Staging & Crew Chief

Introduction

Staging is the first thing in and the last thing out. Everything everybody else does happens on top of it, which means the staging crew works while the floor is empty and again when it is empty, and is blamed by four departments in between for anything that is not level.

The crew chief is the person who decides how the thing gets built, in what order, by whom, and whether it is safe to stand on. It is a promotion out of doing the work and into being responsible for other people doing it, which is a different job with a different set of mistakes.

This book teaches the structures and their limits, the edges and the rules that apply to them, the outdoor standard and its weather plan, and the part that most new chiefs find hardest: running a crew rather than being the fastest person on it.

What This Book Does Not Do

It does not make you a rigger, and it does not make you an engineer. Flown structures belong to the rigging books, and designing a temporary structure belongs to a qualified engineer.

What it does do is teach you enough to build safely inside a manufacturer's system, to know when a question has stopped being a staging question, and to be the person who says so out loud rather than the person who guesses.

How to Use This Book

Read it in order. The chapter on loads is the one that underpins every decision, and the chapter on leading the build is the one most worth re-reading after your first call in charge. Every chapter ends with a reference table, a procedure, a failure table written symptom first, an exercise and a checklist.

Keep a notebook

Write down the system you were given and its rated deck load, and keep them together. Legs, decks, clamps and rails are rated as a system, and a note that says which manufacturer's parts were on the truck is what lets you refuse a mixed build without arguing from memory.

Write down the point loads you were asked to put on the stage, not just the total weight. A line array tower, a video wall's ballast or a piano concentrates weight onto a few square inches, and the question the venue needs answered is never "how heavy is it" but "how heavy is it, under this leg, on this floor".

Write down the briefing you gave, in the order you gave it. A crew chief's authority comes from having said the thing before the build, and the notebook is what turns a briefing into something you can repeat identically at the next venue.

A note on the words

A deck is a platform is a riser, and in a theatre it may be a rostrum. Legs are legs, standards, or supports. The rail is a guardrail, a handrail or an edge protection depending on who wrote the drawing. None of it is worth correcting.

What does need pinning down is the system name, because the parts are not interchangeable between them — a Steeldeck, a Bil-Jax, a Prolyte, a Layher and a StageRight all solve the same problem with incompatible hardware. When you are told "stage is on site", ask whose.

A note on safety

A stage is a structure that people walk on and heavy things sit on, built fast by a crew who will not be there when it is used. The hazards are the ones structures have: weight in the wrong place, an unbraced height, an open edge in the dark, and a guardrail that was fitted last instead of first.

Outdoors, add wind. A roof, a banner or a video wall on a stage is a sail, and the wind action plan — who watches, what number triggers what, and who has authority to stop the show — is a document that exists before the build or does not exist at all.

The strike is when people get hurt. The crew is tired, the deadline is real, and the guardrails come off first because they are in the way. Ordering the strike so that each rail stays until the edge it guards has come down is most of a crew chief's contribution to everybody going home.

Where this book sits

This book assumes you have read Set & Stage Etiquette, or that you already know what is in it.

Experience counts instead. If you have several seasons on staging crews, where you have built the same systems enough times to know what a bad build looks like before it finishes, start here.

If none of that is true yet, read Set & Stage Etiquette first.

What pairs with this

• Physical Preparation for AV — the crew's bodies, which are the chief's problem too

Where it leads

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

• Advanced Rigging — what hangs above the stage you are building
• Touring Fundamentals — the same build, city after city

What Staging Is

Start with the work and the role, because the role is not simply "the best person on the crew, promoted".

Building the physical show and leading the crew.

The crew chief

The crew chief is responsible for what gets built and for the people building it. That means deciding the sequence, allocating the crew, checking the work, holding the schedule, and calling a stop when something is not right.

The trap is obvious once said: a chief who is carrying decks is not watching the build. The most useful position is usually standing still, looking at the whole floor, with clean hands and a drawing.

The other half of the job is outward: you are the person the production manager, the venue and the other departments talk to. Whether the stage will be ready at four o'clock is your answer to give, and it needs to be true rather than optimistic.

Platforms, risers and what they carry

Staging is the platform everything else stands on: the performance stage, the risers under a drum kit or an orchestra, the thrust, the catwalk, the camera platforms, the FOH riser, the podium and the tiered seating. It is modular, it is heavy, and it is built and taken apart by hand, fast, in the dark, twice a day on a touring show.

