Forklift & Telehandler Operation

Introduction

Almost nobody in AV sets out to drive a forklift. You set out to do audio, or lighting, or video, and then one morning there is a truck at the dock, forty cases on it, a machine parked beside it and somebody asking whether anybody here is ticketed.

Most crew spend their careers working around these machines rather than on them, and that is its own skill: knowing where not to stand, what the driver cannot see, what a raised load does on a turn, and why nobody rides on the forks.

This book teaches the machines, the physics that decides what they can lift and where, the operating discipline, the specific rules the regulator sets, and how material handling actually works on a load-in.

This Book Cannot Certify You

Certification for a powered industrial truck is not a card you buy. It is your employer's written statement that you were trained and then evaluated operating a real machine of that type, in that workplace, by somebody qualified to judge it.

A book can teach the knowledge half properly, which makes the training day useful rather than remedial. It cannot put you on a machine, and nothing in it authorises you to operate one. Until you are trained, evaluated and authorised, the answer to "can you shift that pallet?" is no.

How to Use This Book

Read it in order. The chapters on capacity and on stability explain every tip-over these machines have, and the chapter on working around the equipment is the one that applies to everybody on a load-in whether they drive or not. Every chapter ends with a reference table, a procedure, a failure table written symptom first, an exercise and a checklist.

Keep a notebook

Log the daily inspection before the first lift of the shift, by unit number, with what you found. OSHA requires the check every shift, and a written record is the only version of it that survives an incident.

Write down the rated capacity and the load centre it is rated at. Capacity is not one number — it is a number at a distance, and it falls away as the load moves forward on the forks or as the boom extends on a telehandler. The load chart on the machine is the authority, and reading it is a skill worth practising with a pencil.

Note the floor and the dock. Trailer creep, a dock plate that moves, soft ground under an outrigger and a ramp you have to take loaded are the conditions that make an ordinary lift dangerous, and they repeat at the same venues.

A note on the words

The counterbalance machine is a forklift, a lift truck, a fork truck, or a brand — a Hyster, a Toyota, a Crown. The telescopic machine is a telehandler, a reach forklift, a zoom boom, a Lull, or a JLG, and although both have forks they behave nothing alike: one pivots about its front axle, the other changes its own capacity as the boom goes out.

OSHA calls all of them powered industrial trucks, which is the phrase you will meet in 1910.178 and 1926.602 and nowhere on a load-in. When somebody books "a forklift", ask whether they mean the counterbalance machine or the telehandler, because the answer changes what you can reach and what you can carry.

A note on safety

These machines are heavy, they carry weight out in front of themselves, and they are the most common way people on a load-in are killed by something other than height. A loaded forklift tipping forward or sideways does not feel as though it is about to; the stability triangle is not intuitive, and the moment you can feel it going it is over.

The second hazard is everybody else. Pedestrians in a load-in path, crew walking out from between trucks, and a driver whose view is blocked by the load are the ordinary conditions of this work, not the exception. Travelling with the load low and, when the load blocks your view, travelling in reverse are habits, not preferences.

Training plus evaluation is required. The evaluation repeats at least every three years, and refresher training, with its own evaluation, is required sooner after an incident, a near miss, an unsafe-operation observation, a change of machine or a change of workplace conditions. A book satisfies none of that.

Where this book sits

This book assumes you have read Safety Awareness & Rigging Basics, or that you already know what is in it.

Experience counts instead. If you have load-ins where you have worked a dock beside a forklift, staged cases off a truck and watched machines and crew share a floor, start here.

If none of that is true yet, read Safety Awareness & Rigging Basics first.

What pairs with this

• Physical Preparation for AV — the loads that do not go on a machine still go on a body

Where it leads

These are not steps in an order. Take whichever one fits.

• Staging & Crew Chief — running the floor that trucks, machines and crew share
• Touring Fundamentals — the trucks, the dock and the pack, night after night

Material Handling in AV

Start with the machines, what they are for, and why the paperwork around them is stricter than most crew expect.

Heavy gear has to move — and machines that move it demand respect and certification.

