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Risk Analysis and Risk reduction

Thu, 24 July 2008, 10:10 am
Don Allen42 posts in thread
How many risks are you aware of when working in a theatre or even being in a theatre onstage or backstage. Electrocution Cuts Broken Bones Eye damage Hearing damage Community theatres have a responsability under the WA Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 and WA OSH Regulations 1996 to provide a safe working environment. There may also be additional responsabilities imposed by local councils. As an individual you have the same responsabilities. These following links will provide usefull and productive information: Why productive ? if you maintain your venue and its equipment to a safe standard, you greatly reduce the setup times for shows and remove a lot of the glitches that may affect a performance. I did not use the work "accident" as I do not beleieve there is such a thing as an accident, anything that goes wrong is as a direct result of someone being incompetent or using unsafe work practices.! WA Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984 http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:7379P/$FILE/OccupSftyAndHealthAct1984_05-g0-00.pdf?OpenElement WA OSH Regulations 1996 http://www.slp.wa.gov.au/pco/prod/FileStore.nsf/Documents/MRDocument:7552P/$FILE/OccupSftyAndHealthRegs1996_06-b0-00.pdf?OpenElement Risk Assessment (UK) http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/fivesteps.htm The backsateg Information Guide - Bath University http://people.bath.ac.uk/su2bc/infoguides/index.shtml ABTT Theatre Essentials http://www.abtt.org.uk/PDFs/Theatre_Essentials.pdf Guidelines on the Application of the Health (Public Buildings) Regulations 1992 http://www.population.health.wa.gov.au/environmental/resources/Public%20Buildings%20Guidelines%20Final.pdf Safety Guidelines For The Entertainment Industry (Australian) http://www.entservices.com.au/pdfs/theatrereqs/AustnEntertainmentIndustrySafetyGuidelines.pdf In the absence of any formal training for amateur theatre technicians, then self education is the way to go. I suggest you download any of these documents that allow you to, as it is an excellent start to a library and sometimes web resources tend to dissappear. I always notify actors who walk under ladders when someone is working above them, that it would be a pity to waste all of their rehearsal time, only to miss out on performing because they have been injured during a tech rehearsal, so keep clear and be aware of their surroundings.

Multi purpose venues are

Mon, 28 July 2008, 08:10 pm
Multi purpose venues are always a problem. But I agree with your Lecturer, I can't understand how any one can work effectively, in crap & mess of tangled rubbish. In nearly all instances you try to make it easy on yourself & others, by taking the time to clean it up before you start. Which allows you to work logical & save time over all. Simple things like run an extension cable from the lamp to the patch point  outlet, rather than the other way around. So your not left with a heap of extension cord at the lamp. Of course having enough patch battens in the right places, also helps.
To me if you have the space to hang a lighting batten, it does not take that much more effort to also hang boarders. 
I was at a venue a few weeks ago, just as a tourist. It was not that it was unsafe, but it drew attention to the way it had been rigged up. Now this was a well known & used theatre venue, where for the sake of a few hours spent on each production, could make it so much easier for all the reusable resources, to work shows - in turn possibly hanging on to more of those, prepared to do it! I know invariably there is not enough time to do things & as usual everything technical is left as a quick gaff job, with little or none of the 5 P's employed - Just a get the show on the boards attitude, of "we will worry about all that  later"! Which only succeeds in making it more difficult the next time, to the point there are none of the reusable resources left, who are prepared or want to do it in the dark anymore!

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