272. Riggers Siobhan Colleen & Katrina Puleo

Let’s get down to shackles and eyebolts in Episode 272, as riggers Siobhan Colleen and Katrina Puleo join the show to demystify rigging. Whether it’s a ballroom or an arena, Siobhan and Katrina share their vast experience of what to look out for and how to make life easier and safer for you, your rigging team, and the rest of the production. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Siobhan Colleen is an entertainment and live events professional with a background in rigging, fall protection, rescue, and safety. She is formerly the national assistant director of safety and training for Rhino Staging. Currently, she is taking a sabbatical to finish earning her degrees in management information systems and cybersecurity. She also volunteers for ESTA and the Event Safety Alliance. Fun fact: Siobhan created an intro to ground rigging video series for Area Four Industries which can be viewed here.

Katrina Puleo is an entertainment production rigger who began her training in the Orlando, FL area, was based in Las Vegas since the end of 2012, and most recently relocated to Lititz, PA. A graduate of the University of Central Florida’s schools of Theatre & Film (with dual degrees), she is ETCP Arena Rigging Certified, CM Pro Tech/Road Tech Certified, Sprat Rope Access Certified & holds a current OSHA 30. She has been working in the industry professionally for the last 18 years and most recently has held head/lead rigging positions for festivals, one-offs and corporate shows. Over the years she has worked as a rigging technician/lead rigging technician for Universal Studios Florida, as an on-call house figger for the Orange County Convention Center (in Orlando, FL), as well as on two Cirque Du Soleil resident shows, Zarkanna and MJ One for 6-plus years. She also continues to work as both a head rigger/assistant head rigger in multiple areas to continue to develop more diversified skills that shw hopes to eventually transition them fully into Rigging Design & Project Management.

Katrina loves cooking, hiking, her cats, comic books, movies and snowboarding during the season. Currently she is excited to be able to give back and participate in rigging educational programs that have asked her to help instruct as well as continuing to work on her book project. She feels strongly that a solid foundation in any specialty is very important and she enjoys passing along skills to those interested and eager to become both riggers and/or more well rounded theatrical/film/festival technicians.

Episode Links:
Siobhan Colleen Area Four Industries Video Series
Entertainment Rigging By Harry Donovan
Episode 272 Transcript

Be sure to check out the Signal To Noise Facebook Group and Discord Server. Both are spaces for listeners to create to generate conversations around the people and topics covered in the podcast — we want your questions and comments!

Also please check out and support The Roadie Clinic, Their mission is simple. “We exist to empower & heal roadies and their families by providing resources & services tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle.”

The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

Want to be a part of the show? If you have a quick tip to share, or a question for the hosts, past or future guests,

Transcript

Episode 272 - Rigging with Siobhan Colleen and Katrina Puleo

Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!

Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:

Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.

RCF, who has just unveiled their new TT+ Audio brand, including the high performance GTX series line arrays and the GTS29 subwoofer. Be sure to check it out at rcf-usa.com. That's rcf-usa.com.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey, you're listening to another episode of Signal to Noise, I'm your host Andy Leviss, and with me, the mid to my side, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean? 

Sean Walker: Just, uh, you know, coming out of festival season into corporate season and thankful for, uh, air conditioning and bad sandwiches in ballrooms. 

Andy Leviss: Oh man, there's, yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't even want to start over at ballroom kit, yeah, yeah, I'm just triggered from the last week. 

Sean Walker: Bro, it's so frickin it's so funny how, like, the grass is always greener, and, you know, the, the team and I chat about it all the time, but, like, at the, at the end of corporate season, we're like, If I have to listen to one more motherfucker talk about EBITDA and taking over the world, I might blow this whole fuckin thing up. And then you're like, I cannot wait to go hear a fucking kick drum and some dude screaming through a big PA, this is gonna be great! And then like, three weeks into Festival of Constant Seasons, you're like, shoot me in the face, where's my ballroom and air conditioning, and what was I thinking? Like, holy crap, and you just get to the end of Festival of Seasons, you're beat up and exhausted, nothing works because I'm old, and so you're like, oh my god, my OLD has kicked in, Like, I need a nap, like I haven't slept in a year at this point. 

Come back into corporate season, you're like, Oh, this is so great. Ballrooms, air conditioning, 105 sandwiches for a boxed lunch that suck. This is gonna be awesome. All winter long. Woo! Three weeks into that shit, you're like, What the fuck was I thinking, dude? damn, I can't wait for another kick drum. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, so 

Sean Walker: crazy, dude. 

Andy Leviss: I, I had a new one on a corporate this last week, we're in advance, they made a big deal out of, there's, here's a survey, fill this out with your meal choices for show day because it's, it's a secret service, you know, secure site on show day. So like, there's not going to be lunch break outside, you know, and they had a big note that, you know, we'll do our best, but like, this isn't an order. 

This is to allow us to figure out the, you know, how many of what to get. So we're not going to guarantee that what you choose on the, on the survey is what you get that day. Cause it depends on what people actually take. 

Sean Walker: Okay. 

Andy Leviss: That disclaimer is truer than they thought because literally nothing that was on the survey was what they brought. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. 

Andy Leviss: different menu. And it was yet another one of that, that Andy's rule that like catering should always have one just like plain, normal, boring option, cause when you put weird shit on every option, there's gonna be People there who just can't find anything, and everyone had horseradish, one had like some weird flavored mustard, one had this, one had that, None of them were what they told people in advance. 

It was, it was special. 

Sean Walker: And this is why we pack Quest Bars, Andy. This is why we have fricking bars in our life. Like, 

Andy Leviss: And, and this is why you leave the bag with all that stuff in it on site the night before when there's a secret service security to go through the damn show. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. It rolls in in its own fricking case and you're like, no man. Snack drawer. 

Andy Leviss: Sean's snack work box. I can vouch, it's a thing. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. Snack drawer, bro. You don't, you don't get to be, you don't get to be, uh, not hungry on site by forgetting the snack box. You know what I mean, 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep. And I mean, I'm, I'm busy packing the same go bag of snack bars for the hospital because we're near, actually, depending on when this episode comes out, I might already have the baby home by the time this episode comes out, but if not, we'll be close. So 

Sean Walker: man? I so wish we got to talk to the powers that be. I wish this was on YouTube. Cause just the fucking deadpan look in your face after your first night with a baby, you're going to be like, who am I? What am I doing? Where am I? Like, what is going on right now? And just to like, have a picture of that. You got to just post that to discord server so we can see how you're like a zombie. 

You're not even a whole person anymore. And it'll be that for like a year, dog. Yeah, 

Andy Leviss: be sidekick on the mic, we'll him in for an episode. 

Sean Walker: that's awesome. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, we're down to that last week, so full steam ahead. You guys, like I said, Baby may actually be here by the time people are listening to this, 

Sean Walker: dude. Awesome. I'm stoked for you, dude. I'm super stoked for you. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, well, that being said, since I want to get these done as soon as we can before that, why don't we just, uh, let's dive right in and introduce our guests this week. 

Uh, we've, you guys have been hearing them in the background a little bit. We've got two guests, one of whom I've known for a while virtually through, uh, text based channels and I, I said earlier, I'm like, well, it's good to finally meet you, like, not online. And she pointed out like, no, we're still online. 

And that is tactically true, but there's actual video now. Uh, we've got, uh, two guests with us, uh, Siobhan Colleen and Katrina Puleo, and, uh, they're here to talk rigging with us. Um, this is actually, it's been on my list, both this subject and to reach out to Siobhan to see if she'd come on and, you know, talk about rigging. 

Talk with us about it. And then, uh, one of our listeners, uh, Alex Koch, who if, uh, if y'all are on the Facebook group, you'll know him as Kookie. He's one of the regular posters in the group. He had reached out and was like, you know, you guys should do an episode on rigging. And I was like, you know, I've actually been meaning to talk to somebody I know about that. 

Let's make that happen. So, uh, yeah. Thanks for, you know, poking me on that and, uh, making it happen. And why don't, uh, you two tell us a little about yourselves and, you know, uh, your background and, and why we've got you on to talk about rigging. And then we'll, we'll kind of dig into what riggers wish audio folks know. 

And, and we'll ask you the dumb questions that we have for people who know what they're talking about, about rigging. Um, Siobhan, why don't we 

Sean Walker: They wish we knew everything, Andy. 

Andy Leviss: mean, yeah. 

Siobhan Colleen: thank you guys so much for having us on, and thank you for having me and Katrina on. We're super excited to be here. My name is Siobhan Colleen, and I have a background in live events and entertainment rigging. Fall Protection, Rescue and Safety. If you want to, you know, see my full on resume, you can go to LinkedIn and look up Siobhan Colleen. 

So yeah, I like to keep my bio pretty, pretty short and sweet because I'm super excited to dive into it today. 

Andy Leviss: Cool. Katrina, 

Katrina Puleo: you knew everything, Sean, then there would be no need for us, and we'd be out of a job. So I don't need you or want you to know everything, just enough knowledge. 