What makes it its own trade is that it is structural. A deck is not furniture. It has a rated load, it has to be level and braced, it has edges people can fall off, and there is a void underneath that fills with cable, cases and people.

The systems you meet

Most AV and event staging is one of a handful of systems, and the differences matter because their components do not mix.

• Steel deck-and-leg systems, such as Steeldeck: a steel frame with a plywood top and separate legs in fixed lengths. Strong, heavy, and the touring default.
• Aluminium deck systems, such as Litedeck: lighter to handle, different ratings, different legs.
• Folding-leg staging, such as Sico and similar: fast to set, common in hotels and ballrooms, with fixed heights.
• Rolling risers: decks on castors, wheeled on and off during a show, usually with their own brakes and locking.
• Tiered and telescopic seating, and the ramps and stair units that go with any of the above.

Legs, decks, clamps and rails are designed as a system. Mixing a leg from one manufacturer with a deck from another is not a shortcut; it is an unrated structure.

Where staging goes wrong

The recurring failures are few and specific: a deck loaded past what it will carry, usually by something small and heavy; a stage built out of level or out of square so nothing downstream fits; an open edge nobody guarded during the build; a rail left off because the stair unit was coming later; and a strike done fast by a tired crew in the wrong order.

Each one has an answer in this book, and each one is something a chief prevents by deciding rather than by working harder.

The systems, and what they are for

Components are designed as a system and do not mix between them.

What the chief actually does

The job is deciding, not lifting.

How to do it

1. Get the drawing and the deck list before the crew arrives.
2. Walk the floor and find the datum, the obstructions and the access.
3. Decide the build sequence and the crew split.
4. Brief the crew, including the hazards and where the edges will be.
5. Stand where you can see the whole build and check as it goes.
6. Report honestly on the schedule as soon as you know.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next staging call.

Decks, Legs and Loads

Everything a staging crew argues about comes back to one question: what will this deck carry, and where.

Rated load, and what a deck will carry

Staging is rated as a distributed load: so many pounds per square foot, or kilograms per square metre, spread evenly across the deck. Manufacturers publish it per deck size and per leg height, because a taller leg carries less.

Distributed is the important word. A rating that copes with a crowd of people standing evenly across a deck says nothing directly about one very heavy object on a small footprint.

The US scaffold rule (OSHA 29 CFR 1926.451(a)(1)) puts the principle plainly: a scaffold and its components must support their own weight and at least four times the maximum intended load without failure. Staging is not scaffolding, but the principle carries over. That factor is not spare capacity for you to spend. It is there for the things nobody predicted -- a crowd moving in step, a dropped case, a damaged leg.

Point loads, and why a small heavy thing is worse

AV is full of heavy objects with small feet: amplifier racks, battery packs, motors, cable trunks, a grand piano on castors, a drum riser with a stool and a person on it. A three-hundred kilogram rack standing on four castors puts its whole weight through four coin-sized patches of plywood.

The answer is to spread it. Steel plate, plywood sheet, track or proper spreaders under wheels and feet; a deck line chosen so a heavy item sits over a leg rather than in the middle of a span; and a question asked of the manufacturer's data rather than guessed.

If the item is heavy enough that the answer matters, get it in writing from somebody who knows the system, and put it on the drawing so the next crew inherits the decision.

Levelling, bracing and what holds it up sideways

A stage has to be level for everything downstream: set pieces, scenic, risers, LED walls and the performers. Screw jacks, shims and adjustable legs do the levelling; the floor decides how much of it you need.

Bracing is the part crews skip because a deck feels solid before it is braced. It is not. Vertical legs carry weight well and resist sideways force poorly, and a stage with a crowd on it gets pushed sideways every time that crowd moves together. Follow the manufacturer's bracing pattern, all of it, including the diagonals that look unnecessary.

Anything at height gets braced sooner rather than later. A partly built stage at leg height with no bracing is the least stable it will ever be, and that is the state crews leave it in when they break for food.

Ground bearing and what is underneath

Every leg puts its share of the load into the floor. Indoors that is usually fine, until the stage is over a service void, a basement, a pool cover, a sprung floor or a car park, at which point the venue's limit is the number that matters.

Outdoors the ground carries the load, and grass, mud, sand, gravel and made ground all behave differently and change with the weather. Base plates and spreaders under every leg, and somebody checking the ground during the day rather than only at the start.

