TSP News BY KARL G. RULING Way-busy, good and bad Contact PLASA’s standards office if plans to regulate portable stages emerge in your area— PLASA’s TSP will contact the municipal authorities to make them aware of our standards. THE LAST THREE MONTHS have been extremely busy for PLASA’s TSP. Some of that busyness has been good. Other parts of that busyness may eventually come to be good, but the circumstances that have lead to it are not. Let’s cover the unalloyed good fi rst! a boom and base assembly needs to be tied off or secured with guy wires to keep it from toppling. It’s not a complicated standard, but it helps eliminate the “Gee, do you think we should . . .? Aw, it’ll be fi ne . . . I think,” discussions that can eat time, while helping to ensure that the devices don’t fall over because people simply ignored the possibility. The other four in line for fi nal approvals are the reaffi rmation of ANSI E1.26 -2006, Entertainment Technology—Recommended Testing Methods and Values for Shock Absorption of Floors Used in Live Performance Venues , the revision of ANSI E1.24 -2006, Entertainment Technology—Dimensional Requirements for Stage Pin Connectors , and the affi rmation of new standards E1.37-1, Additional Message Sets for ANSI E1.20 (RDM) – Part 1 , and E1.40, Recommendations For the Planning of Theatrical Dust Effects . The E1.26 approval is before the Technical Standards Council; there were no public review comments on it and the Floors Working Group voted without dissension to reaffi rm it. The motions to accept E1.37-1 and E1.40 are before the Control Protocols and Fog and Smoke Working Groups respectively. The motion to approve a revised version of E1.24, the stage pin connector standard is before the Electrical Power Working Group at the same time that it is being offered for what we hope is a fi nal public review, using a parallel procedure recommended by ANSI’s auditors. The working group thinks the document is ready for approval. There were two small but substantive changes made after the last public review, so another review is required, but unless someone brings a completely new perspective to the matter of connector pin sizes and spacings, or someone fi nds an error we have somehow missed for the last two years, we’re fi nished until we hit the required fi ve-year review date. Other draft standards in public review as I write this, besides E1.24, include: BSR E1.1 -201x , Entertainment Technology—Construction and Use of Wire Rope Ladders , describes the construction and use of wire rope ladders in the entertainment industry in order to promote worker safety. It’s a revision of the existing 2006 standard to increase the minimum load rating to allow heavier workers to use the ladders. BSR E1.6-2 -201x , Entertainment Technology—Design, Inspection, and Maintenance of Electric Chain Hoists for the Entertainment Industry , is a part of the BSR E1.6 powered theatrical rigging systems project. It covers the design, inspection, and maintenance of electric chain hoists used in the entertainment industry as part of a performance or in preparation for a performance. There are standards for chain hoists, but they assume that the hoists are being used in warehouses or factories; the risk assessment one might do for a warehouse is different from what you might do for a theatre. BSR E1.6-3 -201x , Selection and Use of Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry , is another part of the BSR E1.6 powered rigging project. It establishes minimum safety requirements for the selection and use of chain hoists in the entertainment industry. BSR E1.18-1 -201x , Standard for the We want local legislators to be aware of our standards and to use them, rather than writing their own. The July working group meetings in Westlake, TX were unusually productive. We had disagreements to settle, but people came to the meetings with specifi c issues they wanted addressed and ways their concerns could be satisfi ed. We discussed them and came to agreement, sometimes accepting what was offered by the person with the concern, and sometimes coming up with a better solution—or, at least, a solution that pleased a greater number of people. As a result, we managed to move many documents forward. As I write this, we have fi ve proposed standards in the fi nal stages of being approved for submission to ANSI for fi nal action. Actually, one of these fi ve is past the fi nal stage of approval: the reaffi rmation of ANSI E1.15 -2006, Entertainment Technology— Recommended Practices and Guidelines for the Assembly and Use of Theatrical Boom and Base Assemblies . The next step is fi ling a properly completed BSR9 form with ANSI’s Board of Standards Review. ANSI E1.15 gives advice on boom and base assemblies, and deals with issues such as judging whether FALL 2011 “ “ 62 FALL 2011