Sean Walker: Fair enough. Well, that's good, because I can't know everything. I, my brain is full, dude. I, I'm, I can't, can't do it. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. That said, we're sound engineers, so we just like to act like we know everything. 

Katrina Puleo: Absolutely not a problem. Um, yeah, so my name is Katrina. Um, I have a degree in theatrical design from the University of Central Florida, as well as film history. And I've been rigging for about 18 years, and I've really focused in my career on a lot of rigging diversification. So I've worked in everything from studio film, TV, live events. 

Festivals, uh, a little bit of light touring, and I just really enjoy seeking out projects that kind of let me develop new skills and challenge what I know about rigging, because something I've learned in my 18 years is that regardless of what is commonplace and the same within all of our rigging and entertainment, we use the same equipment in 10 different ways across 10 different applications, and they can all be safe, and they all teach you or give you a different advantage in a different situation. 

And what you do for Cirque du Soleil, you would not necessarily do on a tour, you would not do the same thing in a festival, you would not do the same in a theatrical permanent install. So, I, um, I just really like to go ahead and continue to try to expose myself to different avenues and different opportunities and, Hopefully have picked up some fun and quirky stories about things that audio guys have tried to do over the years. 

Sean Walker: I'm like, hit me with the quirky stories. Come on, what, what, what's, what, what are some of the quirky stories that audio guys have done over the years? 

Siobhan Colleen: Well, I think we should start with pre production, and I think we should talk about the importance of cable path planning. Katrina, I wish that we could show the audience the fun photo you have of seven scissorlips hoisting some audiosnake up and over some already flown to trim truss. You want to talk about that? 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, send us the photo, we'll link it in the show notes, and we'll drop it in the Discord when the episode goes 

Katrina Puleo: absolutely. 

Sean Walker: dinner, dude. What's up with that? 

Katrina Puleo: Well, what, what happened there was kind of, um, a, kind of a miscommunication. So, unfortunately, Rigging had gone and tried to attempt to talk to the audio team about what their cable path plan was, because they did actually have a dedicated audio bridge for that specific job. But the long story short was, somewhere along that initial conversation, the audio gentleman chose to adapt his plan and not really inform the rigging team. 

And he ended up going inside the 12. 5 inch audio bridge instead of on top of it, for one. Which became an issue because then it married the audio bridge to the lighting truss that it ran through as well, so they were no longer able to be run independently, which turned is a complication for rigging, um, not to mention the audio snake got completely left out. 

And so that wasn't something that was noticed, noted, or addressed until the majority of the, the front house and all of the stage pressing had gone to trim, which meant we had to get seven scissor lips into place to hoist an audio snake, uh, across over 150 to 180 or so feet. over all of these different trusses and lay them carefully all at different heights and then secure them in each of those positions to make sure that it wouldn't run or wasn't any travel issue or anything like that after every other department had already finished and gone to trip, which is just, I mean, Audiosnake in theater, things like that are incredibly heavy. 

So having to hoist all of that up and then get people on scissor lifts on the sides of trusses to carefully snake it over individual pieces in a line. It's just, it's time consuming and very cumbersome, and it costs rigging a lot of time. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah, time is money, right? Especially that's what those corporate people are saying. Isn't that right, Sean? 

Sean Walker: Yes, ma'am. 

Siobhan Colleen: That's right. It's all about the ROI, right? Um, but I think that I, you know, I think something that people maybe don't realize is how layered rigging can be. Um, you will sometimes have like a mother grid and then you'll have separate points. 

You know, hoisting the cable bridges, or hoisting independent points, or sometimes you, you will have something layered underneath the mother grid, so there's, there's layers to it, and so when we're doing our load in, um, you know, there's just an order of operations that needs to happen. One truss may need to go before the other, and so, therefore, when you link two of them together that aren't meant to be linked, You know, that's causing problems like Katrina is explaining, um, and additionally, that affects your loadout, because if we've got a cable traveling, uh, you know, in the path of a flown truss, well, that cable needs to get out of the way before that truss can come in, so these are all things that riggers are thinking about in the pre production phase, um, and of course, you know, begin with the end in mind, So that's Stephen Covey for, you know, Sean, who is such a big corporate fan. 

Um, begin with the end in mind, right? We, we, in pre production, we begin with the loadout. 

Sean Walker: so which department, which department cut that audio snake in half so they can get to fucking dinner? Because everybody was like, time to go! Oh, the audio snake's fucking us all up? Nope, snip. Like, who cut that one out of the air? We're like, sorry dawg, shouldn't have fucked that up. 

Katrina Puleo: No, and honestly, we were just very polite, and rigging kind of got SOL'd there, and we just sort of made it happen. We, we were lucky enough that lighting had a lot of disconnects in, at the end of every truss, so we could disconnect lighting from the system. Uh, and then it just ended up being that the two that ended up getting stuck together, we just had to manage that one set of systems, because there was just nothing we could do at that point. 

But sometimes you just make it work. We just have to take the hit for the team, you know? And that's, and that's the unfortunate thing is that sometimes, you know, we try to pre plan ahead or we, we try to discuss, uh, cable swags, cable length, placement of cable, things like that. We're asking you because we're trying to prevent other issues because maybe we've already spoken to lighting, we've spoken to, you know, Um, you know, front of house, and there are other cable runs, and we're trying to see if, hey, can we consolidate any of these to make it easier on rigging to run one or two set of cables instead of four or five sets of cables? 

Uh, is there some way we can integrate you onto an existing cable bridge, or do we have to, because of weight, split you off, which means we need to come up with a dedicated plan and a path for you? And a lot of those things get a lot more complicated as soon as we get truss up in the air, and then we get a deck underneath, and then they become either Uh, scissor lift or boom lift only accessible, or climbing accessible in an arena, or rope access potentially. 

And they're all things that are fully within our skill set, but of course, we're trying to do like everyone else is, minimize the amount of exposure to hazards and keep ourselves as safe as possible. And also just the amount of time it takes to have to set ropes to rope access something, versus having the 5 or 10 minutes on the ground to have done it the way maybe you'd Somebody may have brought up in a pre production meeting would have saved everybody like she was saying an hour's worth of time or somebody's lunch break or pushing everybody back and and clients always do notice those things and unfortunately a lot of that falls back on rigging at the end of the job. 

Sean Walker: Andy, can you imagine being in an event that size? Having seven scissor lifts full of riggers, putting your snake in the air, and every single one of those motherfuckers shouting down at you, I REMEMBER MY FIRST RODEO TOO, AUDIO! For fucking an hour, trying to hang your snake, and you're just 

Andy Leviss: I say, 

Sean Walker: It's my first rodeo today, and I'm being called out, the whole 

Siobhan Colleen: they were very professional. Katrina said they were very professional. 

Sean Walker: is very 

Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, the only thing worse is the deadly quiet. 

Katrina Puleo: I mean we're we're very we were very professional but amongst ourselves we were definitely saying over and over again it's everybody's first day it's always everyone's 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. Ha ha ha ha. I remember my first rodeo too, audio. Ha 

Siobhan Colleen: want to talk a little bit about my first days as a rigger because it ties into a point that I want to make for audio technicians and lighting technicians and everybody else who's listening. Um, I, you know, I was very eager to prove myself, and that sometimes meant jumping ahead to show people that I was proactive. 

But if you don't have the full picture in mind and you don't have the full context of the order of operations that we talked about previously, your proactivity might actually be setting people behind. I, and later in my career, when I got to be a lead rigger for a job, um, I had a whole team of video technicians that wanted to be proactive and everybody jumped to everybody just, they were all, you know, kind of on standby and I get it, standby is uncomfortable, but sometimes it's, it's necessary. 

It's very necessary. And I had a whole team of video people who. You know, grabbed one person, each grabbed a shackle, they went all along this line of video, you know, the video wall, and they were trying to make this connection. And I said, everybody stop. I need everybody to just stop and wait. And I had to figure out how I needed this to be configured. 

And then I said, everybody just wait until I tell you what to do. I made the configuration. I figured out, okay, here's what it needs to be. And I said, look, you see this? Copy this exactly. Now you can all go touch shackles, and now you can all help me put this up, and I will go through and make sure that the configuration is exactly what I asked for. 

But, you know, the moral of the story is, you know, stay with your team, and even if you are someone with rigging experience, avoid interfering or being too proactive because you may lack the full context. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, that's a big one, and that's, that was actually gonna be one of my questions for you, which you kinda got to, which is great, is there's, I know like often on our audio quiz we'll have folks who like, come from a rigging background, or may do both and switch between them, and yeah, where does that line fall in, in helpful versus hindrance in terms of Too much knowledge being a good thing because you don't have the rest of that knowledge. 

Siobhan Colleen: Well, honestly, when in doubt, ask, you know, know who the leads are, know who the department heads are, and talk to them first, because, you know, even if, even if you are super skilled in rigging, but if it's not your rig, and you haven't been part of the pre production meetings, or you haven't looked at all of the drawings, and there's information you don't have access to, the best thing that you can do is just ask. 

