What skills do you consider essential for a theatre technician?  

There is a lot of talk at the moment about training schemes and one of the most popular subjects is the establishment of a training scheme that would work as an induction for all people working on a stage.

It seems that at its most basic such a scheme should train technicians to be safe and to understand what they are being asked to do.  But how much further should it go?  

Another fact to consider is who delivers the training?   Should we be looking outside for trainers to come in, or should such training be delivered in house?

What do you think?

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Some good basic things to include are:

-How to coil cables properly

-How to wire a plug with an overview of electrical safety/how to do a visual inspection.

-Proper technique for rigging lights and focusing.

-Overview of rigging/flying and key H&S matters relating specifically to the venue.

-If appropriate the procedures for fault reporting etc.

Re: in-house vs. external-

The problem here is that people's working practices will differ.

Using an external trainer will prevent a "you should do it this way because this is the way we've always done it" type culture developing. However equally an external trainer may not train people the way you want them trained. There's also man hours required to develop and implement the training scheme vs. the cost of getting someone in.

There have been some great articles on this subject in LSI & ABTT magazines. I'll try and dig these up if I get a chance.

Not sure what you mean can you expand on your question?

Are you thinking of amateur technicians, professional, post-graduate, there are many, many training courses for theatre technicians though not all provide the skills. Rock'n'Roll is light years ahead of theatre and the local crew working on the opening ceremonies at the Olympics have far more skills training that any three year degree course. Every one of them has to have a safety passport to kick off with and not many theatre technicians seem to comply with the legal requirement to have undertaken some form of formal H&S training.

Universities lke Derby, Bolton and New Bucks are up to speed on skills training alongside the academic work but very few others are. Those three have industry experts as visiting lecturers and as far as Ben's rigging and flying is concerned the National Rigging Certificate has been around for a while and nobody should fly other than experienced pro's or the specialists like Foy.

The law states that workers must be "competent" at the work they do and competence means training to gain skills and experience in the practical application of those skills. If you wished to search the Blue Room Technical Forum for some of the hundreds of topicas on this subject you can gain much more than from a small forum like this one. They discuss this topic on a regular basis just about every academic term.

What i mean by overview is not necessarily expecting someone to be engaged in these activities initially (though the NRC is a very good idea if this is the case). But, it does not hurt to know the basics & H&S implications of whats going on around you. I think what David has in mind is a course to provide a basic level of competency as it would be difficult to get too specialised in a short course like this.

Also, I think you may be confusing flying with actor flying. I would use 'flying' to refer to hemp and counterweight/winch sets. Whereas rigging I'd use to refer to truss, spansets, hoists, ground supports, steels etc. Also flying tends to be used to refer to stuff the flys in and out during a show. Perhaps not as common a term usage as i thought. Actor flying is a very specialised area that would be outside the scope of most training schemes. Obviously, any such activity should be done under the supervision of someone experienced but you do get amateur groups with their own fly-people for example.

Understood Ben, thanks.

The problem there is that to have a basic understanding of just the one element of scenic flying and/or counterweight systems alone is a pretty big subject. Halls Stage has dozens of downloads just on the basics.

As a H&S trainer I am forced to hold the PoV that H&S training is a necessary first step because of the legal requirements for it. Declaring an interest, I helped found and used to deliver the Live Events Safety Passport and that alone is an intensive 6 to 8 hour day.

To take your example of truss rigging, the UK Rigging basic course is three days, i-Live at Litestructures is two days and I do not believe that a brief introduction on-site is in any way adequate. These courses are delivered by leading experts as is the basic Heightec Work at Height in Entertainment course which is another two days.

I don't think that a short introductory course covering anything other than general H&S in the theatre as workplace is of any use and skills courses need to be undertaken on a far more intensive and repetitive basis. You cannot gain any form of competency from any courses long or short. That comes with experience in utilising skills learned through training which itself takes time. Theatre has for too long been a place of shortcuts where technical staff are undervalued, it is time that culture was changed.

Greetings,

What provoked my question was the TMA/Bectu code of Conduct requirement that all technicians participating in a get-in or get-out must be trained.  The Code is not entirely clear about what level of training is required, and it is not really clear if they are the bodies who should be prescribing what is required, they may be, but there is no doubt that venues/technicians should be consulted.

As Ben deduced I was really thinking about is a basic course for anyone working in a theatre or on a production, which may in time lead to it becoming a requirement , just as the building industry's safety passport has.

 

David, first thing, the code actually states " ..sufficient numbers of trained, competent staff" not just trained. Competence is vital.

The CSCS card insists that even building site labourers pass their H&S and Environmental Safety Test and gain one years experience in the past three.

BECTU has consulted its' members on a Safety Passport and is following other industry moves to introduce a Skillscard of some kind.

ABTT provide the basic Bronze Award but that is five days and is still insufficient to provide proof of competence. It includes manual handling, WaH, Ropes and hemp flying, H&S and basic cabling.

If you look around and see that a building site labourer has to have more formal work training than a theatre technician then I think you can foresee the future. With changes to H&S regimes and enforcement in the pipeline the same inspectors could be on a housing site in the morning and onstage in the afternoon, just work it out for yourself.

Theatre should be aiming at high quality training and not "what is the minimum I need to do to get onstage" such as introductory or short courses. They are light years behind everyone else.

Kerry, The industry is certainly in need of measurable training which it does not have at the moment.  The ABTT are reviewing a training program which could  be delivered either internally or externally, H and S is at the core of this but it puts it into a theatre context.  It would otherwise be useless.  There is also the ATG/Gallowglass scheme which is delivered along the lines of toolbox talks.   There are now two IOSH courses specifically for theatre, rather then the industry courses that people have tried to shoehorn theatre into in the past.

The point of my posting was to elicit the opinions of people currently working in the industry to see what they think is necessary, not to quite how bad the situation currently is.   We can only improve if we start and we will be alot more effective if we start this ourselves than if we wait for the inevitable visit from the enforcing authorities.

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