Lighting Rig

Some of the history of the Rigs of G/N/046 is shown here, for the full story see the history wiki ([1]).

Old rig

The old rig, which had been in place since the middle of the 90's, was essentially scaffold bars clamped onto bolts that ran into the ceiling. Given the size of the bolts and general sturdiness of the entire thing, it was considered (by many generations of YSTV) to be perfectly structurally sound. This was reinforced by the apparent lack of it falling down when lighting, set, and possibly the occasional technician hung from it.

Condemning

During the week before freshers week 2013, Robert Walker had the idea of hanging one of the large CRT's still in the studio from the rig - thus removing it from the floor and freeing up some space. It was then discovered that YSTV was not aware of any documentation stating any load limits for the rig. This was mentioned to YUSU, (who also had no documentation concerning the rig), who then organised for an engineer from TSS to come in and assess the rig. After 2 assessments and some faff, it was discovered that some of the rig ceiling bolts were not actually attached to the building, but to pieces of wood that were held onto the building by ordinary wood screws. To make it even worse, the bolts that were attached directly to the building were done in a less than ideal way. Immediately after this inspection, all fixtures were removed from the rig, and it was condemned.

At this point, studio lighting was greatly reduced to basically whatever we could stick on the floor of the studio.

Removal

The rig was removed by YSTV members soon after at a time when the studio was already being emptied for re-painting.It was decided not to tell YUSU about the removal of the old rig, lest they overreact negatively to the news. YUSU would not find out about the grid removal until January 2015. This led the entire studio being made off limits until a check could be done by Estates to ensure that no asbestos has been disturbed.

New rig

Cost & Funding

After some shopping around and creative head scratching, the possible costings were found to be as follows;

A basic 5x3m grid, covering the main set area only, installed by YSTV for £3500 A 5x5m grid, covering a majority of the studio, also installed by YSTV for £5500 A 5x5m grid, professionally installed by TSS for their original quotation of £7500.

After a successful YuStart campaign, the rig was fully funded for the 5x5 grid with installation to be carried out by the YSTV members under the technical team. A further 5k was donated by Greg Dyke which went towards other tech and lanterns for the new rig.

Status 2019

The rig was completed in mid 2015 mostly without issue, and has been in use ever since.

• For the commonly used Lanterns, see (Lanterns list)
• For information about DMX used in the rig, see (DMX information)

Commonly, the rig is used for most studio shows and has had increased usage in the year 2018 / 2019 for more green screening work. The swapping of lanterns and setting of the lighting states technically requires training (including ladder safety). For the sake of not destroying the lanterns or having people fall off ladders, this should continue.

Repairs

There haven't been any large scale repairs since the installation of the rig in 2015. However, during pack down of the 2019 Roses TX centre, Edwin Barnes remarked at how many pins the rig appeared to be missing. Upon further inspection post Roses (when everyone had regained sanity) it turned out that roughly 1/3 rd of the pins holding the trusses and uprights together, are missing presumed dead. While the rig remains solid, some replacements have been sourced and are due to be replaced.