ESTA Announces Standards Revisions, Appoints New Board Member

Revisions are proposed for the existing American National Standard E1.2-2000, Entertainment Technology — Design, Manufacture, and use of Aluminum Trusses and Towers. The proposed revisions are additions to address the effects that adding or removing paint and other coatings may have on the strength of aluminum truss and tower modules and to delete specific approval dates in the references to other standards so that the most recent versions are referred to by default. These proposed revisions are now available for public review and comment through the end of the business day in New York on April 15, 2003.

The proposed revisions are detailed in “Proposed Additions and Changes to ANSI E1.2-2000,” which is available free of charge on the ESTA website at www.esta.org/tsp/E1-2inst.htm or by contacting Karl G. Ruling at the address below. The existing ANSI E1.2-2000 document is available for purchase in electronic form at ANSI's Electronic Standards Store, at webstore.ansi.org/ansidocstore/default.asp. It is also available for purchase in hard copy from USITT at the USITT website or by calling USITT at 315-463-6463.

The Electrical Power Working Group has started a project to create an American National Standard E1.24-200x, Dimensional Requirements for Stage Pin Connectors. The standard will specify the dimensional requirements for a range of different ampacity stage pin connectors (also known as Bates plugs) and also will give the general conventions of use for the connectors. The starting point for the standard-drafting project will the USITT connector standard, USITT S3-1997, the maintenance of which the United States Institute for Theatre Technology has agreed to turn over to ESTA.

The project is being undertaken because the USITT standard does not appear to be used by nationally recognized testing laboratories in their safety tests for pin connectors. The USITT standard specifies the size and placement of connector pins so that male and female connectors by different manufacturers will reliably fit together. However, testing labs have been testing the mating of the male and female connectors of a particular manufacturer with other connectors from that same manufacturer only, and have not been testing them to see if they conform to a non-manufacturer-specific configuration standard such as USITT's. The result has been connectors in the field that will not mate with connectors from other manufacturers without overheating. It is hoped that having an American National Standard for connector compatibility will promote safety and convenience by ensuring that connectors from different manufacturers intermate reliably.

People and organizations that might be affected by the development of the pin connector configuration standard are invited to become involved in the project by joining the Electrical Power Working Group or by offering comments when the draft standard is ready for public review. Information about getting involved in the Working Group is available at www.esta.org/tsp/tscinvolved.html or can be obtained by contacting Karl G. Ruling, ESTA's Technical Standards manager. Membership in ESTA is not a requirement for membership in the Electrical Power Working Group or for participation in any public review.

For more information on ESTA's Technical Standards Program, please contact: Karl G. Ruling, Technical Standards Manager, ESTA, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1005, New York, NY 10001, fax: 212-244-1502, e-mail: [email protected].

In other ESTA news, David Taylor, director of project management at Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC), has been appointed to ESTA's board of directors. A recent vacancy in the position of affiliate director allowed ESTA president Mike Wood to appoint Taylor to the board to fill the remaining two years of the vacated term.

Says Taylor, “I look forward to contributing to the ESTA board and supporting the mission of the family of diverse ESTA members to create a better, safer, and more efficient entertainment market.”

Taylor joined Theatre Projects in the UK in 1985, became a project leader in 1989, and a senior consultant in 1993. He moved to the US in 1993 where he is based at TPC's Connecticut office. In 1998 he became a member of the Theatre Projects board and assumed his current position.

As a freelance lighting designer, David's work has been seen in over 100 productions in the US and Europe. He served as secretary of the Association of Lighting Designers 1986-1993, and became a lifetime Fellow in 1993. He served for four years on the Equity Designers Committee and was the union design representative to the Equity Health and Safety Committee. He is a frequent contributor to magazines, newspapers, and journals in Europe and North America and was a contributing editor to the former Theatre Crafts International magazine (now Entertainment Design) until 1994.