All stage rigging systems have essentially one goal: to hold material (scenery, lighting, masking drapery) in the air–safely.  There are many similarities between the various systems that have been devised to do that job.  There are also significant differences, mostly dependent on exactly what you want to do with the scenery and how you want to do it.  Here’s an overview of each type of system.  Later articles will look at each type in detail and discuss the strengths and weaknesses.

Dead-hung.  This refers to rigging systems that cannot be moved vertically.  Typically, this consists of pipes or tracks suspended directly from the building structure with chain or cable.

Hemp.  These are the systems we see frequently in old movies with 3-5 ropes and sandbags.  The name comes from a frequently-used rope fiber–although it is interesting that the majority of natural-fiber ropes used in the modern theatre building are spun from manila rather than hemp.  But that’s a different discussion!  The equipment is able to be moved vertically.  The sandbags are used to balance the load applied.

Counterweight.  It is probably a safe guess that this is the most common type of rigging system installed in theatres in the United States.  There are many variations within this category.  two big ones include how the arbors are guided and if the system operates in single or double purchase.

Manually winched.  The most common example of this type of system has one or two hauling lines from the winch to a clew, then multiple lift lines out from the clew to the batten.  These are typically used on equipment that needs to be accessed relatively easily but not rapidly or frequently.

Powered winches.  This is easily the most diverse category.  Hydraulics, packaged hoists, counterweight assist, dead-haul…the list goes on!

As I noted above, later articles will discuss each category in more depth and touch on the options, strengths and weaknesses.  In the meantime, regardless of the type of system, remember that it is suspending thousands of pounds of weight over people’s heads.  These systems should be inspected on a regular basis.  We recommend annually!

Last year, one of our projects featured examples of four of these–on the same stage, at the same time.  There were dead-hung line sets, some hemp sets (with one really old sandbag that basically disintegrated when it was touched), two different versions of counterweight and even a manually-winched set.  There were a lot of interesting “features” to that system.  One of these was the access system devised to allow relatively easy re-rigging of the hemp sets.  One of the down sides to a rope system is that if you accidentally let go of the rope, there is a distinct possibility that the rope will snake its way right out, over the block and into a nice pile–at the floor.  Since this particular auditorium did not have a gridiron, the designed solution from the 20s or 30s was this.  A center catwalk was installed running from stage left to stage right.  It was long enough to reach all three of the primary rigging beams.  At the far downstage and upstage ends of the rigging beams, there were squared steel “loops,” about 12 inches wide, hanging down to approximately the elevation of the catwalk.  We could not figure out what they were until we noted the 2×12 plank laying on the floor.  We finally made the connection.  The intent was that you’d carefully extend the plank out from the catwalk into the loop.  One end of the plank rested in the loop, the other on the edge of the catwalk.  That allowed a worker to walk out, balancing on the plank,to re-reeve the offending line into the block.