Get Riggy With It

Since we're in an age where we are supposedly so concerned with safety, training, and qualification, may I pose a question to the touring companies across America? (By the way, I intend to address an issue here, not a company or venue; names and locations are not going to be mentioned.)

I rig for several venues. In the past year and a half, I have noticed a tendency among many of the medium-to-larger touring companies to ask for carpenters in their riders, and not specify the need for riggers. At the point of load-in, they pull the riggers from the carpentry department.

Maybe in New York every skilled carpenter is also a skilled rigger, but it ain't so out here in Podunk, guys. Everyone who has been in this business longer than, say, 30 seconds, knows that sometimes the numbers on a call, particularly it it's a larger call, are often a matter of body count. Sometimes - heaven forbid - you get a local crew who aren't smart enough to find their backsides with a map and a guide, much less build a wall or hang a drop without supervision.

However, I'm talking about rigging - remember, the big heavy stuff that hangs over everybody's head? All right, riggers cost more in most places. It's not a financial issue, it's an intelligent issue; not, just to mention it, a safety issue.

All carpenters, however skilled, are not riggers. Please, folks, don't assume that the guys in Local 666 out here in Podunk can hang your show. It ain't so. Andrew Munro

Shine a Light Your feature about Seattle's new Experience Music Project in the November 2000 issue of ED was spectacular - particularly the photography - but we were dismayed to see that Candela was not included in your list of consultants for the project on page 66. There is a mention of a separate company, Soundelux Showorks/Candela, but that is a separate entity.

OUR Candela, an architectural lighting design firm based in Seattle, played a key role in the lighting design for EMP's exhibits, theatre, educational, and administrative spaces, as well as the exterior site.

We have contacted EMP and learned that Candela was inadvertently left off the list of consultants they routinely provide to the media. This has been rectified, and Candela now appears on the list. Sally W. Thompson Candela