truss spot?

[JahJahwarrior]

This might sound like a really stupid question...I have been wondering for a while what people mean by "truss spot" and "truss spot operator." does that mean someone is sitting on the truss witha mounted followspot? or are those intels that are supposed to follow a person? I did some google searching and the only info I found was about the truss spot op who fell off of a chain ladder at a bowie concert. Can someone please tell me about truss spots adn their operators, and what'd be really nice is a picture. thanks!

 

[techieman33]

It's basically just like a normal spot with a normal operator, except they are on sittling on top of the truss, strapped in of couse. they sit in a chair, and operate the spot beside them. I love climbing and focusing on truss, but i woudn't want to run a spot, being up there for 2+ hours with all of those extremly hot lights would suck. But if they told me to get up there and do it I probably would. It's always nice to get experience in different positions.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

if anyone has pictures, I'd really like to see some! I've never seen a truss spot. If they aren't on the internet, you can email them to me. frogprince722 atyahoo.com

thanks techieman for the explanation!

 

[techieman33]

http://www.roadie.net/portal/html/modules/myalbum/photo.php?lid=109

there's the url to one pic that kind of show it, it's not very good though.

 

[ship]

You obviously have not found the URL about a female spot op stuck on a truss and needing to go really really badly in a way that empty coke bottles won't do correctly. Clear Com message - "I really really need to go!!!" Or is that just more local legend in how do you later clean the chair. Than again, there is for the other gender that which rains down which should not because they had to go worse than the mouth of the bottle. 1L. Coke bottles for all useful purposes to be somewhat crude.

The seats are race car comfie chair mounted to the top of the truss, but they lack a certain specific, very specific modisty much less functional thing to them. In getting to them you have fall protection in climbing the truss ladder and horizontal life line to walk the truss and wait. The David Bowie thing was a seriously bad day and one not normal.

It can be cool to chat at times about the coolness of being spot one for the show in despising certain songs when they are on the raidio, much less other show things but there is a certain extent about being stuck on a truss hours on end I'm glad I never had to deal with.

The big thing in follow spots last year was for Euro based tours - heavily modified beam projector substitutes for follow spots. Great lively beam of light once you counter balanced the sucker for a add on scroller to pintal mount. In addition to the follow spot ranging from say 1271 to M2 in the truss, learn the beam projector fixture as it will be back.

I have lots of friends that sit in these seats as part of their living. It's a living and fun for them. I more prefer to have a more 9:5 lifestyle.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

sounds to me like the kinda' thing that is fun the first few times, then begins to suck slowly but surely.

more questions:

what is a bo'suns chair?

where in that picture is a truss spot? I thought I saw it at first but when I looked I realized that what I was seeing is probably a chain lift, on the first truss there. all I see on the first two truss are pars and a few ellipsoidals.

Ship, sounds like a code 249!

 

[techieman33]

Sorry, i guess those are just ellipsoidals, but the 2 on the front section of truss, would be similar to how a spot was positioned.
Ship I've got you beat. When Weird Al came thru last summer, I was asked to truss focus for the first time, and the electrician was very weary about it, and didn't wnat me to use one on his harnesses, so we asked why, and he said he had a woman do it the week before, and she got so scared she had a "movement" in his harness. And some of it fell to the floor. Don't ask me how this happened, but he assured us it did. And of course after hearing that I was scared as hell the entire time I was up there. But after doing it a couple of times, it's become fun.

 

[ship]

Easy to have me beat, I can about count on one hand how many safety harnesses, much less no hands how many truss ladders I have climbed. Though I'm somehow stuck with ensuring the repair or safety of the equipment to some degree more or less, you won't at this point find me climbing up to a truss.

Thanks for the curse by the way. I already have to climb up to about the 98th floor of a sky rise in figuring out why a fluorescent fixture won't work this week. Next thing you know, I will have to trouble shoot a spot on a truss.

Not afraid of heights, just not wishing to tempt more of fate than has already been tempted.

Bosen's chair. Now that's something without harness I have tempted fate with in the past. It's say a swing chair - normally wooden planked that is hung from something so you can sit on it as you work. Now that is one of the most scarey experiences possible. Yea, I'll sit in it and bolt in the loft blocks from the under the gride side....

 

[techieman33]

Ya, climbing truss is one of those things usually left to us younger folks. Not saying your old or anything, i don't think we have anyone in my area over the age of 25 that will voulentarily climb truss.

