ABSTRACT
The modern live entertainment industry poses a number of fairly unique structural and mechanical engineering problems in the design and use of theatrical stage components. Traditional structural engineering focuses mainly on large static structures, e.g. bridges, highways, building, etc. These structures are design predicated on the assumption that they will not move, at least not significantly. Traditional machine design which investigates dynamic devices whose purpose involves motion, are usually on a human scale, i.e. 1 meter in length scale and 100’s of kilograms of moving mass or smaller. Dynamic stage components in many current theatrical productions are on the order of 10’s of meters in length and 100’s of metric tons in movingmass. These components thus call for the combined expertise of both the structural and mechanical engineer in order for a design to be successful.
