ESTA's Technical Standards Program announces that three draft standards have been posted on the ESTA website for public review through March 12, 2007. The draft standards, BSR E1.22, Entertainment Technology - Fire Safety Curtain Systems; BSR E1.35-200x, Standard for Lens Quality Measurements for Pattern Projecting Luminaires Intended for Entertainment Use; and BSR E1.36-200x, Model Procedure for Permitting the Use of Tungsten-Halogen Incandescent Lamps and Stage and Studio Luminaires in Vendor Exhibit Booths in Convention and Trade Show Exhibition Halls, can be accessed here.
BSR E1.22 - 200x, Entertainment Technology- Fire Safety Curtain Systems, describes the materials, fabrication, installation, operation, testing, and maintenance of fire safety curtains and fire safety curtain systems used for theatre proscenium opening protection. It is a serious attempt to avoid offering a cookbook description of a fire safety curtain system and, instead, to specify how a fire curtain shall perform. That is, it doesn't tell you what kind of fabric to use for a fire safety curtain, for example, but instead tells you how strong whatever fabric you use must be and what abrasion and fire tests it must pass.
BSR E1.35-200x, Standard for Lens Quality Measurements for Pattern Projecting Luminaires Intended for Entertainment Use, describes a method for measuring stage and studio luminaire lens quality with particular emphasis on contrast and perceived image quality (sharpness). It also offers a way for presenting these results on a datasheet in a format that is readily understood by a typical end-user and that allows the end-user to directly compare lenses in a meaningful way. There is currently no way to describe how clearly a stage lighting instrument projects an image, other than by showing a person, which is effective, but often inconvenient. Standards exist for projection lenses, but these are not applicable to the lower quality lenses used on stage and studio luminaires.
BSR E1.36-200x, Model Procedure for Permitting the Use of Tungsten-Halogen Incandescent Lamps and Stage and Studio Luminaires in Vendor Exhibit Booths in Convention and Trade Show Exhibition Halls, is a model set of procedures that can be used by convention center and trade show exhibition hall staff to mitigate the risks perceived to be associated with the use of tungsten-halogen lamps and stage and studio luminaires in convention centers and trade show exhibition halls and to allow their use. There is no evidence that tungsten-halogen lamps used in Listed luminaires or that Listed stage and studio luminaires present any greater risk as they are used in exhibition halls than any other light source or type of luminaire in those venues, but the management staff of at least one major convention center in the United States believe that they do have elevated risks. They have moved to prohibit or limit the use of this equipment by exhibitors, but the restrictions are inconsistently enforced, largely because there is no clear procedure to decide when their use is acceptable or not. This draft standard offers a model procedure to permit or not the use of tungsten-halogen lamps and stage and studio luminaires, and helps promote the use of the lamps and luminaires in a safe manner.
In addition to being asked to review the document to see if it offers adequate and correct advice, reviewers are asked to look for protected intellectual property in the draft standards. ESTA does not warrant that its standards contain no protected intellectual property, but it also does not intend to adopt any standard that requires the use of protected intellectual property, unless that property is necessary for technical reasons and can be licensed and used by anyone without prejudice or preference for a reasonable fee. Any protected intellectual property in the document should be pointed out in the public review comments.
For more information, please contact:
Karl G. Ruling, Technical Standards Manager
ESTA
875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1005
New York, NY 10001
1-212-244-1505
Fax 1-212-244-1502