Stage stairs

Stage stairs are the treads and handrails that get people on and off a platform. They look like the simplest part of a stage and they are the part most likely to be built wrong, because the dimensions that are convenient on site are not the dimensions the code allows.

The commercial limits are a riser no taller than seven inches and a tread no shallower than eleven, with the risers in a flight uniform within about three eighths of an inch. Handrails are required on both sides, set between thirty-four and thirty-eight inches above the nosings.

The trap is that hook-on stage steps are commonly sold in six, seven and eight inch rises, and eight is over the limit. A crew picking a step unit to match a convenient leg length can produce a flight that is neat, square, stable and non-compliant. The uniformity rule bites the same way: a stage set at thirty inches with a step unit designed for thirty-two gives a short first or last riser, which is exactly the one people fall on.

In a dark ballroom the other half of the problem is visibility. Treads need a contrasting edge and a little light on them, because the moment a speaker walks off a stage is the moment the room lights are at their lowest.

Stairs are not an accessible route. That is what the ramp is for, and both are needed.

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

• ADA ramp The accessible route on to a stage — a slope no steeper than one in twelve, which means a two-foot stage needs about twenty-four feet of ramp before the landings are counted.
• Guardrail The barrier along an open edge — required by code above thirty inches, built at forty-two inches high, and carrying an exception for performance areas that is routinely misread as a blanket one.
• Stage deck The modular platform a stage is built from — four feet by eight in most of the country, with the height set by the legs rather than by the deck.