Just ask the question, and then Whenever information's given to you, be respectful of that and follow, follow, follow as such. 

Sean Walker: whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you saying we need to actually show up to the pre production meetings? 

Katrina Puleo: maybe just a little bit but I mean I would fully agree no problem ever having a conversation with somebody about Hey, can we go ahead and get this started? Or is there something I can keep moving along so that my team isn't on standby or just waiting around? I'm perfectly happy, like, if you want to come and talk to me to discuss whatever it is so that we can keep every department moving. 

But for me, it's, it's definitely important also because, uh, I've also noticed a lot of times that audio likes to wrap truss in specific manner, especially more so on, like, the corporate show side because of trim issues or for 12 or 20 and a half inch truss. And they may not be aware that we may actually have specific hardware or have provided a solution that we've already looked at because trim is an issue. 

And I don't want you to waste your time any more than I want to waste mine or my team's time in you going and messing with a six foot piece of GAC 15 times trying to wrap something when I brought in a hard pick point to solve the problem. But because we didn't communicate that, you've, you've gotten yourself potentially frustrated thinking you can't solve this problem or can't get it to work the way you want. 

And I already have a solution sitting in a bin, but we just haven't discussed it yet. 

Sean Walker: Wait, so we have to communicate too? So first I have to show up to pre production meetings and then we have to communicate? 

Andy Leviss: I know, this is a lot 

Sean Walker: is getting complicated. This is getting complicated. 

Katrina Puleo: I mean, audio likes to make noise, so why wouldn't you want to communicate, right? Communication is noise! 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Siobhan Colleen: foundation of a successful relationship. 

Sean Walker: A thousand 

Siobhan Colleen: is key. You 

Sean Walker: guys. Of course it is. 

Siobhan Colleen: thought this was an audio podcast? This is a relationship podcast. 

Sean Walker: Oh my god, is that where we're going today? Is that where we're going? Because, because my wife and I have solved all relationship problems that we were gonna write a book about. You guys want to hear it? 

Siobhan Colleen: Oh yeah, do 

Sean Walker: we're gonna write a book. It's called Don't Be a Dick. 

Siobhan Colleen: I love it. 

Sean Walker: It solves all relationship problems for everything. 

Because if you go back to it and you're like, man, what, why are we fighting? One of you was a dick for something. Like, that's it, 

Katrina Puleo: times out of ten, probably. 

Sean Walker: it, dude, don't be a dick. Yeah, and rub her feet. Don't be a dick and rub her feet at the end of the day. Everything is fine. Everything, all problems are solved. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, and, and, and, I, I feel, and the, the first half of that definitely translates over to gigs. I feel like the second half starts to get HR called pretty quickly. 

Sean Walker: Well, since I'm HR, man, they can call all they want. I don't care. But, but I mean, it, it translates to everything, right? It's like, don't be a dick. So we're all a team. You got a big show going. You guys are, you have the working plan of the rig. Every department just needs to communicate and go, yo, dude, what, what's up with the, with the plan? 

Where are we at in the process? Right. How can I help? Or is it time for me to stay out of the way and let you or somebody else do it? It's not really that complicated, right? 

Siobhan Colleen: Yes and no. 

Katrina Puleo: It'll really save everybody time, because, I mean, for all you know, you guys may be standing waiting to go ahead and hang something, and I may have extra people in my crew that are standing around that are waiting on another project, and they can jump in and help you do that, rather than you do it alone. 

And sometimes the extra hands help facilitate. Sometimes extra eyes see solutions to problems that one set doesn't see. So, I mean It's, it's all about making it a team effort. The easier it is for you guys, the easier it is for us, and vice versa. 

Sean Walker: Okay, so now that we're all acting like adults and we're working together as a team, what else do you wish audio would know? 

Siobhan Colleen: I wish that audio would look at the shackles that they're using and just shy away from any of them that are not manufactured by manufacturers that proof test their batches of shackles. 

Sean Walker: So all the ones made in China that explode the second you go one ounce over whatever it was? Don't do those? 

Siobhan Colleen: You said it. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah, I'll be the guy that gets fired for it. I don't care. That's fine. 

Siobhan Colleen: No, so, so manufacturers are required to proof test their, their rigging components because You know, because if you have a bad batch, you have a batch that needs to be recalled, that's something is traceable. And that is something that is promoting safety among end users like us. But when you use a shackle made in China, that traceability is not there. 

You can't Look at that shackle. You can't go back to like, where was this made? You know, like within China, where was this made? What kind of proof testing do they do to make sure that their batches are good, that there wasn't a bad batch of shackles? So that's why we stress To use, um, you know, shackles that are manufactured by those who do the third party testing, or who do the, you know, the proof testing. 

Sean Walker: We've got some that are made in the UK. I think it starts with a C, maybe? And then some that I think are made here in the US, but we had like We had to search pretty good to find them. It wasn't, it wasn't that easy, man. There were a lot that were made, uh, overseas, let's say, but not, like, in the UK overseas. 

We, we had to do a pretty good search to find five eighths and half inch shackles that were made, I want to say it's Collins, anyways, something in the UK and here in the US that was not an overseas manufacturer. Are you, do you have a good place that us audio guys could be finding great shackles or rigging stuff? 

Is there, Uh, a company or a website that we can kinda like, Oh man, here's gonna be a great place to go get all the stuff we need. 

Siobhan Colleen: A couple manufacturers that just pop, pop right into my head are gonna be Crosby, the Crosby Group, and Columbus McKinnon, um, 

Katrina Puleo: Chicago hardware. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah, Chicago Hardware. 

Sean Walker: Crosby was the shackles I was thinking of from the UK. 

Siobhan Colleen: yeah, those are, those are the big ones. And, um, and even on the Crosby Group website, it's actually hard to find a proof of the, it's hard to find a proof of certificate that's just readily available to the public. 

You know, you may need to contact the manufacturer and say, hey, I need this, because on their website it says, We have proof of, we have the, um, proof testing certificates, but it's actually very hard to search for on their website. So, let's, you know, this goes back to our other concept, which is when in doubt, Communicate, ask questions. 

You can call manufacturers and ask them for, uh, clarification on how to use their products. You can call the manufacturer and ask them, uh, for certain documentation if you, you know, if it's not readily available on their website. And I, I definitely encourage people to adopt those practices. 

Andy Leviss: Well, and I mean, just for listeners who aren't familiar with it, can you give us like the quick like 30 second what proof testing means? 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah. Proof testing is, it's, it's testing the strength of a product to like maybe 125%. of its working load limit. And so when you're going above and beyond to make sure that it is strong enough for use and that you manufactured it properly, um, then you know that that's a good batch and they'll, they'll do that proof testing like every so often. 

And I'm speaking as a non manufacturer. So, you know, I may have gotten some of that wrong. I, there are people in our industry, like. You know, people who work for companies like Tomcat, you know, that they are, those are manufacturers. They, they are, you know, they're making their truss, uh, you know, Columbus McKinnon, they're making their shackles and they're super aware of like what those intricate, uh, processes are. 

So I just want to also stress that, like, I'm speaking as an end user, not as a manufacturer. So I said 125%. I may have gotten that wrong. It may be 120%. 

Sean Walker: But that, that limit or that stress test is done in a very specific way, right? It is not pulling the shackle sideways, we'll do that. Right? It is straight up and down that does that stress test. So if you sideload the shackle, it doesn't do what it says it's gonna do on the tin, right? So if us audio guys do a dum dum and we try to like Put our shackles on all stupid and then we try to like, get our gack or spenf going all frickin weird. 

Like, that's not falling within the limits anymore, right? Should we stop doing that? 

Katrina Puleo: So actually, that's actually something I'd like to talk to you about. So, uh, hardware compatibility. So one of the biggest 

Sean Walker: I was sorry. It was one time. I said I was sorry. 

Katrina Puleo: So one of the things I see often is that, um, and there are definitely other departments that are guilty of this because I see it a lot happen in video when they don't hang a specific bumper style, but hardware compatibility is audio usually comes with its own size shackles for whatever your bumper is within your own audio kit from the company that it was rented from. 

Or just whatever you guys own and you know works, but oftentimes we end up having to either add in extra shackles, add in pairings, or swap out those pieces of hardware because I've seen a lot of audio people try to go ahead and hang the piece on their bumper and then they can't figure out So, uh, yeah. 

How to get the array to sit straight on or at their 45 degree angle, uh, before they've even gotten to focusing it just because the shackle and the orientation of the way the GAC is wrapped is in the exact same orientation as the shackle on the bumper. So you obviously can't connect two things that are directly in line. 

You need something in the middle in the opposite orientation. So we either have to add in a pair ring or we have to add in a shackle. And the other thing is going pin to pin. I've seen some audio people try to think they're going to solve the problem by rotating one piece and going pin to pin, and that's obviously a huge no no. 

