The Fly Floor

Stagehand

I work for one of the oldest continually operated theatres in the country. Our Fly system, used to hoist the curtians, scenery and lighting is of the old school variety called a "hemp" or "rope and sandbag" system, or actually in our case, synthetic ropes. The sand is still real





There's over 3 miles of rope in the whole thing.

The whole thing including pipes, rope, and sand weighs almost 10,000 pounds before we hang any curtains or anything on it. Up until very recently, the entire thing was made of wood. From the support structure overhead, to the pins and rail it operated from, to the pulleys and sheaves themselves, all wood. We decided to give it a little steel jewelry sprucing up for its 140th birthday. :wink







The space it occupies is 25 feet deep, almost 80 feet across, and the pipes have 56 feet of free height travel, with an additional 6 feet of room above the ropes, for access.






It a giant mechanical advantage machine enabling a single stagehand to fly an object the weighs more than 800lbs singlehandedly, with no more effort than climbing a flight of stairs. It how they used to do back in the old days. If it looks like a sailing ship to you, youre right! we use the same technology as a wooden boat.








Its a pretty cool thing. :thumb Come on by, I'll give you a tour.

Jack'll do

Very interesting view of what theater-goers take for granted. Thanks for the behind the scenes look.
It must take quite a bit of time to "learn the ropes"!

summerz

Those are very cool. A real tour would be great, thanks.:D

Skippy

Stagehand wrote:

I work for one of the oldest continually operated theatres in the country. Our Fly system, used to hoist the curtians, scenery and lighting is of the old school variety called a "hemp" or "rope and sandbag" system, or actually in our case, synthetic ropes. The sand is still real
There's over 3 miles of rope in the whole thing.
The whole thing including pipes, rope, and sand weighs almost 10,000 pounds before we hang any curtains or anything on it. Up until very recently, the entire thing was made of wood. From the support structure overhead, to the pins and rail it operated from, to the pulleys and sheaves themselves, all wood. We decided to give it a little steel jewelry sprucing up for its 140th birthday.

The space it occupies is 25 feet deep, almost 80 feet across, and the pipes have 56 feet of free height travel, with an additional 6 feet of room above the ropes, for access.
It a giant mechanical advantage machine enabling a single stagehand to fly an object the weighs more than 800lbs singlehandedly, with no more effort than climbing a flight of stairs. It how they used to do back in the old days. If it looks like a sailing ship to you, youre right! we use the same technology as a wooden boat.

Its a pretty cool thing. Come on by, I'll give you a tour.

It does look like a sailing ship
It's amazing what goes on behind the scenes, that no one gets to see,
and most folks wouldn't even know anything about.

The show can't go on without the people behind the scenes.

Many many years ago I went to see a stage show called "Annie" in Melbourne.

That was the first time I had ever been in a big theatre before,
and I was amazed at what goes on during a big production.

You stage people really make things flow so nicely

Thanks for showing us a little behind the scenes Stagehand
Looks a little scary actually .... Skippy
.

Stagehand

thanks guys!



missed one I meant to add:



This is a shot after we had swapped out some of the wooden members for steel.

This was shot during a run of the Nutcracker. We must be in the Livingroom scene in Act I because you can see the Candyland drops from Act II