The equipment and its place in AV

Material handling in this trade means getting heavy cased equipment between a truck and a stage, repeatedly, under time pressure. A touring production is thirty tonnes of gear in flight cases, and almost all of it moves on wheels, ramps, dollies and machines.

The machines you meet are the counterbalance forklift at a loading dock, the powered or manual pallet truck inside a venue, and the telehandler on an outdoor site or at a building with no dock. AV crew also meet them on the receiving end -- unloading a truck at an exhibition hall where the hall's own drivers operate and the crew stack, sort and move.

Knowing the machines matters even if you never drive. Most of the injuries in this area happen to people on foot near a machine rather than to the person operating it.

Why certification is required

These machines are heavy, they carry weight high, they steer from the rear and they work among people on foot. The regulator treats them accordingly: an untrained person may not operate one, the employer must train and evaluate each operator, and the authorisation is specific to the type of truck and to the workplace.

For a crew, that means a ticket is not a formality to be waved at. It is the reason the venue will let you near the machine, and it is what an investigation will ask for first.

The families of truck

• Counterbalance forklift: forks at the front, weight at the back, the machine you picture. Steers from the rear.
• Reach truck and order picker: warehouse machines with the mast on rails or the operator lifted with the load.
• Powered pallet truck: walk-behind or rider, low lift, the workhorse inside venues.
• Rough terrain forklift and telehandler: big tyres, outdoor ground, and in the telehandler's case a boom that extends.

Training and authorisation are per type. Being trained on a counterbalance forklift does not authorise you on a telehandler, and the regulator names assignment to a different type of truck as a trigger for retraining.

What a telehandler adds

A telehandler is a forklift with a telescopic boom. That one addition changes everything about capacity, because the load can now move forward as well as up, and the further forward it goes the more leverage it applies to the machine.

So a telehandler has a load chart rather than a single capacity, much like the boom lift: a diagram of how much it may carry at each combination of height and forward reach. It usually also has outriggers or stabilisers and the ability to level its frame on sloping ground.

It is a genuinely different machine, and it is the one AV meets on festival sites, in car parks and at venues with no dock.

The machines AV meets

Authorisation is per type; one does not cover another.

Forklift against telehandler

The boom is not a detail.

How to do it

1. Identify the type of truck and whether anyone present is authorised on it.
2. Find the data plate and read the capacity and load centre.
3. On a telehandler, find the load chart as well.
4. Establish who is operating and who is working on foot nearby.
5. Agree an exclusion area and a route before anything moves.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At your next dock or site.

Capacity, Load Centre and the Data Plate

"It lifts two and a half tonnes" is never the whole truth. It lifts two and a half tonnes of a particular shape, in a particular place, with nothing bolted to the forks.

The data plate

Every powered industrial truck carries a data plate: make, model, serial number, weight of the truck, fuel type, and the rated capacity -- given at a stated load centre, and often given separately for each attachment the machine is approved to carry.

If the plate is missing, illegible or does not match the attachment on the machine, the machine does not get used. There is no way to work inside limits nobody can read.

Load centre, and why capacity is not one number

Load centre is the distance from the face of the forks to the centre of gravity of the load. Capacities are quoted at a standard load centre, commonly 24 inches or 600 millimetres, which assumes a fairly compact pallet sitting against the backrest.

Put something longer on the forks -- a truss stack, a long crate, two pallets deep -- and the load's centre of gravity moves forward. The weight has not changed, but its leverage on the machine has, and the capacity for that shape is lower than the plate's headline figure. Sometimes much lower.

This is why a machine can pick up one tonne of tightly cased gear without complaint and become unstable with a lighter, longer load. Crew who have only seen the first case assume the machine is fine.

Capacity at reach on a telehandler

On a telehandler the same principle becomes a chart. Extending the boom moves the load forward, and capacity falls with reach exactly as it does on a boom lift. The chart shows the envelope: full capacity close in, sharply less at reach, and a limit beyond which the machine should not go at all.

The chart also depends on the machine being level and on whether the outriggers are deployed, and it usually has separate curves for each of those conditions. Reading the wrong curve is the same mistake as not reading the chart.

