How often should theatre rigging be inspected?

Annually, by a competent third party - with routine in-house checks between. That is the regime the handover manuals we write specify for the venues we deliver, and it exists because everything hanging over a stage is a lifting system with an audience underneath it.

What an inspection actually covers

Lighting bars and their fixings. Tracks, runners and the motors that drive them. Drapes checked against their fire-rating certification. Every 240 volt outlet on every bar, tested and tagged. Rigging points load-tested and documented to Australian Standards, by licensed riggers - and every item given a status, from “no action required” through to the one nobody wants circled: “WARNING: DO NOT USE”.

The register is the point

The inspection matters less than the paper trail it leaves: a rigging register that records what was inspected, by whom, to what standard, and what happens next. When a venue changes hands - a new drama coordinator, a new facilities manager - the register is what survives. A venue that cannot produce one is a venue relying on memory.

Who this catches

School performing arts centres, community theatres, church stages and function rooms with a lighting bar - anywhere the rigging went in years ago and the person who installed it has moved on. At Kelmscott Senior High School, the maintenance schedule was part of handover, not an afterthought.

If your venue’s last inspection date is a guess, that is what our support agreements exist for.