G/046 Lighting Rig

More technical information on the G/046 lighting rig can be found on the YSTV Docswiki

On the 06/12/2013, the old ceiling supported lighting rig was declared unsafe and was condemned. This left YSTV without a lighting rig until April 2015, when a new floor standing replacement was purchased and installed.

Old rig

The old rig, which had been in place since the middle of the 90'sUnverified or incomplete information, was essentially scaffold bars clamped onto bolts that ran into the ceiling. Given the size of the bolts and general sturdiness of the entire thing, it was considered (by many generations of YSTV) to be perfectly structurally sound. This was reinforced by the apparent lack of it falling down when lighting, set, and possibly the occasional technician hung from it.

Condemning

During the week before freshers week 2013, Robert Walker had the idea of hanging one of the large CRT's still in the studio from the rig - thus removing it from the floor and freeing up some space. It was then discovered that YSTV was not aware of any documentation stating any load limits for the rig. This was mentioned to YUSU, who then organised for an engineer from TSS to come in and assess the rig. This initial assessment happened during October, and the report back was that the rig looked perfectly safe for the loads we were hanging. However, the engineer had been unable to fully assess the rig, as asbestos in the ceiling prevented him from inspecting how the bolts were attached to the building. In early December the engineer returned, along with a member of the University asbestos team, and inspected the remainder of the rig. It was discovered that some of the bolts were not actually attached to the building, but to pieces of wood that were held onto the building by ordinary wood screws. To make it even worse, the bolts that were attached directly to the building were done in a less than ideal way. Immediately after this inspection, all fixtures were removed from the rig, and it was condemned.

Replacement

Following the condemning of the rig, various solutions to the lack of a rig were proposed. Unfortunately all had the side effect of being rather expensive, so the discussions quickly turned to who's going to be responsible for funding. After a year, the decision was made to run a YuStart campaign. It was also decided to forget about any chance of having a rig build into the building, as the costs were far too great, and instead go for floor-supported truss. Truss had the added benefit of being able to move with the rest of the equipment if YSTV is ever moved from G/046.

YuStart campaign

Ran by Helen Hobin, the campaign was a great success - raising £6285 (plus gift aid). Helen had also asked Greg Dyke if he would be willing to support the campaign, but it wasn't until after the campaign had ended that Greg agreed to fund the entire cost of the rig. After explaining that the campaign had already raised enough, and there was only so much lighting worth buying, Greg agreed to give a donation of £5000 to YSTV as a parting gift - this being the last year he was Chancellor for.