Rigging plot

A rigging plot is the scaled drawing of everything suspended at an event. It shows each point in plan with a reference designation, the load at each point, the trim height each item hangs at, the venue’s own structural members and their capacities, and a datum — an agreed origin on the floor that every dimension is measured from, so that the crew in the building and the designer who drew it are describing the same place.

It is a working document, not paperwork. Without a datum, a plot is a picture; with one, a crew can mark the floor before anything goes up, which is the step that finds a conflict while it is still cheap.

The deadline is the part that surprises people. Large venues require the plot submitted for approval well in advance — commonly three to six weeks — and reserve the right to refuse a late submission outright. A show that finalises its video wall size the week before is a show whose plot cannot be approved in time, and the fallback is ground support at a cost nobody budgeted.

The plot is also where conflicts between departments surface: a lighting point in the same place as a loudspeaker hang, a motor over a camera platform, a truss at a trim height that cuts a projection beam. Finding those on a drawing is the whole purpose of drawing it.

Staging and rigging — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Rigging point One place where a load is attached to the building — counted and rated individually, because the building cares where the weight is, not how much is in the room.
• House rigger The venue’s own rigging crew, who in most convention centres and arenas are the only people permitted to attach anything to the building — a cost and a schedule item, not an optional service.
• Point load The force delivered into one attachment — the number a building is rated against, and the reason total rig weight is the wrong thing to quote a venue.