Attachments and de-rating

Anything fitted to the carriage -- fork extensions, a jib, a bucket, a rotator, a carpet pole -- has weight of its own and usually moves the load further forward. Both effects reduce what the machine may lift, which is called de-rating.

An approved attachment comes with its own capacity figures, which must be on the machine. Improvised attachments, including slinging a load from a fork with a strap so it can be lifted like a crane, are not approved, not rated and not acceptable. These machines are not cranes and the load is not secured to them.

Where the weight actually is

Cased AV equipment is unhelpfully deceptive. A large case can be light and a small one very heavy, weight inside a case is often off-centre, and cases on a pallet are rarely stacked with their centres aligned.

Ask what is in it, look for the weight marked on the case, and treat an unknown load as heavier and less stable than it looks. The habit that helps most is simple: lift it a few centimetres, stop, and see what the machine and the load do before committing.

What the plate tells you

Rated capacity is always at a stated load centre.

Shapes that quietly reduce capacity

The weight is the same; the leverage is not.

How to do it

1. Read the data plate, including the load centre it applies to.
2. Establish the weight of the load, asking rather than guessing.
3. Judge where the load's centre of gravity sits relative to the forks.
4. On a telehandler, read the chart for the height, reach and setup.
5. Account for any attachment's de-rating.
6. Test lift a few centimetres and watch before committing.

What goes wrong

Practice it

With a machine and a real load.

Safety Principles

Two ideas explain nearly every forklift accident: a triangle, and a moment. Both are worth understanding rather than memorising.

These machines are safe only when operated on firm safety principles.

The core principles

• The machine is heavier than it looks and it steers from the rear.
• Loads travel low and tilted back.
• People on foot are the ones who get hurt.
• Every lift is a question about capacity, not just weight.
• If something feels wrong, set the load down and stop.

None of that is difficult. All of it is routinely ignored at eleven at night with a truck to turn around and a driver waiting.

Load stability

The load has its own stability. A pallet stacked high, a case trolley loaded unevenly, or cases not strapped together will move when the machine moves, and once it starts moving the machine's centre of gravity moves with it.

Get the forks fully under the load and as wide as the load allows, square to it rather than at an angle, with the load against the backrest. Tilt back to settle it. If it will not sit stably on the forks, it does not travel on the forks.

The stability triangle

A counterbalance forklift is supported at three points, not four: the two front wheels, and the centre pivot of the rear axle. Draw lines between those three points and you have the stability triangle. As long as the combined centre of gravity of machine and load stays inside that triangle, the machine stays up.

Everything the machine does moves that centre of gravity. Adding load moves it forward. Raising the load moves it up, which makes it easier to push outside the triangle sideways. Tilting forward moves it forward. Turning throws it outward. Braking hard throws it forward.

That is also why the rear axle pivots: it lets the machine cope with uneven ground, and it is exactly why the back of the triangle is a single point rather than a wide base.

Sideways tip-over, and why turning matters

Forward tip-overs happen from overloading, long loads and tilting forward with a raised load. Lateral tip-overs happen from turning, and they surprise people because the machine felt perfectly stable a second earlier.

Turning throws the centre of gravity toward the outside of the turn, and a raised load has further to swing. The faster the turn and the higher the load, the further out it goes. Cross the triangle's side and the machine goes over.

So loads travel low, turns are taken slowly, and you do not turn on a slope. If a machine does start to go over, the guidance for seat-belted operators is to stay in the seat, hold on, brace and lean away -- jumping is how people end up under the overhead guard. Which is also why the seat belt is worn.

What moves the centre of gravity

Keep it inside the triangle and the machine stays up.

Forward and lateral tips

Different causes, different habits.

How to do it

1. Know the capacity for the shape of load in front of you.
2. Get the forks fully under, square, load against the backrest.
3. Tilt back to settle the load before travelling.
4. Travel with the load low, a few centimetres clear of the ground.
5. Slow down before turns; never turn while raised or on a slope.
6. Raise and lower only when stationary and level.

What goes wrong

Practice it

Watching a machine work.

Before You Move It

The checks before the first lift of the shift, and the handful of things about these machines that behave differently from a van.