So we oftentimes, we can add in an extra like half inch shackle or add in a pairing or, you know, five eighth or three quarter, whatever, you know, the size may dictate and necessitate. To alleviate putting the, the shackles in a, in a usage that they're not designed to be, to be used. So sometimes we will rotate and flip a piece around into a GAC and have bell, bell, and then pin down, and then have to explain that we have to add that extra piece in. 

So that we're in compliance and everything is compatible, everything's fitting in the hardware nice and clean the way it should be, and that we're not pulling against the ears or pulling oddly against the pin or the bellow of the shackle, because heaven forbid that one in a million times something fails, it'll be that situation, and then who does it fall back on? 

The rigger, not the audio person, because we're supposed to do the due diligence to go back and double check, 

Sean Walker: Totally. So what are some of the things, like the basic pieces that you wish more audio companies had in their rigging trunk or kit? Because we've all got a rigging trunk of some kind or kit of some kind. What are a few things like pairings or what else are you like, man? It would make it so much easier if they always had this one, two, three, whatever, five, few things that were like, you're always using to sort that out. 

Andy Leviss: Or conversely, would you rather we stop trying and just rely on what you bring? 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah, that could be too. 

Katrina Puleo: So that can really go both ways. I mean, if audio is really active in the planning process, we can plan to provide you with a whole array of hardware. We can, we can plan to have an entire kit there. So that way on site, we can go, Hey, you know, we're going to need a deck chain for this. Or we can actually use just two six foot pieces of GAC and two extra shackles here. 

Like we can have all that provided. But the problem comes from when you guys show up with nothing, expected us to provide it, and we didn't know. And so now we're scrambling to find things. As far as the things that come, like, pre built into kits The one thing I don't see enough of is deck chain, honestly. 

A lot of times you guys have usually one or two size shackles and some kind of hard connection, either you have your bumper or you guys have planned for some kind of GAC assortment, but you guys don't have a deck chain. Oftentimes when, when it comes to an issue where you end up with bumpers riding into truss or up against things and we need to get just a little bit of height away from something, sometimes the shackle works, but sometimes we also don't like the aesthetic or the look of putting three or four shackles in line and creating quote unquote deck chains out of shackles. 

But using the proper hardware, which would be, you know, a stack chain or a deck chain and only using the certain amount of links needed gives you a nice clean look, will give you that nice clean drop. And then also, Deck chain is sometimes a little bit easier to maneuver when you're focusing than trying to fight against the angle of multiple shackles that are going to be sitting crisscrossed to each other in a line, whereas the deck sits nice and clean because it's actually manufactured that way. 

Sean Walker: Awesome. Good advice. 

Siobhan Colleen: So anytime you're working with hardware, it's really important to avoid unnecessary twists in the hardware, um, such as motor chain. Like in ballroom situations, if you have, uh, like a twisted motor, you won't be able to get your trim all the way up. That's more of a rigor problem. That's something that riggers are going to be checking when they're in those sorts of situations. 

But, um, but, um, To illustrate the principle though, like if you're working with shackles or deck chain or anything else, you want to avoid, uh, you also want to avoid, uh, unnecessary knots, uh, you want to avoid, uh, unnecessary twisting or pinching, so like if you look at deck chain, for example, um, if you are connecting two parts of that deck chain together, but In the load path, you have like one of the loose, uh, chain, pieces of chain, and it's being sandwiched in between the bell of the shackle or the pin, or it's being sandwiched in between other deck chain, that's putting a ton of pressure on that one point, that's not meant to be bearing the load in that way. 

because the chain is not in the line of path of the load. Um, so, so you, you want to make sure that, you know, loose gear, loose hardware is like out of the way and not getting pinched on itself. Does that make sense? It's kind of hard. I'm not going to lie in an, in, in a podcast setting, it's kind of hard to like illustrate these concepts without like just having it in front of me. 

But I, I hope that like my hand gestures and my like words. And 

Andy Leviss: I think I got what you're saying and I think listeners will be able to follow along enough. Um, and we can certainly, if folks have questions when they hear this, like ask them, we'll either see if we can drag you two into the Discord to answer questions or I can collect questions and forward them to you and then bring them back. 

Siobhan Colleen: you know what, um, I, I had the pleasure of making an intro to ground rigging series for Area 4 Industries and it's on a4i. tv. And if you go to, uh, you know, if you go to a4i. tv slash. Actor slash Siobhan dash Colleen, I believe is the URL. Um, you can see that series and one of the videos, uh, is talking about like how to use deck chain in a bridal situation. 

And in that, I talk about what I'm trying to describe orally right now, which is You don't want deck chain links to be sandwiching on top of each other. Um, and just no rigging hardware needs to be pinched either. And I also want to go back to shackles real quick because, um, sometimes. If you have a properly loaded shackle, like let's say you have a shackle and there's an, you know, it's got a wire rope connection on the bell and it's got a wire rope connection on the pin. 

So ideally when it takes load, that shackle is going to be in alignment with the load path. But what can sometimes happen is when you start lifting the motors up and if you, that shackle, what can happen is. It can kind of like be bent on it. How do I describe this? It can It can, oh my gosh, it can kind of like pop up, it can, yeah, it goes cockeyed, or it kind of like, yeah, it rotates, and, and, and what happens is, you start taking that load while the shackle is rotated, eventually, it's going to pop into the orientation that it wants to be in, but that pop is going to put a ton of dynamic force in the system, and a lot of stress on your components, and that can be very dangerous, and that can, you know, potentially, you know, cause components to fail or, you know, the more use you get out of your rigging components, eventually you need to take these things out of service because over time things get, you know, they see wear and tear and they degrade because they're exposed to loads, they're exposed to different conditions and it just, it takes away over time its structural integrity from when it was first manufactured. 

So, you know, all that like stress that you put in the system is, is potentially, you know, um, it's potentially damaging those components in a way that you can't see with the naked eye. So to avoid that situation, it's good to make sure that before something takes a load, it is oriented correctly so that you don't have that sudden shock where it snaps back into place. 

Andy Leviss: And, I mean, on that subject, you mentioned that there are obviously defects that can happen from loads like that, that we can't tell from a visual inspection, but is, like, what stuff should we be looking out for as, like, we're checking shows in and checking shows out and looking at our gears, there's stuff we should be, you know, looking for to make sure that it's as safe as we can possibly make it? 

Sean Walker: And do I have to take the rusted, broken ones out, or can I just keep using those? 

Andy Leviss: Just spray paint them. 

Sean Walker: Okay, perfect. Alright, great. 

Katrina Puleo: I mean, it's always a good idea that either when it's your company's gear or rental gear that you look over what was provided to you, I mean, just basic inspections of any of your, you know, galvanized aircraft cable pieces, any of your wire rope slings, a lot of people don't know that GAC, the tags, a lot of manufacturers The sonin tag and the tag that they typically see are not always in the same place and a lot of them can be, uh, un Velcroed or moved so that you can actually open up the inside and you can see all the connections and you can actually see then where each individual piece inside that web is looped together properly or if it's damaged. 

Um, so, I know it's not something that, you know, when you check it in every single time, someone's gonna go through, but giving it just like a really quick once over visual, and sometimes too, also just with your hands, you can feel things sometimes that you cannot see on the inside of the sheath, is really beneficial. 

I mean, There are obviously tolerances for, you know, wire rope cable and how many pieces that can be broken before it's considered a danger or no longer usable. One or two things here and there is usually not going to be the red flag concern versus something that you can clearly tell is birdcaging wide open or has entire sections that have severed. 

But it is definitely something that those are the things you want to take note of so that the next few times it gets used. that you start to watch that progression of damage. And anytime a system's been shock loaded, um, I immediately would suggest you take any of that hardware out and give it an inspection right there and then, um, if possible, or as soon as that it comes down out of the air safely, because you can't tell or know or see what it did. 

And you can have an unvisual damage from heights or from the ground that you won't see then until you're physically upright in front of it. You know, I've seen a few audio stacks that, as they go up, um, trying to do too many small little bumps and constantly creating these little micro dynamic forces, eventually putting small shock loads into systems that we can't see, that they've gotten pinched. 

One piece has gotten pinched within another piece of hardware. It stayed there the entire show. It didn't move. And then when it came down for a loadout, all of a sudden, when we took the hardware apart, we realized piece A got caught inside piece B because of all these little micro movements that we could have minimized. 

By just checking all of that and taking it attention on the ground and making much longer, smoother movements once it was going up into air. I mean, audio and all of these extensive video walls these days are usually the two heaviest things on a show site. So they're the two biggest cause for just load or shock load concern as far as I see it. 

And they're my biggest concerns. So I definitely want to make sure to take the time to look over with the audio person. You're happy with this. I'm happy with this. Get a trim and then try to minimize that amount of movement to prevent damage to hardware, as well as your PA systems. Because I've also seen some systems where you guys run everything through it on the ground, do your due diligence, your white noise. 

Everything worked fine and then by the time we get it 50 60 feet up, the amount of micro movements and the amount of bumping has jostled something in a chip inside one of the boxes and then we have to go up and swap out a chip or something like that. It also, it's helping you guys to, you know, maintain the longevity of your equipment as well. 

