Health & Safety:

Health and safety is a key part of any production and you have to take into account your own safety the audiences safety the audiences safety and also any staff at the venue.

There is different aspects of heath and safety such as ladder safety, Call & Response, and things such as rigging safety and wearing protective gear.

Protective Gear

Call & Response

Ladder Saftey

Working Loads

Health & Safety

PPE (Protective Gear:)

PPE Safety Gear:

Protective gear is extremely important in case a catastrophic event happening and general safety purposes.

PPE is extremely important within theatre as it can be more dangerous as it seems to be.

One of the most important part of PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is Steal Capped Boots, also known as steelies, This is vital encase of anything falling from height or dropping something heavy, this means wearing steal capped boots the chances of injury would be lower.

Another part of PPE would be rigging gloves as fixtures can get extremely hot causing burns, not only this but they will protect you hands from anything sharp even safety bonds as they usually can be quite rough with no sleeve on them.

Heat torches can also become useful when focusing as there is no working lights so it is hard to navigate backstage

Hard hats are also vital if footing a ladder or standing bellow while someone is focusing or rigging a fixture.

Call & Response:

Call And Response is very important within the industry as it requires important communication to keep everyone safe.

This also includes within rigging as if anything catastrophic was to happen and everyone rigging needs to know what is going on encase a truss is flying, for this you would need to 'Call Heads On Stage'

Ladder Safety:

Ladder safety is a key part of rigging and other various things, As you need to learn the correct procedures for carrying fixtures or other things up and down a ladder.

Firstly you need someone footing the ladder with a hard hat.
Unlock the ladder and make sure the ladder is taught and the bars are locked in.
When you are on the ladder make sure to keep 3 points of contact with the ladder when you are ascending and descending.
When you are working on the ladder lean into the ladder.

You should only climb a ladder with working lights on and then you can go dark once you are up the ladder and are ready to focus a fixture.

Working Loads:

AWL ( Available Working Load)

Available working load you need to know this when rigging so you know how much a truss or LX bar can hold so you don't overload the bar, this cannot at all be exceeded!

SWL ( Safe Working Load)

A safe working load, you need to make sure the load is safe on a bar and make sure it can hold fixtures safely

Truss

A strong framework used to rig lights onto, although you will need to know the available working load to make this safe.

IWB ( Internally Wired Bar)

An Internally wired bar

LX Bar

Used to rig lights onto

Safety Bond

A steal cable used encase the clamp fails acts as a second measure of safety, preventing catastrophic incidents