The pre-use inspection

Before the first use of each shift, walk around the machine. Forks for cracks, wear and bent tips, and their locking pins. Mast chains, rollers and hydraulic hoses for damage and leaks. Tyres for damage, pressure and depth. Fluid levels, and the battery or fuel system. Lights, horn, mirrors, beacon and reversing alarm. The seat belt. The overhead guard and load backrest. The data plate and decals.

Then a function check with the engine or motor running: lift, lower, tilt, steering, service brake, parking brake, horn, and on a telehandler the boom, outriggers and frame levelling.

Anything wrong takes the machine out of service, with the key removed and the fault reported in writing. The regulator's position is straightforward: a truck in unsafe condition is removed from service until it is repaired.

Rear steer, tail swing and blind spots

A counterbalance forklift steers with its rear wheels. That makes it agile in tight spaces and means the back end swings wide on every turn -- into the space a person on foot is standing in, and into racking, cases and walls.

Visibility is poor by design. A raised load blocks the forward view, the mast blocks part of what is left, and the overhead guard frames the rest. Where the load blocks the view, the machine travels in reverse, with the operator looking in the direction of travel -- except on a ramp, where the rule changes.

For everybody on foot, this is the single most useful thing to know: the operator probably cannot see you, the back end swings, and the machine cannot stop quickly.

Outriggers and frame levelling

A telehandler on sloping ground is a different machine once it is levelled. Frame levelling tilts the chassis so the boom works from a level base, and outriggers widen the base and take load off the tyres.

The load chart depends on which of those is in use. Read the curve that matches the actual setup -- outriggers down or not, frame level or not -- and set outriggers on firm ground with pads, all of them loaded.

Parking and leaving the machine

A parked machine has a defined state: forks fully lowered to the ground, mast tilted forward slightly, controls neutral, parking brake set, engine or motor off, key removed, and on a slope the wheels chocked.

Park clear of exits, fire routes, walkways and doors. On a show site, park where the next department will not have to move it, which in practice means telling somebody where it is.

The walk-around, part by part

Before the first use of each shift, and after any incident.

Leaving the machine

The parked state is not a matter of taste.

How to do it

1. Walk around and inspect the machine against the manufacturer's list.
2. Function check lift, lower, tilt, steering, brakes, horn and alarms.
3. On a telehandler, check boom, outriggers and frame levelling.
4. Report anything wrong in writing and take the machine out of service if needed.
5. Adjust the seat and put the belt on before moving.
6. Agree routes and pedestrian areas with the crew before the first load.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On a real machine.

Operating Safely & Getting Certified

The operating cycle, the parts of it people cut short, and what it takes to be allowed to do it at all.

Awareness now, certification next — and safe conduct around the equipment always.

The safe-operation cycle and working around equipment

Every load follows the same sequence: approach square, forks fully under, lift clear, tilt back, travel low, approach the destination square, level the forks, set down, tilt clear, withdraw. Done properly it is unhurried and looks slow. Done badly it looks fast and produces dropped loads.

Around the machine, the rules are just as simple. Stay out of the turning circle and the tail swing. Never walk under raised forks or a raised load. Make eye contact with the operator before you cross their path, and assume you are invisible until they nod.

The path to certification

For a powered industrial truck, certification means the employer has trained you and then evaluated you operating that type of truck in that workplace, and has recorded it. Formal instruction and a written test are part of it; the evaluation on the machine is the part that counts.

Training providers and rental companies run courses, and plenty of AV crew get their ticket that way, but the employer's evaluation and authorisation are still required. Keep your own copy of the record, including which types of truck it covers.

Picking up and setting down a load

Approach square to the pallet or case and stop short. Level the forks and set the width to the load. Enter slowly, all the way to the backrest, without pushing the load along the ground. Lift a few centimetres, stop, and check the load and the machine before going further.

Setting down reverses it: approach square, stop, lower until the load takes its own weight, check it is stable and square, tilt the forks level, and withdraw slowly and straight. Then lower the forks before you move away.

Travelling with a load

Load low -- a few centimetres clear -- and tilted back. Travel at a speed you can stop at, which on a busy load-in is walking pace. Look where you are going, sound the horn at blind corners and doorways, and give way to people on foot rather than expecting them to notice you.