The rule is the same as everywhere else in this series: ask what is under it, and ask somebody who actually knows.

The load questions, in order

Answer them before the first deck goes down.

Distributed against point loads

Both matter; only one is on the headline figure.

How to do it

1. Find the deck's rated distributed load for that leg height.
2. List what is actually going on it, including people and cases.
3. Identify anything heavy on a small footprint.
4. Spread point loads and place them over legs where you can.
5. Ask the manufacturer or an engineer for anything unusual or dynamic.
6. Write the decision on the drawing for the next crew.

What goes wrong

Practice it

With a real stage.

Staging & Building

Building a stage is an order of operations. Done in the right order it is quick and square; done in the wrong order it is a day of adjustment.

Decks, structure, and building it solidly.

Staging and structure

A stage is a structure with a top surface, and the parts have jobs. Legs carry vertical load. Bracing resists sideways movement. Clamps or couplers hold decks to each other so the surface acts as one. Rails keep people on. Skirting hides the void and keeps things out of it. Stairs and ramps get people on and off.

Nothing on that list is decoration, which is worth saying because rails, bracing and skirting are the three that get left until later and then forgotten.

Building safely and solidly

Build from a datum: one corner or edge that is right, established against the room or the drawing, and everything measured from it. Get the first row square and level and the rest follows; get it wrong and every row after it inherits the error.

Set legs to the right height before decks go on, level as you go rather than at the end, clamp decks together as each one lands, and brace as the height goes up rather than after the deck is complete.

Handle decks with the crew and the technique the job needs: they are heavy, they have pinch points at every corner and clamp, and a dropped deck takes fingers. Gloves, a call before the lift, and nobody walking backwards.

Guardrails, edges and the height that triggers them

An open edge is the staging hazard. The regulator's general duty is a height trigger -- six feet in construction work, four feet in general industry -- above which an unprotected edge needs a guardrail, a net or personal fall arrest.

Events live awkwardly across those categories, and venues, productions and insurers often set their own lower thresholds. The useful position for a crew chief is simple: know which rule your employer is working to, and treat any edge above about a metre as needing an answer rather than an opinion.

Then there is the part the rules do not cover well. During a build, every edge is open, the height is changing, and the people near it are carrying decks backwards. Guard the edges you can, keep the work moving away from the edge rather than toward it, and put the rails on as the stage grows rather than at the end.

Rails go on the audience-facing edges last on a show stage, because they come off for the performance -- which is exactly why the plan for who fits them, and when they come off and go back on, is agreed at the start of the call rather than at the end.

Stairs, ramps and access

Getting people on and off a stage is a design decision, not a detail. Stair units come with handrails and treads designed for them; assembled stairs need to be secured to the stage rather than standing beside it.

Ramps matter more than most crews think: for wheelchair access, for a piano, for rolling risers, and for cases. The gradient decides whether it is usable, and a ramp that is too steep for a wheelchair is also too steep for somebody pushing a heavy case.

Behind the stage, access is just as important and less pretty: steps up from the wings, a route that is lit, and a way out that does not involve stepping off an edge in the dark.

Skirting, masking and what goes under a stage

Skirting hides the legs and finishes the look. It also hides the void, which on a busy show fills with cable, cases, water bottles and occasionally people having a quiet moment.

That matters for three reasons: things under a stage are hard to find in a hurry, a void full of cases is a fire risk, and somebody under a deck is invisible to the crew working on top of it. Keep it tidy, keep it known, and check under the deck before anything heavy goes on top.

Falling objects, and the people below

While a stage is being built, people work under and beside it: running cable, fixing skirting, sorting cases. Anything dropped from the deck lands on them -- a clamp, a drill, a leg, a deck corner.

Toe boards where rails are fitted, tidy decks, tools kept away from the edge, and a rule that the area under an active build is not a storage area. When decks are being handled at height, nobody is underneath.

The build, in order

Out of order is where the day goes.

Edges during a build

The rules cover the finished stage; the build is the dangerous part.

How to do it

1. Establish and mark the datum against the drawing and the room.
2. Set the legs for the first row and level them.
3. Land and clamp the first row, checking square and level.
4. Work outward, bracing as the structure grows.
5. Fit rails, stairs and access as the stage reaches its height.
6. Skirt last, after checking under the deck is clear and known.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next build.

Leading the Build

The part of the job that is not about staging at all. A crew chief who understands decks and not people will have a level stage and a crew that does not want to come back.

