up your
grid? Is it supported by walls or the ceiling or both? There any sizable I-Beams up there much less
truss to hang from? This type of rigging however will require a actual trained rigger if not rigging company to at least initially install and given no access to it, maintain for you. Lots of ways you can do this on the other
hand. Just very difficult to maintain much less move about.
First and optimum would be to install some mini chain or
wire rope hoists in the ceiling. One per
lineset supporting the pipe. For a
scrim, I might go with three as long as I had actual
batten pipe and not sch. 40 black water pipe that’s both heavier and less strong for long spans. Otherwise I would go with a minimum of four pickup points. However if paying to install hoists, I would do six of them. A 300#
wire rope winch rated for
stage usage would be fairly inexpensive and dependable.
Bolt them to the ceiling and
wire up a
pendant switch by the
stage manager. This would not be that expensive to do.
After that you could go with pulleyes and do a horizontal
wire guided clue
system attached to a ceiling mounted
chain hoist or
winch. This would require a
bit more parts and space for the clue to travel however. Possible it can be taken out of alignment from the pipe however. Nobody ever said that if you are doing a
spot line it has to be rigged directly in
line with the
batten. Say all the way
down stage you have
hoist and
wire guided clue
block travel space, than mule pulleyes running off to their various locations diagonally across the
stage ceiling. In this way you could locate the
hoist in an area that is accessible by ladder to it for service and repair. In a school you now have a safe
system installed and one that’s easy to maintain and even add to without needing a fly
deck or walk able
grid. Just install more horizontal clue blocks and hoists in the service area and perhaps eventually a cat walk to service the clue
rail.
After that, you can do a single floor mounted
winch spot
block system attached to a small
wire or T-Track
grid that does not require a
hand line’s head and
foot block assembly thus can be installed about anywhere given a swivel
head block clamping to some steel. Since it’s all
wire rope, and simple for the most part, the costs will not be huge but most hoists are fairly slow in operation. Otherwise a
bit cheaper might be a more normal single
purchase fly
system with counter weight carriage to supplement the
hoist if not let it be run independent of the
hoist at a faster speed once counter balanced. Such a counter balanced fly
system given it’s
wire guided will run about $1,000 in parts and hopefully the same in labor for a single
lineset. It being supplemented with the
hoist would mean you can probably get away without a loading
deck proper. Unfortunately, for distances over 30' a
wire guided
system for the carriage does not work too well. Too much flex in the
wire guides which has the potential for crashing weights to the floor. Instead I would go sand bags with a
wire guide
system if it’s not a part of a large fly
rail system. In any case it might be possible to install a lock
rail/
foot block anywhere in
line with the pipe including all by itself in the
wing and not near a wall with a
wire guide
system. It would be better near the wall however so there is less bumping into it possibly causing damage. Otherwise if you have a wall a T-Track
system while probably three times as expensive will be very safe for use with steel counterweights thus can be rigged for a larger load. On either counter weight/
hand line system, you are very limited due to the
head block to keeping it in
line with the pipe short of doing mule blocks which will change direction but also add a lot of friction to the
system.
Any of the above would be an investment for the school and probably the only option since you can’t exactly get up to the ceiling to install a spot
block pin-rail
system. That’s a shame but I expect you have what 30 plus feet to the ceiling and a big
grid in the way of a
man-lift getting there. Unfortunately much of your
goods probably will not
fly out of sight unless the place really was designed to have a fly
system. Lots of theaters have some height above the
stage but it’s not sufficient an amount of space for fly
goods. Might be high but depending upon your
trim height most
goods will hang down a
bit forcing you to adjust
trim heights lower especially after you account for underhung blocks and
trim chains.
Tripping your
scrim up to
clear this lower height given you can’t get at the ceiling probably won’t be an option either.
Doing spot lines would be really easy if you could get to the ceiling to hang them and had something to hang from. You could install your pin-rail anywhere on
stage by use of the above horizontal clue
block system or just using swivel
wire rope or rope pulleys depending upon the type lines used, weight and budget. The longer the span and the greater the load, the more stretch rope will have so while cheap in parts rope stretch and wear on a pipe will be a constant thing. On the other
hand, it’s usually cheaper and easier to install such a thing when light enough. Given the wires run to a grouping of independent swivel head blocks they can be installed anywhere on the
stage you have a place to tie off to. Simple as running the lines to
head block assembly than attaching to a
pear ring or clue
block that’s either
wire guided or free floating. Than either attaching sand bags to the clue
block and a pull rope, or
fitting it up for mechanical advantage such as 3:1 and having to pull more rope but having more force behind your pulling. This has gravity and a more of a direct
line of pulling the pipe than the horizontal clue
system which is going to have more friction the steeper the angle the head
mule block is at. Doing the vertical clue will also provide a solid place to attach the sand bag, otherwise you would need to attach the sand bag to a
Sunday or rope
grip for the sand bag. It’s possible to
drop all lines to the floor and not have a single
hand line if space is tight and even sand bag them with a multi hole rope
grip, but much harder to control them equally.
In doing a mechanical advantage
system, you would need to add some structure to hold a rigging type ascender to the pin
rail lock tie off rope clue or pin holder, otherwise since your load is still out of balance, should you loose your
grip it will fall even if you have mechanical advantage working for you. Short of having the ascender bolted to a structure, it would not be easy to use in this situation. With rope it could all be repelling equipment under certain conditions, thus inexpensive but actual rigging equipment and
wire rope would be better designed for the purpose. Just need to
bolt the pin
rail to the floor or wall in addition to hanging the blocks hopefully off some I-Beams.
Again contact a rigging company or free lance rigger that is bonded and insured should you attach anything to the ceiling at least initially for the eyes on site option.
Stage Rigging Handbook by Glerum will give you an idea of how to work much of this but not how to attach it. Hire a rigger to show how my final advice.