When the load blocks your forward view, travel in reverse and look where you are going. On a ramp that reverses again, as the next section explains. And never travel with the load raised to clear something: lower it, travel, then raise it where you need it.

Ramps, slopes and docks

On a slope the rule is that the load points uphill. Travel forward up the slope with a load, and reverse down it. Unladen, it is the opposite: forks downhill, so the heavy end of the machine is uphill.

Never turn on a ramp, never travel across a slope, and never raise or lower a load on one. Take slopes straight and slowly.

Dock work has its own hazards: the gap at the dock edge, dock plates that are not secured, trailer creep -- the trailer easing away from the dock as the machine drives in and out -- and trailers that are not chocked or restrained. Confirm the trailer is secured and the plate is rated and seated before driving onto it, and confirm the trailer floor will take the machine.

Nobody rides on the forks

People ride on forks and on pallets at every kind of venue, and it has killed people at every kind of venue. There is no version of it that is acceptable: not for a moment, not to reach one lamp, not with somebody holding on.

If a person has to be lifted, the answer is a machine designed to lift people -- a scissor lift, a boom lift, a tower -- or an approved and secured work platform on the machine where the regulation, the manufacturer and the employer all permit it, with its own rules. Not a pallet, not a case, not the forks.

The operating cycle

Unhurried, and identical every time.

Slopes

The load points uphill, always.

How to do it

1. Confirm the trailer is chocked or restrained and the dock plate is seated.
2. Approach the load square and stop short.
3. Enter the forks fully, lift a few centimetres and check.
4. Lower to travel height and tilt back.
5. Travel at walking pace, horn at blind corners, giving way to people.
6. Take any ramp straight, load uphill, with no turning.
7. Set down square and level, withdraw straight, lower the forks.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next load-in with a machine on site.

Around the Equipment & On Site

Most people reading this will spend far more time near these machines than on them. This chapter is for that, and it is the one to read twice.

Most AV crew work near this gear long before they operate it — safely is non-negotiable.

Being safe near material handling

Assume the operator cannot see you. Assume the machine cannot stop quickly. Assume the back end will swing into the space you are standing in. Those three assumptions cover most of what goes wrong.

• Make eye contact and wait for acknowledgement before crossing.
• Never walk under raised forks or a raised load.
• Stay out of the turning circle, including behind the machine.
• Keep to agreed walking routes where they exist.
• Never stand between a machine and a fixed object.
• High-visibility clothing where the site uses it.

And one for the operator's side of it: on a show floor, people appear from behind case stacks constantly. Horn, slow, and expect them.

Material handling in the AV workflow

The pattern on a load-in is repetitive: truck to dock, dock to staging area, staging area to position. Each transfer is a chance for damage and for injury, and each is easier if the staging area is decided before the truck arrives.

Good practice is boring and effective. Stage cases in the order they are needed. Keep aisles clear. Keep pallets square and stacked low enough to see over. Do not stack cases on cases beyond what they are designed for. And plan the strike the same way, because the end of the night is when the machine is most used and everybody is tired.

Pedestrians and blind corners

Venue geometry is against you. Loading corridors, dock doors, scenery docks, lift lobbies and the gap between case stacks are all blind corners where a machine and a person arrive at the same time.

Where the traffic is constant, the answer is separation: routes for machines and routes for people, marked, and somebody controlling the doorway. Where it cannot be separated, it is the horn, walking pace, and a person walking ahead of the machine.

Venue floors, ground and what is underneath

These machines are heavy, and the weight arrives through small contact patches which move as the machine drives and lifts. Venue floors have limits: stage decks, sprung floors, raised platforms, exhibition halls over basements, ballrooms over car parks.

Ask the venue what the floor will take before driving a machine on to it, and use spreader boards or trackway where a venue asks for them. Outdoors, the ground changes with the weather, and a telehandler on soft ground needs pads and somebody paying attention.

Lifts and goods hoists have their own limits, usually posted: the machine's own weight plus the load must be inside them.

Working on foot near a machine

The three assumptions, and what they mean in practice.

Where people and machines collide

Venue geometry, and what fixes each.

