Dave Rat - Roadies in the Midst

8am, heading over to the market down the street, buy some fresh fruit, the market is awesome, everything you could want, every type of fruit, many I have never seen before, cheeses, fish, meat, chicken heads, all the necessities.

Today everyone will finish with setting up their gear, looming (taping cables together in convenient groupings), labeling, adapting and so on. It is really about making sure it all can go up fast and come down even faster.

**** Issue of the Day - Rotating PA clusters ****

 

In order to keep the chain motor count down, we went with 2 motors per PA cluster rather than 3. That means we only need sixteen sound motors rather than 24. With 3 motors we can use a delta plate that allows us to rotate the pa a bit after it is flown, with two the heavy speaker cables drooping from the sides tends to spin the clusters and even a few inches of variation in the rigging points can screw things up both sonically and aesthetically. Lee, the Rat Sound crew chief, came up with the idea of using “bridging poles.” Metal tubes that would connect to the rear of the clusters and keep them aligned, after a bit of trial and error, all good!

 

Our lead rigger is Fletch. His gig is to get all the points up. That means that humans climb way up in the ceiling, drop ropes, pull up chains and attach the chains to steel ropes wrapped around beams. Many of the points need to be in very precise locations, especially sound. Even a few inches off can screw things up. To adjust the location of the point, various lengths of wire rope are used to triangulate the drop. Translation = mathematical quagmire.

 

**** Highlight of the Day - Hey! It Works! ****

 

 Dave Rat