Siobhan Colleen: And going back to jostling equipment, um, You know, in arena settings, often the audio people are like doing bump checks, and they're getting the, the speaker cabinets to go up, and then, you know, the stagehands are putting the next one on, and they're building that line array before it goes all the way up the trim. 

I want to caution people that if you are ever using motors and you're ever controlling those, not to rapidly click that button. Because every little bump you do is going to add vibration to that whole system and all of that gets, it's going to get amplified the more you do it. And you know, that can put, again, that can put a lot of strain on the rigging components. 

Which I highly recommend that we just, when you bump something, wait for it to settle before you move it again. 

Andy Leviss: That, that part about settling is super handy, and I think it's one of the things we sometimes talk about, even just with figuring, like, trim heights and angles. Without thinking about the rigging impact that you just brought up, is the, the point of diminishing returns and how much, how much does that one little bump really matter? 

Like there's times where it does, there's times where it's not, and I think us being conscious of, eh, it's two inches below where I wanted, but that's. gonna be fine not only saves everybody time but also has an implication for wear and tear and those dynamic loads and shock loads that that you two are talking about so i think that's that's worthwhile to keep in mind the broader impact of those things too 

Sean Walker: and, and, on the opposite side of that, the times where you're like, No, I understand, but I need those two inches, because it's gonna, you know, make it a whole much better. Like, when, when to die on that hill and when to let it go, basically, is what you're saying, right? 

Andy Leviss: yeah and i i mean i think that's that's kind of one of those things we could print on a bumper sticker for like all departments is is choose your battles and and and Figure out when it matters and and I think that's sort of like what you two are talking about with like pre production too is having those conversations and in both directions explaining the why. 

Either the why I really need this or why I think I need this or for the rigors to explain why that's not safe or why there's a bigger picture that we may not be aware of in in communicating those things. It all comes back around to that. 

Katrina Puleo: And honestly, post production can be equally as important in that regard because, like I was mentioning, the piece of hardware that got caught afterwards and the audio team and the rigging team didn't notice it until it was all being loaded up. Those are the type of conversations then to have, you know, at the post and say, hey, this is the type of thing next time we need to make sure we're paying more attention to, or maybe if we had done this differently we could have minimized or prevented this from happening. 

And then that makes everybody aware of what could have been a potential problem so that it doesn't become a potential problem. 

Andy Leviss: So sort of quick Tangent question that's like a quick one off question is because we've been talking about shackles and hardware a lot and I know in the in the discord community for the show the subject of mousing shackles has come up a bunch and I think there's the question that then always comes up is When do you need to do that? 

When do you not wear it? Like, I don't expect, like, on a big, like, one off corporate show, you know, in an open space, that somebody's going to go around and mouse every single shackle on an install. Absolutely. Like, where, from your perspective, does that line fall? And I guess we should probably quickly explain what mousing is for the folks who don't know. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah, 

Katrina Puleo: to explain? 

Siobhan Colleen: so, uh, yeah, so, mousing a shackle means that you're taking, um, oh my gosh, Katrina, help me out, I can't think of, like, the metal piece, what is it called? 

Katrina Puleo: FailingWire. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah, bailing wire. Oh my god, words, words are hard. Um, so you take bailing wire and it's basically like this metal wire that, you know, if you think of like a fun little pipe cleaner you get at Michael's, you can bend it, it keeps its shape, right? 

And you can make all kinds of like twists with it. So you take that, you go through the eye of the shackle pin and then you loop it around the bell of the shackle and you twist it around a couple of times. Until what you're doing is ensuring that the pin doesn't come undone from any vibrations. Um, which absolutely can happen and something else, we also will mouse turnbuckles as well in permanent installs and normally that's where I see that application is, is permanent install use because those components are going to be there for a while. 

Um, you know, they're going to sit there. And, you know, depending on the show and how loud it is or what kind of moments you have in the show or even what kind of mechanical equipment is moving around, you know, within the vicinity of those components, it can cause a lot of vibration. And, you know, so for permanent installs, the mousing your components is mitigating the vibration. 

effect of that vibration. Um, and also for permanent installs, it's good to have a, an inspection plan. You should have like a pre show inspection plan. You should have a monthly inspection plan. You know, depending on the type of show, uh, is going to determine like what kind of inspection plan you have for those components. 

So for example, Um, I, I had the pleasure of working, uh, at the mouth of a volcano, um, and you would, you would be very surprised at how quickly rigging components and just anything metal deteriorates when it's constantly, uh, you know, being hit and affected by the air that comes out of the volcano, the, the volcanic fog and all of those chemicals that are just Very quickly eroding all those metal components. 

Um, if you had a show at the site of a volcano that was supposed to be there permanently, your inspection is gonna be like, every day. Uh, and you're probably going to swap out components every week or every two weeks. I mean, it's, you know, so that's obviously an extreme. No one's got, you know, there's not a permanent show at the site of a volcano that was a one off, but you 

Sean Walker: Yeah, but our Hawaiian friends need to pay attention that they're, you know, when they're doing volcano shows, be swapping out that rigging. 

Siobhan Colleen: or if you're, or if you're working alongside the ocean and you're getting, um, all that salt in the air that is also interacting with your metal components and the effect that that may have, um, on how long those components last and how long they keep their structural integrity. 

These are all things that, um, you know, we as riggers need to keep in mind. So I know that was. Started off with mousing components and then it turned into inspection, so I apologize for the, 

Andy Leviss: kind of always our 

Siobhan Colleen: tangent there. A tangent on your tangent. 

Andy Leviss: All good, uh, and all useful. Um, yeah, I mean, so we've got the, we've got the boxes in the air. I know one of the questions I had and one of the things that you two gave us on our notes is we wanted to talk a little bit about, like, chain bags and placing those relative to bumpers and that sort of thing. 

And I know from, like, audio's perspective that's always, uh, a thing we're trying to figure out because we can have all the calculations in the world from our speaker software on, like, how to get the angle we need based on center of gravity. And it never takes, like, things like Chainbag or, like, CablePix into account, so, like, from your perspective, what should we be looking at there? 

Katrina Puleo: so when we have a bedroom, I usually think the easiest solution to that problem is just to stinger the motor away from the bumper. Because giving it that space will give the motor a nice clean hang to hang in the orientation that it wants to while the chain travels through the lift guide clearly. And it also means that the bag will hang nice and clean off the side, and we're really minimizing, A, any pinch points, or B, the opportunity for the chain to kind of try to want to bounce itself out of the bag. 

Now, obviously, trim is usually the biggest factor in, especially corporate shows, in almost anything that, you know, the minute they say it's a 35 foot ceiling, they want 35 foot trim. Nobody's accounted for the fact that you need 12 inch drop for the truss, you need an each other foot for the motor, etc, etc, and that we can't give them what they've asked for, so we're always fighting for trim. 

So, a lot of times, the audio, uh, motors end up having to configure with the bag maybe off to the side somehow, or the spitting into the back pockets, or like you have the little grid pattern up against your cabling. And I guess the big thing there is just trying to make sure that the ceiling doesn't end up getting situated onto the bumper in a way where it pinches the bag closed any more than already might be necessary because of the situation, so that way the chain can try to travel cleanly down into the bottom of the bag and settle as it moves. 

Um, sometimes it's a little bit unavoidable, and we all kind of understand that, and that's why we, we watch things when they run and hopefully mitigate chain run. Um, sometimes there are also options to, like, help adjust either tying the cable off to a different side to offset your weight like that, so your center of gravity, if that's your concern. 

If the bag has to go to the right, we can tie your cable a little off to the left to kind of give you better balance. Um, it's also something to consider that, you know, if we end up having to throw the bag over the edge of the bumper or to the side of the bumper, how that's going to affect your, your focus. 

Uh, or your center of gravity and try to figure out that if we pull it to the side there, are we creating more of a problem or alleviating more of a problem? Because of course we're looking for trying to alleviate the safety concern of the chain running. or creating any pinch points, but are we actually kind of just like half dozen one half dozen in the other and sometimes there isn't always a perfectly clean solution and we really just need to slowly move and watch things as they go out. 

So it's really, in my opinion, a case by case scenario because every bumper from every company is built slightly different. The space between your bumper and where your connection is can usually be a little bit different. And then, like I said, if you have the space to add a stinger in and just completely give you a nice clean like, you know, foot or two in between the bumper and the end of the bag is always the best, easiest solution. 

But I know it's just always not a feasible one. 

Siobhan Colleen: And I just want to add one more thing, and I, I'm going to come in as Captain Obvious here, but making sure that the bag size is, is large enough to hold the amount of chain that you're putting in there is also very crucial. And I have been on a job where the, the bag was too small and we had to swap all of them out. 

For that reason, so again, it just goes back to, you know, if that's something that you notice, go to the head rigger and ask if you have another chain bag or if you have another, uh, you know, maybe you've got some spare motors and, and one of the, one of your chain bags happens to be too small, but the spare motor has a chain bag that is, you An adequate size, um, that's also something to keep an eye out for in addition to where the chain is running and how it's getting, you know, out of the chain guide and into that bag. 

