Stage-rigging electrical — the cards that touch the air.

What we hang

We power four families of equipment in the air. Chain motors — usually CM Lodestar in ¼-ton, ½-ton, 1-ton, and 2-ton capacities — running on 480 V 3-phase from a dedicated motor distro. Lighting fixtures — ARRI Skypanel S60/S120, Robe Robin BMFL, ETC Source Four LED Series 3, MAC Aura XB and Quantum — running on 120 V Edison or 208 V L6-30 depending on family. Follow-spots — Robert Juliat Lancelot or Korrigan, ETC Source Four, with the operator at front-of-house — running on twist-lock L5-20. Hanging audio — line arrays from L-Acoustics, d&b audiotechnik, Meyer Sound — running on powerCON True1 with the amplifier rack at the deck.

The hand-off, in two cards

Every rigged-position circuit has two cards in the air: the rigging hand-off (verified by an ETCP Rigger card), and the electrical hand-off (verified by an ETCP Entertainment Electrician card). On most of our shows, Marcus Okonkwo-St.Clair holds both cards, so the hand-off is internal — but on tours where we’re partnered with C.P. Rigging or with a touring rigging vendor, the two cards are on two people and the hand-off is documented on the call sheet. We do not work rigged-position circuits without both cards on the deck.

The card verification happens at the pre-call meeting. Every ETCP card has a number and an expiration date; we check the number against the live card-holder lookup at etcp.esta.org/findtechnicians before the call begins. If a card is expired by a day, we treat it as expired; the card-holder either has a 30-day reinstatement window or doesn’t, and we don’t guess.

Strain relief and separation

The single largest source of failure in rigged-position electrical is poorly-strain-relieved cable at the motor body. The Socapex feed to a motor runs through a Klein Strain Relief Grip (KS-2-100); the cable is also tied off with a Tessa-Tape band six inches above the motor body to stop bounce-strain from propagating to the cable jacket. Every motor has a manufacturer’s strain-relief plate; we use it, every time, with two #10-32 stainless screws and a lock washer.

Separation from the rigging hardware is the second hard rule. ANSI E1.6-2 requires that powered rigging conductors not share a path with rigging-load-bearing members; we use cable Lacing Bars (J-bars from US Rigging) to lash the Socapex run six inches off the chain path, and we never tie a circuit to a basket-style chain bridle. Cable bundles cross under the chain only at protected spans where a hard-line protective sleeve is installed; otherwise the cable is routed parallel and offset.

Lockout, tagged, at every pick

Every chain motor that is going up has a lockout-tagout cycle at every pick. The cycle: motor stopped at trim, controller locked at the brake (Pro-Series padlock through the brake-circuit interlock), tag with the date and the card-holder’s initials, sign-off in the rigging log. We do not pull a motor circuit live; the brake is always locked before the cable is unmated. The Pro-Series padlock and tag are then placed in the rigging-vendor’s LOTO bag for retrieval at strike.

On the way down at strike: lockout reverse, motor at trim, controller un-energized, fixture detached from the motor, motor lowered. Then — only after the motor is on the deck and the brake released — do we unmate the Socapex feed from the motor body. Unmating live is the most common shop injury on tours; we do not unmate live, ever, even when the head electrician is in a hurry.

PPE selection — the arc-flash label is the answer

PPE selection follows the arc-flash label at the panel we are working at, per NFPA 70E. For distros up to 400 A at 208 V, the calculated arc-flash incident energy is typically 4-6 cal/cm², which puts us in Category 2 PPE: FR Henley shirt, FR pants, balaclava, FR hard hat, hearing protection, leather gloves. For the 480 V motor distro, the energy is higher — usually 8-12 cal/cm² — and we go to Category 3: arc-rated suit and face shield, no exceptions. We carry both kits in the truck and we change kits at the panel before opening anything.

We do not work hot. There is no entertainment-industry justification for working a live panel; the show stop for a 15-minute lockout is always cheaper than the alternative. We have closed three panels mid-load-in to clear a fault and the show went on time both times.

Inverter-driven motor circuits

Variable-frequency drives on chain motors are non-trivial to ground correctly. The output of a VFD has a switching frequency in the 4-16 kHz range, which couples to the motor cable shield as common-mode current. If the cable is grounded only at the drive end, that common-mode current returns through the motor frame, the rigging hardware, and the building steel — and we have seen it set off ground-fault alarms on the venue’s service two stages away. The fix is a shielded VFD cable (Belden 29501 or similar) bonded at both ends to a clean equipment-grounding conductor that returns to the source.

We do not GFCI-protect VFD-driven motor circuits per NEC 525.23(B) Exception; the harmonic distortion trips a GFCI on innocent loads. We do, however, fit a dedicated EGC on every motor circuit and Megger-test the cable run before the first motor is loaded.

Lead time and the way to book

Lead time is three working days for any rigged-position electrical inside Davidson County; five working days for venues that require us to roll the truck out of metro. Price banding is $2,200 (a single follow-spot pickup at the Ryman) to $9,800 (a full motor distro and 24-fixture grid at Bridgestone, two shows). The card verification, the pre-call meeting, and the LOTO discipline are included in every booking.

For booking, see /advance/. We require the rigging plot and the motor count with the advance — we will not bid blind on a motor distro.