Run the crew and the build as a crew chief.

Leading the crew

You are leading people who are often freelance, frequently new to you, sometimes new to staging, and always tired by the end. What they need from you is clarity: what is being built, in what order, who is doing what, where the hazards are, and when the breaks are.

Most of what people call a bad crew is a briefing failure. Crew who do not know the sequence make sensible guesses that do not fit each other. Crew who do not know the finish time pace themselves wrongly. Crew who do not know which edge is live walk backwards toward it.

The other half is respect, which on a load-in is expressed practically: learning names, giving the unpleasant job to different people rather than the same one, saying when something was done well, and being the person who takes the blame outward and the credit inward.

Running the build

The crew chief runs the build — managing the whole build operation: organizing the work and sequence, setting the pace (efficient but safe), solving problems, ensuring quality and safety, and getting the build done correctly and on time. The crew chief owns the build — its quality, safety, and schedule. Running the build well (efficient, safe, on-time, correct) is the crew chief's core responsibility.

This means the crew chief manages the build as a whole — the crew, the work, the pace, the quality, the safety, the schedule — delivering a well-built stage/set on time. A good crew chief runs a smooth, safe, efficient build; a poor one runs a chaotic or unsafe one.

Briefing a crew

A good staging briefing takes three minutes and contains the same things every time.

• What we are building, and where it goes on the floor.
• The sequence, and which part each group starts on.
• Who is leading each group, and who to ask.
• The hazards: edges, heights, pinch points, machines, other departments.
• Where the gear is, and where the empties go.
• Timings: breaks, and what has to be done by when.
• The stop rule -- anybody can call a stop, and nobody gets grief for it.

Then take questions, because the question somebody asks in the briefing is the mistake they were about to make.

Delegation, and doing less of the work yourself

The commonest mistake a new chief makes is working. It feels productive, it is what you were good at, and it is why you were promoted. It also means nobody is watching the build, nobody is answering the production manager, and nobody notices that the second row is a centimetre out.

Delegate in groups with a name on each: this pair sets legs, this group lands decks, this one braces behind them, this one does rails and stairs. Give each group its own finishing point so progress is visible.

Then stand where you can see it, check as it goes rather than at the end, and keep your hands free for a tape measure, a drawing and a radio.

Correcting work without losing the crew

Some of what gets built will be wrong, and the chief has to say so. How it is said decides whether the crew tells you about the next problem or hides it.

What works is specific, quick and about the work: what is wrong, why it matters, what to do instead, and then move on. What does not work is doing it silently yourself, saving it up for later, or saying it in front of the whole crew when it could be said to one person.

And when the mistake came from your own briefing -- which it often did -- say that too. A chief who takes that on gets told about problems early for the rest of the tour.

Pace, breaks and a long call

Staging is heavy work in bursts. People go fast at the start, slow in the middle and get careless at the end, and the injuries cluster in that last part.

Set a pace the crew can hold, take the breaks rather than promising them, rotate the heaviest jobs, and notice who is struggling before they say anything. Water and food are not a courtesy on a twelve hour call; they are part of the crew working safely at hour eleven.

If the schedule cannot be met at a safe pace, that is information for the production manager rather than something to be absorbed by a crew going faster.

Working with the other departments

Staging is first in and everybody is waiting. Audio needs the deck for the band gear, lighting needs the floor for the truss, video wants the wall position, and all three want it now.

Agree the sequence with the production manager and then hold it, tell the other heads when their area will be free, and give them a real answer rather than a comfortable one. Where two departments genuinely need the same space, it is a scheduling decision for the production manager, not an argument between two crews.

And at the end of the build, walk the stage with the other departments so what they inherit is what they expect.

The crew chief leads the build crew — directing and organizing the crew building the stage/set, assigning the work, leading the team, and getting the build done — hands-on crew leadership (applying crew-leadership skills to the physical build), coordinating the work and keeping the team productive and safe as the leader the crew follows. The crew chief also runs the build — managing the whole operation: organizing the work and sequence, setting the pace (efficient but safe), solving problems, ensuring quality and safety, and getting it done correctly and on time — owning the build's quality, safety, and schedule, delivering a well-built stage/set on time (a good crew chief runs a smooth, safe, efficient build).

The briefing, every time

Three minutes, and the same seven things.

Doing against leading

What the promotion actually changed.

