Rigging and Trussing

May/June 2008

With a wider range of trussing manufacturers around the world, a greater understanding of safe ways to use quality products is more important than ever. Jerry Gilbert talks to Chris Cronin to find out more....

The need for rigger training, safety standards and certification, which had been paramount in the event industry for years, was brought into sharp focus on June 22, 2000 when David Mott fell 35m to his death at Earls Court,

Fast forward five years and the rigging and trussing community, working with one voice, decided to approach PLASA to act as independent administrators, in an attempt to create a de facto industry standard. The Association’s Professional Development Manager, Nicky Greet, duly took up the challenge.

Some two and a half years after the idea was proposed a consensus was reached recently which has led to the introduction of a recognised skills card for ‘Entertainment Rigging’ — essentially a benchmark of competence which would give rigging a recognised status as a profession. This is underpinned by a qualification — the National Rigging Certificate (NRC).

Greet explained that the aim had been to deliver to the rigging industry a qualification that measured the minimum skills and knowledge requirements of someone working as a rigger — set over four different levels, and to be accredited by the Government.

Candidates are assessed at approved centres by trained and experienced riggers.

One of the driving forces behind the quest to secure government recognition was the Total Solutions Group — who not only run one of the assessment centres but also host many of the National Rigging Advisory Group meetings.

TSG’s CEO Chris Cronin recalls, “One of my proudest moments was walking past one of our meeting rooms and seeing the best rigging minds in our industry locked in a meeting. It’s very much where I see our place in the business these days — more as facilitators, causing things to happen. PLASA has provided a reference that we didn’t have before.”

Look up Total’s website and there is a whole section dedicated to training at their new Birmingham facility; they have extended their three-day rigging courses to incorporate an advanced riggers course, as well as running sessions on equipment inspection and Working at Height.

The company has been taking safety issues seriously for the past decade … since Chris Higgs — widely acknowledged as the industry’s rigging guru, and author of several reference text books on the subject — joined in 1997 as Health & Safety Adviser. “Chris wanted to start a rigging and training venture, which I was happy to fund,” says Cronin, “and I am privileged to have him working with us.”

To date the company has issued over 4,000 training certificates.

In 2008 collaboration is the key, believes Chris Cronin, a staging industry veteran of some 30 years. “Our training programme is about principles, concepts and working at height — and nothing to do with our products at all.”

By ‘collaboration’ Chris is not merely talking about a sector pooling its resources for the common good, but as innovators (rather than followers) also licensing its own intellectual property to benefit the entire industry — but more of that later.

FROM a strong engineering background the trussing specialist has imbued the industry with relentless enthusiasm and passion — from his early years with James Thomas Engineering, through to the formation of Tomcat, and finally with Total Fabrications … mostly from his base in Pershore, Worcs..

Diverting from his A levels (destined to give him a future in Electronic Research) Chris joined JTE at the tender age of 17 … “when the lure of this travelling circus engulfed me.”

Run by Graham Thomas, the company was one of the early parcan manufacturers in the ‘70s — their production mainly taken up by the predominant lighting touring company Light & Sound Design (LSD), with whom they shared the development of the first aluminium parcan.

Since the only companies then producing aluminium structures for the commercial market in the UK were Slick Systems and Telestage LSD suggested they develop a fabrication capability and start producing a range of trusses.

But Thomas and LSD eventually fell out and in 1985 Cronin started the cryptically-named Tomcat — with an obvious nod in the direction of the company he would now be actively competing against. The range of trussing and stage sets expanded to include outdoor roofs — or “temporary, demountable structures” as they were known — and a strong U.S. operation was developed which continues to this day.

Further mischief was afoot when Chris (and wife Karen) entered the next phase by forming Total Fabrications — the name lifted from a court defence in which the lawyer said “I refute the allegations as total fabrications” (although in the US the name was changed to the less sensitive ‘Total Structures’ — a move that was doubly justified when the decision was taken to split the businesses).

TFL was formed in October 1989 and was absorbed into LSD (coincidentally run by the Cronins’ next door neighbour and long-time friend, Terry Lee) almost exactly one year later. However, it wasn’t long before Lee was readying the company for sale to European logistics giants Christian Salvesen as they were developing their deminal Icon desk; Total Fabrictions and Lumo Lighting were included in the package — “and so we became employees of Christian Salvesen for the next few years.”

But the move coincided with the start of the first Gulf War — and when all international touring ground to a halt, Salvesens’ interests in the rock ‘n’ roll industry evaporated in the long afermath of the War, which had a severe impact on trade.