 

[ship]

No offense taken on my part. Those with brains by the time they hit mid to late 30's and above have real jobs in lighting or at least better things to do during a show or in support of it, that don't require climbing ladders and ensure their retirement, or real jobs elsewhere. (And I have just pissed off 1/3 of the IA industry.) Climbing truss and doing the spot thing is more a young person type of thing normally. I'm a theater person that got into the entertainment biz well after this early period in any case thus me not doing tours or shows.

I have run spot for shows, just on a more stable platform.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

so, usualy, is the spot right over the stage, for a straight down spotlight? Or is it usually in a truss foh?

Where I am, we have three battens. Oh, two tormentors outside too, but those are only 3 feet long so they don't count I have never really climbed a truss...we have one section of triangle truss that I do not believe is for stage applications, we callit the "radio tower" and it sits up straight and we use it on stage sometimes for things. (heck, we've hung fences from the I beams in the roof before...we do alot of really wierd, really cool things for an event called SURGE that happens periodically. ) and I have climbed that before, trying to mount a light up high on it. didn't work, the pipe is too thin. it's also solid pipe, not hollow, which is another reason I am sure it is a real radio tower of some sort, not a stage truss.

um....if any of you all have a pic, I sitll wouldn't mind seeing it, but if not, that's cool. I'm 15, so if we had one, I'd probablyw illinging climb it once or twice.....see, I'm scared of heights, so I might give up after that, but....the closest I have come is rigging in a genie lift,you have to climb up the outside spine to get in it, unless you have someone willing to push you around (I always have someone spotting me, but not always someone willing to push me around because it's heavy! ) and that's similar I supose to a truss ladder.

 

[techieman33]

The spots can be positioned anywhere, usually FOH, but when Keith Urban came through, they had a truss spot at the back of the stage. They can go pretty much anywhere. And a truss ladder is nothing like a genie, it's wire ladder, it sucks climbing it. You have to have someone on the ground to hold it tight, and it still swings like crazy. And you usually climb them sideways, it's a pain.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

like a home fire escape ladder? I didn't think it'd be exactly like climbing a genie, but in general, that's the closest I get to climbing things, bieng up high in things, that stuff. Never seen a harness or fall protection in person.

 

[techieman33]

Ya, it's a lot like a home fire escape ladder, except it's usually a lot longer. Usually around 50ft. Though I've gone as high as 75ft. And the harness and fall protection isn't really anything special. It's just a normal harness, kind of like a thick seatbelt material. It's pretty uncomfortable as well. And the fall protection usually consits of a rope going from one end of the truss to the other and you clip your harness into that. There is a line inbetween, I can't remember what it's called at the moment, but it is bunched up fabric, and in the case of a fall, it will break apart and help to slow your fall. I just hope I never have to test it.

 

[SuperCow]

The line is called ither a maynard or a lanyard.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

i'm guissing it's like a seatbelt too in that it retracts as you go up, but if it is jerk suddenly it locks and then like you said the fabric breaks or soething to stop you falling.....

if it was jus a rope then when you fell you'd hit the ground. if it is just a short rope, then you coudn't clip int until you were way up there. so it has to retract, right?

wow....75 feet above the ground? that's a few stories! man! i;ve got to try that atleast once somehow!

 

[techieman33]

Well they're 2 seperate devices. I've never actually used the saftey gear for climbing the ladder, though that is basically how it works. you clip the "lanyard" into it and then climb the ladder. When you reach the top, you unclip from it, and clip onto the rope that runs along the top of the truss. So your in kind of a dangerous spot right there.
And yes 75ft. above the ground, it was an arena show. But the up riggers have it a lot worse than that. They are usually a couple of hundred feet up, dropping points for chain motors, but then that's why they get paid the big bucks.

 

[Radman]

So are those shock absorbing manyards single use then? Like a helmet, if it did it's duty get a new one?

 

[techieman33]

Very much so, once they've been "used" they aren't any good. There isn't really a way to use them again. Well at least not effectivly. And if it's your life on the line, $100 for a new one is well worth it.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

ok, so there is a retracting, single use rope called a maynard or lanyard, that you clip into t the bottom, and it retracts as you go up, but will lock and stop your fall if you fall. Then, at the top, on a one foot wide truss, you unclip from that line, and reclip to a rope, that I suppose run parallel to the truss...then if you fall you only fall a foor or two, and this rope, it's not single use, it's ljust heavy duty rope.


right?