How to do it

1. Brief the whole crew before anybody touches anything.
2. Split into named groups with their own finishing points.
3. Stand where the whole build is visible and check as it goes.
4. Correct quickly, specifically, and to the person rather than the room.
5. Take the breaks and rotate the heavy jobs.
6. Report progress to the production manager before you are asked.
7. Walk the finished stage with the other departments.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next call, whether or not you are in charge.

Outdoor Staging and Weather

Outdoors, the structure gets a standard, an engineer and a weather plan, and the crew chief acquires a set of decisions that are not about building at all.

What changes outdoors

Outdoors the ground moves, the weather has a vote, and the structure is usually more than a platform: a roof, wings, delay towers, screen supports, barricade and a mix-position tower.

Those overhead and ground-supported structures are the subject of a published standard, ANSI/ESTA E1.21, which covers temporary ground-supported structures used in the technical production of outdoor entertainment events -- their design, manufacture, use and maintenance. It specifically excludes pre-engineered modular staging used as a performance platform on its own, which is why the deck you are building may sit outside it while the roof above you does not.

What that means for a crew chief is straightforward: outdoor structures come with an engineer, drawings, a permitted configuration and a person made responsible for it. Your job is to build to the drawing, to say when reality does not match it, and never to improvise a structural change.

The competent person and the paperwork

Outdoor structures are built and operated under somebody named: the engineer who designed it, and the competent person on site responsible for its use, its inspection and the decision to stop. On a festival that person may be the production's structural contractor rather than anybody on your crew.

Find out who it is on the first morning. If the answer is vague, that is the most important thing you will learn all week, and it is a question for the production manager rather than a problem to solve yourself.

The wind action plan

Every outdoor structure works to wind speeds, and the document that turns those into decisions is the wind action plan. It states what happens at each threshold: monitor, stop lifting, drop banners and scrim, clear the structure, clear the audience.

For it to work, three things have to be true. Somebody is actually measuring wind at the right place, continuously, rather than guessing. The thresholds are known to the people who must act on them. And the authority to call a stop is named and available, which means somebody who is awake, on site and reachable.

Scrim, banners and any large flat surface are the part that surprises people: they turn a structure into a sail, and the plan usually requires them off long before the structure itself is at risk.

Ballast, anchoring and staying put

An outdoor structure has to be held down as well as held up. That means ballast -- water, concrete, weights -- or ground anchors, stakes and guys, to the engineer's specification and not to the crew's judgement.

Two practical traps recur. Ballast that is specified but only partly delivered, so the structure stands with half its hold-down in the car park. And ground anchors into ground nobody has surveyed, which on a made-up site can mean services underneath.

Count the ballast, check it against the drawing, and say something if the numbers do not match.

Weather through the day

Rain changes the ground under the legs, makes decks slippery and makes electrical decisions for other departments. Heat changes the crew. Lightning is its own plan, with its own distances and waiting times, and it is not a judgement call made by a crew chief looking at the sky.

The workable habit is to keep looking: at the forecast, at the anemometer, at the ground under the legs, and at the crew. And to raise what you see early, because outdoor decisions get much more expensive the later they are made.

Who is responsible for what, outdoors

Establish these names on the first morning.

The wind action plan works when

All four, or it is a document rather than a plan.

How to do it

1. Find out who the engineer and the on-site competent person are.
2. Get the drawing and the permitted configuration, and build to it.
3. Count the ballast or check the anchoring against the specification.
4. Read the wind action plan and confirm who measures and who calls a stop.
5. Check the ground under the legs through the day, especially after rain.
6. Raise any difference between the drawing and reality immediately.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next outdoor job.

Safety, Schedule & Strike

The three things a crew chief is judged on, and the one most likely to hurt somebody.

Build safe and on time, then take it down.

Safety and schedule

Staging has its own injuries and they are not exotic: crushed fingers at clamps and corners, backs from lifting decks badly, feet from dropped legs, falls from open edges, and cuts from deck edges and hardware.

Every one of them gets more likely when the call is behind, which is why safety and schedule are the same subject for a crew chief. A crew that is being asked to catch up is a crew about to get hurt.

What a chief actually controls is the pace, the sequence and the information. If the build cannot be finished safely in the time available, the honest move is to say so early with what you need: more crew, a later doors, or a reduced scope. Absorbing it silently is a decision to risk people, made quietly.

The strike

Strike is the fastest and most dangerous part of staging. The crew is tired, the lighting is going away around them, everything is coming apart at once and there is a truck outside with a driver's hours running down.