In the spring of 1995, the management team of Chris and Karen Cronin along with Liz and Ian Coles and general manager, Peter Johns (the Fab Five?), bought out the parent company’s interests and ran it independently.

“Since that time our mission statement was to be a market leader, providing innovation,” states Chris. “Other people make more money by copying but we came into this industry to be creative with access scaffolding. As such, our products are not price sensitive and we don’t really compete in the mainstream market”

In 2003 Total Fabrications purchased Slick Systems which Chris Cronin at the time described as “like welcoming the Aston Martin of trussing into the fold.”

He explained, “We bought the company out of receivership and were the obvious choice to take the brand name over. I had tried to buy the company for long time and had had many conversations with the company’s founder, Mike Wood.”

It’s the latest brand brought back to life, manufactured to a high standard at competitive prices and aimed at the upper end of the market, largely on the European mainland.

This enabled the company to undertake a phased rebranding to the ‘Total Solutions Group” in late 2004 and by the following year the Group added further gravitas, recruiting Mervyn Thomas (whom Chris had known since school) from James Thomas Engineering, and two years later making him MD of Total Fabrications Ltd.

However, the decision to restructure the company had only partly been driven by the purchase of Slick Systems — it also enabled them to bring their revolutionary new T2 system, conceived by Chris Cronin and developed by technical director Peter Hind and Neil Darracott. “We formed T2 Ltd to give it autonomy, and with seven patents, enable us to license it,” reasons Cronin.

T2 is a revolutionary and advanced demountable structural support system with integral protection for personnel against falls from height. With a structural and practical performance superior to traditional products it offers safer methods of climbing and working at height — and because of its radical design, sustain the loads arising during an arrested fall (and at the same time facilitate safe rescue).

Chris Cronin explains, “Essentially the concept is that this is a truss where the main chords are tracks. By attaching to an umbilical you reduce the fatigue on the climbers and guarantee the safety of the technician; it’s specifically designed for people who have to work at height, such as followspot operators.”

He continues, “T2 was one of our finest moments in terms of innovation — way ahead of its time and I think it scared a lot of people.” But commercially it’s been one of the company’s worst moves ever. “The sales at the start were desperately poor but we have now done some decent installations up and down the country — including Earls Court and the Cardiff Millennium Stadium — as well as several overseas.”

He says T2 was both a positive response to the tragedy at Earls Court and a tribute to the skills level at TSG, where in a company of 50 they have 22 graduates.

“It’s another reason I seek collaboration. Maintaining seven patents on an international level is hugely expensive — costing us six figures a year. It is the duty of any consultant to design and specify [the system] that is best practice.” It has already raised the awareness of safety issues and has caused [people to actively take risk assessments]. And remove some of the gung-ho mentality of yore.

Other pioneering activity includes Total Fabrications’ aluminium outdoor structures (evolved from ideas originally initiated by Chris Cronin at Tomcat) and New Wave carbon fibre truss — invented by Ian Coles, president of sister company Total Structures in the States (and marketed by Total Fabs in the UK).

“This is a very sexy material because you can paint onto the surface of the tube,” notes Cronin. “It’s a premium high class product and uses some of the innovation from T2.”

But by and large, he says, truss is a simple animal. “Many companies that own our products venture into outdoor events, with lighting and PA and in an ideal world it should be able to be used in different environments. So versatility is the key, and we also have to ask ‘how many will fit in a truck’?”

“Our equipment is not price sensitive. We cannot hope to compete with the mainstream truss manufacturers because we don’t copy.

But it’s important that everyone adheres to the same syllabus and curriculum and he is already concerned that one of their competitors is leading a breakaway faction with regards to rigging training.

Looking ahead Chris Cronin’s two wishes are that the industry continues to seek unilateral consensus and continue collaborating in terms of maintaining standards. … and also of course that T2 will conquer the world.

But as these new safety standards move towards a full European adoption, there are equal concerns about the quality of products emanating from the emerging countries. Chris Cronin cites a recent event in the Far East where the truss collapsed due to bad design and the materials were non-conforming.

 “The problem with aluminium is that [manufacturers] often don’t know if they have hard or soft-grade until it’s too late. In China that specification of conformity doesn’t appear to exist, and the reason we sell so well there is because the market base has no confidence in the local suppliers.”

And that incident in the Far East? “Fortunately no-one was hurt,” says Chris, “with the exception of the manufacturer … he was beaten up!”