How to do it

1. Decide the staging area and the machine route before the truck arrives.
2. Mark or agree walking routes separate from machine routes.
3. Put somebody in charge of the dock doorway while it is busy.
4. Brief every department that a machine is working and where.
5. Keep aisles and the machine route clear as the floor fills.
6. Re-brief at strike, when the floor and the crew have both changed.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next load-in.

Fuel, Batteries and the End of the Day

How the machine is powered decides where it may be used, how it is refilled, and what the hazards are when it is not moving.

Electric, LPG and diesel

Electric machines are the indoor default: no exhaust, quiet enough to use during rehearsals, and limited by charge. LPG machines are common in halls and may be used indoors with adequate ventilation. Diesel machines belong outdoors, because of exhaust fumes in an enclosed space.

For AV, the practical consequence is that the machine that turns up is not always the machine that may be used in the room. A diesel telehandler in a ballroom is a carbon monoxide problem, not a convenience.

Charging and battery handling

Traction batteries are large, heavy and full of acid, and charging them produces hydrogen. Charge in the designated area, with ventilation, with no smoking or naked flames, and with the charger connected and disconnected in the order the manufacturer specifies.

Wear the eye protection and gloves provided for battery work, know where the eyewash is, and never rest tools on top of a battery -- a spanner across the terminals is a short circuit with a lot of current behind it.

Battery changing on larger machines needs the proper handling equipment, because a traction battery can weigh as much as a small car.

Refuelling

Refuel or change cylinders outdoors or in the designated area, with the engine off, no smoking, and the correct PPE. LPG cylinders are changed with the valve closed, checked for leaks with soapy water rather than a flame, and stored upright and secured.

Diesel spills go on the floor and become a slip hazard and an environmental problem, so a spill kit should be where the fuel is.

The end of the day

Park as the earlier chapter described: forks down, mast tilted forward, brake on, key out, chocked on a slope, clear of exits and fire routes. Put electric machines on charge. Report faults in writing so the next shift inherits the information rather than the fault.

Tell somebody where the machine is parked and who has the key, because the alternative is a crew looking for a forklift at two in the morning while a truck waits.

Power type and where it may work

The room decides the machine, not the other way round.

Battery and fuel hazards

Each has one thing that catches people out.

How to do it

1. Park it in the defined state, clear of exits and fire routes.
2. Chock it if it is on any slope.
3. Put an electric machine on charge in the designated area.
4. Report any fault in writing.
5. Tell the crew where it is parked and who has the key.

What goes wrong

Practice it

At your next venue.

What Certification Actually Means

This is the chapter to read before telling anybody you are ticketed, and before accepting somebody else's word that they are.

Who may operate

Only somebody trained, evaluated and authorised by their employer for that type of truck may operate it. Not "somebody who has driven one before", not "somebody with a card from a job two employers ago", and not somebody who is good with machines.

There is also a practical point on a show site: the venue's insurance and the production's paperwork both care about this, and an incident involving an unauthorised operator is a different conversation entirely.

What the employer is certifying

Certification here is not a licence issued by a government body. It is the employer's record that a named person was trained and then evaluated operating that type of truck, with the date and the name of the person who evaluated them.

Training covers the machine and the workplace: the types of truck, the controls, the inspection, load handling and stability, travelling and pedestrians, refuelling and charging, the site's own hazards, and the regulation itself. The evaluation is somebody qualified watching you do it.

The three-year evaluation and refresher triggers

An operator's performance must be evaluated at least once every three years. That is a specific, checkable requirement, and it is the one most often missed on a crew where somebody was trained years ago and nobody has watched them since.

Refresher training is required sooner when any of these happens: the operator is seen operating unsafely, they are involved in an accident or a near miss, an evaluation shows they are not operating safely, they are assigned to a different type of truck, or the workplace changes in a way that affects safe operation.

That last trigger matters in AV, where the workplace changes every week. A ticket earned in a warehouse does not automatically cover an arena floor full of crew, cable and cases.

The regulations that apply

In the United States, powered industrial trucks sit in 29 CFR 1910.178, and the construction rules apply the same training requirements through 1926.602(d). Elsewhere the structure differs and the substance is the same: trained, evaluated, authorised, and re-checked.