Katrina Puleo: You know, it's also something that's a fairly common practice these days if people are concerned about mousing or about pinch points and things like that. So actual bailing wire and like traditional mousing or using actual mousing pliers to mouse something quote unquote properly is really only, in my experience, I've seen done in permanent installation. 

But a lot of us default to, if we're concerned about or we want that little extra layer of like personal mental safety, using zip ties. I've seen a lot of, um, award shows and a lot of corporate shows that are done over incredibly high dollar clients or for safety concerns, just do that little extra layer of taking zip ties to zip tie off and mouse certain things off for that specific reason, and that way they're just super easy to get rid of on the loadout, they're easy to break or easy to cut with a knife, but it gives everybody that little extra layer of protection there, so. 

Andy Leviss: Cool. I dig that. Um, yeah, and I was gonna say, like, most, at least in theater, I feel like we've almost exclusively switched to zip ties for mousing more often than not, unless maybe it is a permanent install, so, um. But yeah, that's, that's, that's a perfect, that's a, sorry, I lost my sentence like halfway through it. 

Um, but yeah, like even doing that on one offs, I can certainly see the value in it, and that is a good point, that in addition to being easier to put on, they're easier to take off. 

Siobhan Colleen: I, I want to go back to talking about shackles for something because I have a list of things that I want to hit with the audience today. Um, so one, shackles should always be in line with the load direction. Uh, when we, there's a difference between side loading a shackle and cross loading a shackle. So cross loading a shackle is when you're pulling it side, I know, you're pulling it sideways, uh, and you're essentially forcing the bell to open, you're, you're forcing that opening to come apart from itself and that is something we should absolutely avoid. 

But if you're also familiar with bridles, you know that often you will take two wire ropes. And those go to the bell of the shackle, and then you have something else connected to the pin of the shackle, but those two wire ropes that are connected at the bell, that is side loading a shackle. So, there's something very important to keep in mind if you're working with shackles, is making sure that if you've got two, uh, two components, whether it's, uh, wire, whether it's the, you know, wire rope, or gap flex, or slings, or whatever it is that you're working with. 

that you're not exceeding an angle that is more than 45 degrees from in line. So if I, if I have a shackle in front of me and I draw a line that cuts it in half, then from that line, I go 45 degrees in one direction and then 45 degrees in the other direction. When you have something, when you, when you have two components that are making that angle, it'll reduce the working load limit to 70%. 

So the wider that that angle is. The less working load that you, you have to work with, basically, it, it derates, uh, the strength of the shackle based on the angle. So side loading you use with caution and understand, um, you know, the impact that angles have on the bell of the shackle, cross loading you absolutely, absolutely avoid at all times. 

And also, the last thing I'll say is Never force an improperly sized item to connect to a shackle that is too small because that can cause the shackle to be wedged apart. So if you have like a cable eye or another shackle or even a motor hook that's too big for a shackle that you're using, it's going to wedge in between the ears and it's having similar effects to when you're cross loading that shackle and it's pulling it apart. 

So, those were the things I wanted to touch on with shackles. 

Andy Leviss: And, and for, for that last point, uh, I, I mean, it's important to not only, not only not have something loaded that's like staying in there spreading it apart, but I feel like I can hear somebody listening off in the distance being like, well, it's, it's just, it just bumps, I just push it through and then it pops through and it's inside the shackle, so that's fine. Yeah. So don't, don't do that either. That's, I wish I had video to show you the face Siobhan just made when I said that, which is exactly the face I thought I was going to get. Um, yeah, cause it's once you've, these are not springs, shackles are not springs, they do not open up and close like, like gate on a carabiner would, like it's, it's, 

Siobhan Colleen: is why you guys get shitty sandwiches. I'm just kidding. 

Sean Walker: Dude, totally. Totally. If only we knew how to rig and did it right, then we'd get good 

Siobhan Colleen: Bring my own. 

Sean Walker: Totally. 

Andy Leviss: That said, we do, I feel like we're the department that most often brings our own coffee, so like we're good, we're gonna, we're good to know on that 

Sean Walker: Thousand percent, 

Andy Leviss: That's we'll, we'll trade you coffee for sandwiches. 

Sean Walker: Also, if you want to get ahead of the line for rigging, if you bring them coffee, they're less likely to stab you when you do something stupid, and more likely to help you out. Coffee works like 60 percent of the time for anything. 

Katrina Puleo: Oh, I mean, but that trick goes for any department. I mean, it's always a really great way to start out by going, Okay, so how do I schmooze lighting when we piss them off? What is audio gonna need? How do we go and talk to LED over here when I tell them that what they want to do there is not gonna work? 

Like, there's, there's always a, uh, the right token for the right department there, whether it's like York Peppermint Patties or coffee or 

Andy Leviss: LED folks. 

Siobhan Colleen: The number one piece of advice that I have for any new ground rigger is when the high riggers come down from the grid, hand every single one of them A bottle of water, because they worked their asses off, they sweated their asses off, they're dehydrated, they need water. So that is another, you know, if not coffee, water also goes a really long way. 

It's 

Sean Walker: And for, 

Siobhan Colleen: babes. 

Sean Walker: and for our listeners that, are maybe new to the industry and don't know what the difference is. What's the difference between a high rigor and what was the other one you said? 

Siobhan Colleen: A ground 

Sean Walker: Ground rigor. 

Siobhan Colleen: um, you know, contrary to what Snoop Dogg thinks. Uh, a high rigger is someone who climbs in the air, they're harnessed up, um, and they should have their helmets on because, you know, if you fall down, your head might hit something on the way down and it's much easier to rescue a conscious person. 

So, there you go, that's my safety soapbox, wear your safety helmets. And um, so anyway, high riggers, they're the ones in the fall protection, they're walking the beams and pulling the points up with their rope. Ground riggers are supporting those activities by, um, you know, taking the rope and connecting it to the rigging points so that the high riggers can pull that up and make that connection to the building. 

Katrina Puleo: I guess on the opposite side of that, I'll speak to what, uh, I believe audio people, in general, should always start off by on site changes. I know often times because of trim, uh, or issues that are unforeseeable, we make changes. You guys make adjustments to your angles. Sometimes that means we also make adjustments to the size of the array or the stack or the placement of it. 

Uh, I think it's a big thing, however, that, that we be included in that conversation because I have seen instances where audio will decide to completely swap out one product for another and the box weights are not the same. And then we've overloaded a motor and that come, that conversation wasn't had with rigging because audio just thought, well, we're solving our problem, but wasn't factoring in that there was another department affected by the change. 

You know, by the same token, I would hopefully try not to change your rigging without consulting you and saying, Hey, this is why I think we need to do this. But I think it's really important that when we do last minute onsite changes for things that were like unforeseeable issues, when it comes to changing out product or adding pieces to a stack, that we communicate what that weight is so that we can make sure before we go through all of the effort of building another stack or making this changeover, that we don't actually also have to change the rigging, or that we don't have to change the location of where it's rigged to in the building because The weight adjustment may be finite, but it might be enough to overload a beam, if it's a really, really heavy show, and now I need to go to a high low bridle, or I need to make it a high steel bridle to alleviate that problem entirely. 

And that's something that audio isn't necessarily supposed to be concerned about because that is our job as the rigger, but it's information I need from you. Just like I'm sure that there's information you need from me then to make sure that your change is going to give you the max trim you're looking for. 

Andy Leviss: Right on. So, we're getting the arrays up, we're, obviously, we're worried for our needs about pan and tilt and all of that, different ways to approach that. I feel like, in a dream world, all of us would love, we'll have you hang two motors, a little short stick of truss, we'll hang the array from that stick of truss, that gives us a lot more flexibility in adjusting for, particularly, pan left or right and aim that way. 

As we talked about trim height, that's not always going to happen, or simply availability of gear, that's always going to happen. Do you have preferences or guidelines for how we can make it easier, either when we're having to do dual point directly off two motors, or when we're having to do single point on an array and then tie off for angle? 

Katrina Puleo: I mean, I think focusing is honestly usually a much easier problem to solve. So when you hang the points, that gives you the most flexibility in, in your focusing typically, because you're going to fight less hardware in the air as far as twisting against the wrap on the truss or anything of that nature. 

So When the audio can be dead hung, I think that definitely makes your job easier as well as ours, then, in giving you that focus. And focusing this really comes down to What is structurally sound in the building and where can you make that connection to safest? Sometimes it's in front of the audio stack, sometimes it's going to be behind the audio stack. 

Sometimes, uh, a lot of the ballroom spaces, we have Unistrut in places where we conveniently put Unistrut nuts, and then we, we loop through iBolts to make those tie offs. Sometimes you have to go through false ceilings to actually get around a purling, or a piece of a junior beam that's, that's hidden up above a false ceiling, you know, to find that next, you know, piece that's there. 

