Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Hanging speakers in a stage house

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Posted by Mike Fitzgerald (Member # 1304) on 10-16-2005, 10:20 PM:

Has anyone flown the speakers on a screen pipe in a stage house. I have about 8 feet between pipes and want to see about hanging the screen and speakers so they can all fly out together. Or do most stage houses just whell them into place when needed

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-16-2005, 11:30 PM:

Oh yeah...been there and done that alot...some stage houses fly them some wheel them in. It all depends on the batten space, the theatre and such as to which way is done.

There is a limit on the height you can do with roll around speakers before they are a tipping hazard.

There is also a combination...wheel the speakers onto the stage, and then fly them. This is certainly more labor intensive since you need to load the speakers on the batten and load counterweights each time you switch to movie mode.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 10-17-2005, 04:15 AM:

The PAC's I've seen only have evidence of previously flown speakers. It seems like the perfect solution to just dropping the screen & running a movie, & that's what was done originally in combination & deluxe houses in the 20s, but back then the whole show was structured around the movie & the stage stuff worked around the movies.

A big consideration now is the weight of the speakers & if the grid will support it: in historic houses, the screen/speaker combination had blocks on their own, separate, very beefy I-beams whether the grid was steel or wood. (Some smaller theaters had short extensions of the I-beams supporting the auditiorum ceiling passing through the firewall/proscenium wall.) In all those cases, though, the screen has moved: originally they were hung on these separate beams further upstage; but through time screens (without speakers) have been re-hung from the grid further downstage because the flyspace is more valuable in the screens' original location. So even if you've got a steel grid & it's holding the screen OK, putting both the screen & speakers on the same batten & same head blocks may not be safe at that single point on the grid. (I've seen scarily-bent pipe battens with the screen alone hung from them).

You say you have the dream situation of 8' between pipes, but sooner or later the turf war over fly space erupts, & the movies always lose. So you're likely to go back to having the speakers brought on & struck by hands when the screen comes in. It's not so bad (except for unskilled setup, what could be harder than placing them & plugging them in, but it'll get screwed up) if there's time before for you to inspect the setup. The dream of having a show then dropping the screen with little fuss is usually because the hands will have trouble with set pieces, platforms, etc. on the stage to be navigated or struck before bringing the speakers on. On the other hand, if there's a show, there'll be hands, & you can tell them what to do during the change.

It all seems to usually shake out to having to bring the speakers on. I wish it were different. The best that can be made of it usually is having a fast, nearby place to store the speakers, putting them in the wings if neccessary for a show with a stage production preceding the movie. In the absence of a Fox Movietone Lift, the best, nearby, out of the way position (barring a storeroom right offstage, as some theaters are lucky enough to have), is winching them up against the back wall. They've got to go over the bottom set of radiators, of course, which is can be done by putting rollers on the backs of the speakers & a grid over the radiators.

Don't take your stage radiators out. They're not there to keep the performers comfortable, never were. Without them there are huge drafts & gusts from the movement of air from the auditorium to the fly tower in winter. The grand acts as insulating material: at the top of the show, when the curtain opens, the curtains billow out spectacularly over the first rows in a theatre with no fly tower or inwards if there is a fly tower, the masking flaps if the screen is in, the legs move around onstage, & then for the rest of the show, drafts blow continuously toward the direction where the heated air can rise (from the back of the house to the stage, in a theater with a fly tower).

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 10-17-2005, 06:22 AM:

I have never had the speakers and screen on the same batten. The screen and possibly the masking gets its own. The screen frame is normally constructed of aluminum in these applications to keep the weight down.

I do advise having the drapery part of the system so as to not relay on the other rags in the theatre, which are bound to be heavy and not acoustically transparent. Also, with the drapes part of the screen system, it can be preset and come down in finished form.

More often than not, you are projecting down at the screen...it is quiet important to get that top masking (either fixed or movable) to be very close to the screen to avoid a huge shadow line that the front rows will really see.

Lastly, do NOT use direct radiating speakers for stage speakers...the stage house will act like a HUGE untuned box for them. Stick with horn loaded systems. Get any subwoofers OFF STAGE (most often below the stage but sometimes above the stage in front of the procenium) and consider bass-management (with delay) to get any low-frequencies not coverd by the horn loaded speakers to be played by them.

Posted by Mark Gulbrandsen (Member # 72) on 10-17-2005, 08:23 AM:

What ever you do be sure that you have a qualified and certified stage rigger do the work. I once watched a Large 900 lb 4-way horn loaded system(the one we are not allowed to mention here) launch to the top of the stage house in a theatre in Downers Grove,IL when someone decided to mess with the counter weights in an inappropriate manner. There were about a half dozen people on stage when that occured.

When I worked at my old employer, GTS, they had full time certified riggers there and we did some amazing rigging jobs... learned alot about that stuff.

Mark

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 10-18-2005, 12:08 AM:

quote: Mark Gulbrandsen
I once watched a Large 900 lb 4-way horn loaded system(the one we are not allowed to mention here) launch to the top of the stage house in a theatre in Downers Grove,IL when someone decided to mess with the counter weights in an inappropriate manner.

It's called a "runaway", & people are killed when it happens. Unfortunately, even if professional riggers do an install, the hands setting up or working a show, which are often from a temp manpower service in non-IA houses, can do things like that.