And as always, the manufacturer's manual for the specific machine binds on top of all of it.

How to actually get certified

Start with your employer, because the authorisation has to come from them. Many use an external training provider or a rental company for the instruction and then do the evaluation themselves; some do both in house.

Expect classroom or online instruction, a written test, machine time, and an evaluation on the type of truck you will actually use. Get the record, check which types it covers, note the date of the evaluation, and diarise three years.

What certification is and is not

It is a record, not a card you own forever.

What triggers retraining

Any one of these, before the three years are up.

How to do it

1. Ask your employer what training and evaluation they provide.
2. Take instruction covering the type of truck you will use.
3. Be evaluated operating that truck by somebody qualified.
4. Get the written record, including which types it covers.
5. Diarise the three-year evaluation and ask for it when it is due.
6. Ask for retraining when you are put on a different type of truck.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your own paperwork.

Putting It Together

What to carry away, whether you end up operating these machines or just working beside them for twenty years.

Respect the machines, respect the certification, and be safe around material handling always.

The responsible operator's mindset

A good operator is boring to watch. Loads low, turns slow, approaches square, a pause after every lift to check, a horn at every corner, and a willingness to set a load down and stop when something feels wrong.

The pressure on a load-in is always toward the opposite: one more pallet, a quicker turn, a load carried high to see over the cases. Every serious incident in this area started with somebody saving thirty seconds.

And the responsibility is wider than the seat. The operator is responsible for the people around the machine, most of whom are not looking at it, and some of whom will walk behind it while it turns.

Your path forward

If you want to operate: ask your employer for training and evaluation on the types you will actually use, get the record, and treat the three-year evaluation as a date in your diary rather than a surprise.

If you do not: learn the machine well enough to work safely beside it, and be the person on the crew who notices that the trailer is not chocked, the plate is not seated, or somebody is about to walk under a raised load.

Practical sign-off

This awareness book is reinforced by safe conduct on site. The learner identifies the equipment and hazards, demonstrates safe conduct around operating equipment, and understands the certification requirement. Operating certification itself is the employer's record that you were trained and then evaluated on the machine. A mentor signs off on safe conduct around the equipment.

• Identified material-handling equipment and its hazards
• Demonstrated safe conduct around operating equipment and loads
• Followed operators/spotters and respected exclusion zones
• Understood that operation requires training, evaluation and the employer's certification and authorisation

What to do on Monday

• Find the data plate on the machine you see most and read the capacity and load centre.
• Ask who on site is authorised, and on which types of truck.
• Find out when they were last evaluated.
• Check whether the trailer at the dock is chocked.
• Watch one load-in and count how many people cross a machine's path without eye contact.

Every one of those is a short question, and each is the sort that prevents the incidents the rest of this book describes.

Awareness against authorisation

The difference matters legally and practically.

How to do it

1. Ask your employer what training and evaluation they provide, and for which types.
2. Take the instruction and the written test.
3. Be evaluated on the type of truck you will use.
4. Keep the record and diarise the three-year evaluation.
5. Ask for retraining when the machine or the workplace changes.

What goes wrong

Practice it

This week.

Glossary

What the gear actually looks like

Every device named in this book, in one place. Recognition is the whole point of Chapter 4 — use this page to attach a picture to each name before you meet it on a dock at six in the morning.

Audio

Dynamic microphone

Condenser microphone

Wireless handheld

Radio rack

Mixing console

Stage box / snake

Power amplifier

Main loudspeaker

Subwoofer

Stage monitor wedge

In-ear monitors

DI box

Video

Camera

Video switcher

Scaler / processor

Projector

LED wall panel

Confidence monitor

Lighting & control

Conventional fixture

Moving-head fixture

Lighting console

Dimmer

Show controller

Media server

Networking & infrastructure

Network switch

Patch bay

Equipment rack

Power distribution

Cable tester

A properly coiled cable

Connectors, close up

XLR

TRS / TS ¼-inch

SDI on BNC

HDMI

Cat5e / Cat6 (RJ45)

Fiber optic

DMX (5-pin XLR)

AC power — not signal