It's going to be solidifiable and not shake or move or take weight and then accidentally being part of the ceiling down. Um, but when it comes to areas where you actually have to put in a spanner truss for audio, I think the easiest thing to do is usually then to try to find a way to use the space available left on your spanner to focus to the spanner. 

That way you don't create any unnecessarily long travel lead to try to get focus all the way to, you know, 10 or 15 feet down where there may be another bay or something open in the ceiling or if you're, or if you're trying to eliminate crossing over an air wall track because maybe the show has an air wall that's going to open and close throughout the show or the room becomes one space breaks out and then transfers into a different space. 

Sean Walker: Dude, every one of them recently. Like, what is their deal with the fucking airwalls? Like, it's a surprise afterparty. Like, they didn't know there was already going to be an afterparty. Like, what the hell? 

Katrina Puleo: but pre planning your cable path and looking at where you're going to focus to can help you eliminate having to make all those extra transitions. in the transition period if you can avoid them. I mean sometimes depending on the room space or the design it is not avoidable and you are just going to have to get back up in there redo it in between the transition and move on but sometimes that's literally just part of that conversation to go hey this is right by an air wall let's find out if this air wall is moving well you know what let's run your cable the other direction then because instead of crossing this way we eliminate this one step during a short turnover, you know? 

Um, and the same thing with focusing, because focusing sometimes is such a last minute afterthought, because it's just tie line or trick line in most cases in a ballroom. Um, that we don't look at it until the stack is already up, and then you're like, oh, there's nowhere for me to go here or here that doesn't cross this or cross that. 

So, if you can and you have the space on the spanner, I usually think it's easiest. Audio can actually usually do their own focus while it's still at ground height. To where you're happy with it, and we can make adjustments then to it in the air, or to do just that, just have rigging adjusted to offset further away on the angle on that spanner truss to make a nice clean line. 

Sean Walker: Alright, so if I'm recapping a little bit of our hour long conversation here, you telling me you want us to act like adults, communicate, show up to the pre production meetings, actually do our job, put round pegs in round holes and square pegs in square holes, And be nice and bring coffee and bring water. 

Katrina Puleo: Yeah, but all of that applies to rigging as well, because riggers also need to be polite, show up to the production meeting, Participate and offer information. If we want information from you, we need to give you the information you're asking for. We need to try to play nice and be team players and keep a good attitude, too. 

So it's, 

Sean Walker: So we need to adult and also not be a dick. Got it. Okay, cool. Great. Sweet. Check. 

Andy Leviss: So, one thing that I know is on the list, we kind of passed around over email beforehand and because we were just talking about tying off, I'm going to tie off my array and try and focus it to my spanner truss before it flies up. What knot should I use or should I not use? Or what's going to make it stay and make everybody's life easier when we're trying to get it out? 

Because we're sound folks and we'll just, we'll tie Halifino knots any time. If left to our own 

Sean Walker: Yo, Doug, I got this bow tie looking real good right now. 

Katrina Puleo: um, I honestly, again, depending on what you're making your connection to, like, if you're tying it back to the truss, a lot of times I see people just take a nice clean line where they tie off to the front or the back of the bumper, and then clove hitch off to the area of the truss closest to a lattice, that way it won't slide or pull. As far as going to, like, when you make a single point tieback and you're going to maybe, like, a unistrut knot, I've seen everything from a bowline on one end, a single wrap through the unistrut knot, because you have enough friction in the knot to hold your focus, and then you can slowly slide it through to make air tuned, uh, adjustments to the focusing once it's in the air. 

And it'll usually hold weight there. Um, and then using a trucker's hitch on the other side, or using, um, a, a barrel knot and then locking the knot up underneath when you're done with the angle when you're happy with it. So, knots are one of those things that there's a thousand knots out there and there's a hundred of them you can use for that application. 

So, anything that you feel is going to make that connection safely and it's locked off in a way that it's not going to slide, because then you have to just keep refocusing. Um, I would say it's probably acceptable, but yeah, just both hitching back to truss using basic bowlins and then basic trucker hitches and things of that nature that are slidable and slightly adjustable are usually the most common practices I see. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah, I'd have to agree. Bolin, Clove Hitch, Trucker's Hitch, pretty much my go tos for that. 

Andy Leviss: And we'll fly that for folks. So I feel like of the three, the first two, everybody knows and the truckers hitches that kind of it's like. Some people know exactly what we're talking about and some people are like, I, what, what's a trucker hitch? So 

Sean Walker: the one that swears that you like a trucker when you know, 

Andy Leviss: that's the one that's also good to know when you're loaded, when you're loading that rental truck that doesn't have enough ratchet straps, hence the name. 

Katrina Puleo: Absolutely. Honestly, it's an incredibly useful knot just in general life, so it's one of those things that it's not usually part of the like, Eight basic knots. They say anybody in stagehanding in any specialty should know, but it's just a great, like, life usable knot, so it's something I think anybody could use, because you'd be surprised how many applications where you need just a little more tension, or just a little bit more pull out of something, and any department can suddenly throw a trucker's hitch into something and make use out of it. 

Siobhan Colleen: I'll throw one more out there. Try an adjustable grip hitch. I haven't used that one too many times, but when I, when I have used it, I was like, Oh my God, I love this knot so much. And then I never used it again just because I never had that opportunity to. So, uh, the adjustable grip hitch is one I need to relearn because it's an amazing knot and you can like slide. 

It's easy to like slide and, and, and so when you're focusing, uh, that's a really easy one to make adjustments with. 

Andy Leviss: Well, is there anything on, on the list of things that you two wanted to talk about that we haven't hit? Because I know we're a little past that hour mark, so we should wrap it up before we lose folks. But, uh, I want to make sure there's anything important that, that you two wanted to flag that we haven't hit. 

Siobhan Colleen: I don't, I don't know. Honestly, we, I've, I've got check marks on my entire list here. And I'm super happy. I just hope that we brought a lot of value to your podcast. I'm really honored that you guys invited us here. Um, so I really hope your listeners find a lot of value in what we've discussed today. And, um, you know, if you guys have any additional questions for us, I'm happy to answer them. 

We're happy to answer them here. Um, if you want to add us to the Discord server, you could definitely add me to that. I look forward to that. And, um, resources, uh, I mentioned the a4i. tv, uh, website, which has a lot of really nice information about rigging, not just my Intro to Ground Rigging series, um, but also Entertainment Rigging, a Practical Guide by Harry Donovan is, like, It's our Bible, you know. 

If you want to learn about rigging and you want to see examples of what to do and what not to do and why, that's a really great place to start and I highly recommend it. Looking into that book. 

Sean Walker: actually you can find out what not to do by going to almost any hotel ballroom and watching that go down. 

Siobhan Colleen: I think 

Katrina Puleo: sad, but so true. 

Siobhan Colleen: I think there are companies that would not like to hear you say that. 

Sean Walker: Oh man, there's companies that hire us that would not like to hear us say that, but I'm just going to leave the company names out of it. 

Katrina Puleo: Fair enough. I mean, is there anything that either of you, like, quirky or weird, you'd like to ask us we've, we've come across or how we would solve a solution, a problem with a different solution? 

Andy Leviss: trying to think, because like lately, like, All of my dumb rigging questions are like problems I've seen in the site have been eclipsed because I, I was on the site of the infamous LED wall tear that made the AV rigging disasters page on Facebook a while ago. And that um, that sort of short circuited any other stupid questions I, I have for a while. 

Which in, and that one like, and that one I mean we've talked about a little bit before and I'm not gonna name clients or companies involved in that. That one to my understanding of what it turned out to be in the end is, it's You have to be so conscious because the smallest failure, particularly once you get into high speed hoists, can very, very quickly become a large problem faster than any human can react to it sometimes. 

And which is why just being real careful and real on top of things is important. And also understanding that even when you plan everything right, something can still go wrong. And just, anytime anything is moving, be conscious and aware of it. 

Katrina Puleo: You know, and on that note, actually, so something I saw recently that I haven't seen a ton of is audio racks that actually have our L2130 or our power built into them so that you can run your own audio motors and you don't necessarily need to have your own dedicated service or be patched into everyone else's system. 

Fair enough. And one of the things that it brought to concern for me was just making sure that whoever is running it then, if it isn't the rigger, if it's the, if it's, you know, audio running their own motors out, that when you're done that you make sure you break her off that power so that they're, you're minimizing the opportunity for there to be any type of feedback that'll flip a contactor or make a connection and ghost a motor and, and ghost your PA and have it running. 

Without anybody noticing to, you know, prevent that accident from happening, because I know all of those systems are hard separate breakers. So making sure that like, when you are done in that trim, that you breaker those off separately from your actual system. And that way, you don't leave power feed through the entire, your entire ride. 

Siobhan Colleen: I'll throw in a couple general safety tips that I think would apply to people listening. Um, always know where you're at for the day, know the address of where you're working and know where you are within that address. Cause if, if you're You know, if you need to call 9 1 1, if you're the one that that is pointed to when someone says call 9 1 1, you need to be able to answer that very, very pertinent question. 

