Suddenly LD Brian Livingstone was without half his rig, and two of his MAC 700s had completely lost their minds. "It was just after sound check," explained an understandably frustrated lighting crew chief Andy Rowe. "Adlib had a new rack on its way within half an hour, no worries there; but the moving lights were an altogether bigger problem....or would have been."
The stage set was up, back line in place and under normal circumstances by this time in the day the secondaries would be in and the riggers safely tucked up in bed. "The MACs are under-hung from the back truss on poles, inaccessible from the truss we would have been unable to reach them from a ladder either, at least not without striking the set. Luckily we've been trialing a new chain hoist from specialist rigging supplier LTM."
"The hoists are Swiss, LTM call them Loadguard," explained Adlib's Andy Dockerty, who despite being the company founder and MD still makes time to mix front of house for Sharleen. "John Jones at LTM has lent them to us to test reaction. They are doubled braked, with a clutch external to the drive train and four position limit switches. That didn't mean much to me till John explained that as such these hoists conform to BS7906: Part 1, Category A. In this application they do not require secondaries."
Sheffield City Hall, like two of the other three venues before this one, had recognised the veracity of the BS standard and agreed to forgo secondary steels, so Rowe and his crew-mate Tim Spilman had been able to lower the truss enough to remove the MAC 700s and replace them.
(Jim Evans)
