Rig equipment safely and competently without guidance
For the Christmas show we had an allocated slot for the lighting team to rig lights, unfortunately because of the set design we was not able to access one of our lighting bars. On this particular bar there were four moving lights on the plan. To make it easier we rigged these in everyone else’s lunch hour before all of the set was put in to the theatre. We done this by bringing the bar down as far as it would allow to try and reach working height. We then rigged the moving lights equal distance apart as on the plan. They are rigged by using the G hook clamp and safety bond which is rated for the weight of the light. As they are moving lights we could not use the dimming channels and they were being used by other lights. To solve the issue we then run power to them from one of the wall boxes which has a sixteen amp outlet. They would then have power but no signal so the next step was to run DMX. The DMX works by connecting all the lights in a chain; to make it easy we started at one end of the lighting bar and worked towards the wall box which has DMX socket. Now the moving lights will have power and signal to the lighting desk. All moving lights are slightly different but will either have a lamp or L.E.D; for a rig full of generic lights you would simply warm them by doing a rig check and slowly bringing the level up over time. For L.E.D moving lights they do not need to warm up but always worth checking in a rig check. The other light source in a moving light is a lamp, after powering them up you will need to lamp them on which means they need to warm up before you can use them. When powering down you will need lamp them off before turning the power off; the reason for this is because you need to let them turn off gradually, if you just pull the power out you effect the lamp in reducing the amount of hours you can use it for. Each lamp should have a rated amount of usage, usually in hours. A moving light will pull more power when lamping on as it takes more power light up than to run it, each moving light will have a start-up power rating and a running power rating
Some photos were taken during the rigging slot we were allocated which are below; some photos will show both rigging lights at ground level and at height using a ladder or tallescope. When rigging generic lights you put the G clamp on the bar and tighten as you would with a moving light; along with a rated safety bond. Then plug the light into the socket and tape the excess cable out the way but ensuring you leave enough cable to focus.