So have an awareness, um, you know, type it in your phone where you're at for the day so that you can answer that question easily to the operator and also know where your fire extinguishers are as well. Because You know, God forbid, some, some really eager person who, uh, doesn't understand power causes an electrical fire. 

So, yeah, know where your fire extinguishers are, know where your first aid kit is, um, know where the AED kits are in case someone, God forbid, got electrocuted or something. Um, I, you know, if I recall correctly, I worked with someone who touched a, a motor while it was in, they touched the chain of a motor while it was in, In the air, like just at trim, and the, there, it shocked him, um, like there was electric current running through that, you know, and so God forbid these, these things happen. 

And so it's, you know, always be prepared with that type of, uh, emergency information and, and emergency equipment. And 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, and I mean, 

Siobhan Colleen: wear your safety helmets. 

Andy Leviss: I was about to say, like, PPE could be a whole other conversation on its own. Hi vis, hard hats, helmets. Yeah, don't worry about looking like a dork, cause you'll be a dork who's alive. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, we got, we got pink helmets. 

Andy Leviss: as you know, it makes it easy to tell when somebody's got it on or not. 

Sean Walker: dude. It's like lighters. You know what I'm saying? Like nobody is stealing your pink lighter, but that fricking, the black one with the cool logo, it's gone. So yeah. You know what I mean? Like 

Siobhan Colleen: Okay. So now on misogyny in the industry, I'm 

Sean Walker: what? 

Siobhan Colleen: I'm getting, why is pink so bad? How come you don't, how come you don't want my pink stuff? 

Sean Walker: I didn't say it was bad. I bought pink cause I thought it was cool and nobody's stolen it yet. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah. Nobody's stealing it cause they don't want pink. And why is that? This is a whole other podcast episode. 

Andy Leviss: Oh yeah. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah. 

Katrina Puleo: The only thing I would add is don't be afraid to come and talk to somebody, you know, if we haven't come and found you for the day, eventually the lead rigger, head rigger, somebody in the rigging department is going to try to seek you out to find you for something. If you know who that is first, or you need something, don't be afraid to go to Talk2Rigging. 

Um, I know, unfortunately, a lot of us are not easy to talk to, don't communicate well, have a lot of attitudes, can be very difficult, um, and sometimes it's personality, and sometimes it's the way we were taught, sometimes it's a lot of stress in the job that maybe you didn't see coming in by the time you guys make it on day two sometimes, since you're not always, you know, They are on the first day of the, you know, the pre rig or the load in, but at least from my perspective, like, I would, I always appreciate it, no matter how stressed or whatever's going on, come and try to introduce yourselves and talk to us, so that way when I have a problem, I do know exactly who to beeline in the room to look for for audio. 

I know exactly who to try to make that line of communication with, rather than wasting 30 minutes of my time trying to find you, and etc, etc. That way, if you need something, you can come directly to our team and go, Hey, can I borrow some pieces of GAT? Can I borrow some shackles? And I can tell you, like, yes, I have these over in WorkWorld, you can go here, or you know what, I don't, but let me see if I can get some, you know? 

So just, you know, introduce yourselves. Don't, don't be afraid. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And, and we should, we should make sure we're all having those conversations both ways about the planning too. Like, for example, I have a show with like four, six, eight arrays I need to hang. I may feel like, to me, it makes sense to like, I'm going to hang all of one. I'm going to cable it. I'm going to get it ready to go. 

Then go to the next, but like talk to your rigging team because for their purposes, even though the cabling effects it's flying, they may have reasons they want you to do them in a certain order or get them all hung first, then go back and cable them. Or can you do this side of the room first? And we'll worry about that later. 

It's like you two were saying earlier, there's that bigger picture that we often we get caught up in our big picture of it and forget that that's actually not the big picture. 

Katrina Puleo: Absolutely. 

Siobhan Colleen: And rigging connects us all. We're, we're lifting up. Lighting and audio and video and projection and automation and everything in between. So yeah, we're, we're, we're, we're happy to help you. We're happy to help answer questions and vice versa. 

Katrina Puleo: Well, hopefully. 

Siobhan Colleen: I'm putting it out there. I'm putting it out there into the world. I'm manifesting it. 

Andy Leviss: Well, I mean, you've been answering lots of our questions this last hour or so, which has been great. And I think that that seems like a good place to wrap it up 

Siobhan Colleen: No, no, I do have a question. I'm so glad I didn't forget. What do you wish rigging people knew about the audio side? We've been talking about us for so much like true rigger fashion. It's all about us, but. What do you wish we knew? 

Sean Walker: Trim height. Trim 

Katrina Puleo: we have to ask you for that. 

Sean Walker: we want all of it. We want all the trim height always as much as we can get. Always. Every, literally. Every freaking inch matters to us and if we were, if you have a half decent audio team on your show, they have spent minutes or hours painstakingly going over their pre vis drawing of what this room looks like, each angle, and every freaking inch affects our coverage drastically, depending on how big the room or how big the show is, right? 

Like in an arena, A foot trim height difference means the difference between hitting the back row or not. And we are an intense bunch, and not hitting the back row is not acceptable. And so we gotta figure out how to do that, and that's why we have to re angle. It's not because, oh well it's one inch and we want to be pedantic about it. 

It's like, man this drastically affects what I've been hired to do and what I can do. achieve for my client. You know what I mean? That, that's, that's the biggest thing. And then how, you know, we need to then work on communicating that in, in pre production. And then also understanding that there is also video and lighting and, you know, scenic and the other stuff that have to go up. 

So we don't always get what we want, but that, that would be my biggest comment would be like the, the trim height. It's so fricking important to us. It cannot be understated or overstated. 

Siobhan Colleen: Yeah. And that goes back to two things that Katrina said, which is, you know, setting realistic expectations and understanding that you're going to lose a foot and you're, for the trust, you're going to lose a foot for the motor. And, and so now that we've had this conversation, I hope that that is something that newer audio folks understand. 

And then it also goes back to the pre planning phase, where we're, we're doing our previs, and we're understanding, like, having those realistic expectations so that we can adjust accordingly. And then, by the time you get on site, the important thing for rigors is understanding You know, don't have unnecessary twists or bends in your components because, one, they're not meant to be loaded improperly, but also, uh, unnecessary twists in the motor chain is going to cause you to lose that trim height. 

So, you know, and, and, and understanding efficient ways to wrap a truss so that you're getting as much trim height as possible, that's, you know, definitely on new riggers to learn as well. So, yeah, thanks for bringing that up. 

Katrina Puleo: it's a basic just overall great rigging practice to understand, like, you rig for trim from the very beginning. Always rig and wrap for maximum trim to hopefully eliminate that from being the, the thing you have to redo later. Oh 

Andy Leviss: And the, and the, the only thing I would add to that is the, the, ask the question. Cause like I said earlier, there are many, many times when that inch of trim is going to make a difference. And there are many times when it's like, ah, I've got a little bit of overshoot there. I can, I can spare it on this 

Sean Walker: Totally dude. 

Andy Leviss: don't, don't be afraid to, to ask the question and say like, hey, if we can get you like three inches lower than that, is that going to kill you or is that going to be okay? Okay. Okay. And, and just, yeah, everybody remember we're all on the same team and we're all here to make it happen. 

Sean Walker: Thousand percent. 

Andy Leviss: and it may be that like, yeah, if I can, if I can make that, if I have a little bit of fudge factor on that bit of trim right here, that may then give you the time to get me what I really need on the main array where it really makes that inch of difference. 

And again, it's, it's back to, like I said, we got to get that bumper sticker of choosing your battles. Probably 

Siobhan Colleen: or an audio bumper sticker? 

Sean Walker: Both. 

Andy Leviss: the car or the road case, because I feel like the client's going to complain if they see the sticker on the bumper. always the other big one is like the label your cables and label your boxes and stuff in a way that it's not going to look ugly. Yeah, please dear God don't make anybody get a scissor lift out to pull that piece of white gaff off the bottom corner of the box later. 

Katrina Puleo: No, honestly, 

Sean Walker: of first rodeos, 

Katrina Puleo: It's incredibly helpful to you guys, it's incredibly helpful to us, that unfortunately if we end up in the situation where we have to send the one newer guy on the crew up with one of your guys to make some kind of adjustment and nobody can figure out which cable is what because it's not plugged in and they don't know enough about audio and your audio guy can't, you know, is busy troubleshooting a different part of a box, like, label your cables. 

It's such a blessing. 

Andy Leviss: Label all the things. But ideally do it with black gaff and a silver sharpie. Any, any, any last words or uh, Sean you want to take us home? 

Sean Walker: thank you so much for coming and hanging out and teaching us how to not be dumb dummies for the hour. We really appreciate you guys. Thanks for being funny and awesome. Thanks to Allen and Heath and RCF for, you know, letting us gammer about audio and rigging nerdery for the hour. And that's the pod y'all. 

See you next week.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green