It is also the part with the least planning attached, which is backwards. A strike needs a briefing exactly like a build: the order, the groups, where the empties are, what goes in first, and where the hazards are now that the floor has changed.

Strike in reverse order: skirting off first; the stage broken down from the edges inward, each rail and stair unit coming off only with the deck it serves, so no edge is left open at height; bracing comes off last from anything at height, not first. A part-struck stage with its rails or bracing pulled is as dangerous as a part-built one, and it usually has more people standing on it.

Then pack the way the truck needs it, not the way the floor produces it, and keep a count. The cases that do not make the truck become somebody's problem in another city.

Reading the schedule honestly

The production manager needs an answer they can plan against, not an optimistic one. Three sentences do the job: what is done, what is left, and when it will be finished at the current pace.

Say it when you know rather than when it is obvious. The cost of telling somebody at eleven that the stage will be late at four is a conversation; the cost of telling them at half past three is a show.

The handover and the paperwork

What gets written down is what the next crew inherits: the deck count, the damaged items, the decisions made on site, anything unusual about the floor or the ground, and anything that was agreed with another department.

Incidents and near misses get written down too, including the ones where nobody was hurt. A near miss recorded on this show is what stops the same thing happening on the next one.

And a walk of the empty floor before you leave: nothing left under where the stage was, nothing in the void, no hardware in the corners, and the venue's floor as you found it.

Staging's own injuries

Specific, repetitive, and worse when the call is behind.

Strike, in order

The reverse of the build, with bracing last.

How to do it

1. Brief the strike: order, groups, empties, hazards as the floor now is.
2. Take off the skirting; leave rails and stairs on while the deck is at height and people need access.
3. Break the stage down from the edges toward the middle, taking each rail and stair unit off only with the deck it serves.
4. Leave bracing in place until the height has come down.
5. Pack in the truck's order and keep a running count.
6. Walk the empty floor, then write the handover.

What goes wrong

Practice it

On your next strike.

Staging & Crew Chief Mastered

What to keep, and how to keep getting better at a job that is mostly judgement.

Building the show and leading the build.

Developing as a staging crew chief

Get the systems under your hands -- build with more than one deck system, and read their published data rather than learning them by feel. Learn to read a stage drawing properly, including the sections and the details nobody looks at.

Work with chiefs who are better than you and watch where they stand, what they check, and what they say to the production manager. Ask to run small calls before large ones. And take the related training seriously: manual handling, working at height, first aid, and the lift tickets, because a chief who can operate the machine has more ways to solve a problem.

For outdoor work, learn the structures side properly: who the engineer is, what E1.21 covers, what a wind action plan contains, and what a competent person is responsible for.

Practical sign-off

Staging is learned building real shows. The learner builds staging safely and solidly, leads a build crew, runs the build on time, and leads the strike, always safely. A mentor signs off when the learner can build and lead a staging build.

• Built staging safely and solidly (decks, structure, set)
• Led a build crew as a crew chief
• Ran the build efficiently, safely, and on time
• Led the strike safely and efficiently

What the job comes down to

Hold on to a few things. Staging is structural: rated loads, distributed against point, bracing that is not optional, and a floor or a ground that has its own limit. Build from a datum, get the first row right, brace as you grow, and fit the edges as the stage reaches its height rather than at the end.

Outdoors there is a standard, an engineer and a competent person, and a wind action plan that only works when somebody is measuring and somebody is named to call a stop.

And the crew is half the job. Brief properly, split into named groups, keep your hands free, correct quickly and privately, take the breaks, and tell the production manager the truth early.

Underneath all of it: the chief's value is judgement, and judgement is visible mostly in what does not happen.

What to do on Monday

• Find the published load rating for the deck system you use most.
• Write the seven-item briefing for your next call and use it.
• Ask who the competent person is on your next outdoor job.
• Time how long you spend lifting on your next call, and halve it.
• Brief the strike the way you brief the build.

Each is small, and each moves you from being the fastest person on the crew to being the person the crew works for.

What the chief owns

Four things, and all of them are decisions.

How to do it

1. Build with more than one deck system and read their published data.
2. Learn to read stage drawings including sections and details.
3. Watch better chiefs and note where they stand and what they check.
4. Ask to run small calls before big ones.
5. Take manual handling, height, first aid and lift training.
6. Learn the outdoor structures side and who is responsible for what.

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