CWA 25 regulation unveiled during Rigging day in Utrecht

A selected group of rigging experts, manufacturers and consultants have highlighted their vision, experience and future desires on the theme “Event and stage rigging” during the Rigging day as organised by the VPT (Dutch organisation for Stage Technology) on Monday September 15th.
During this day, the CWA 25 regulation was presented by one of the workgroup members, Gert Jan Brouwer of Frontline Rigging.

For more than 2 years, an international group of entertainment industry peers have worked on the European code of practise for Stage Machinery and Load bearing structures, which is officially titled:
“Lifting and load-bearing equipment for stages and other production areas within the entertainment industry.”
General part: Stage Machinery and Part A: Specifications for design, use and manufacture for aluminium and steel truss and towers.

This formidable achievement is due to a unique cooperation of some international experts and manufacturers, willing to develop a European code of Practise that will end the uncertainty and unclearness for the entertainment industry regarding standardisation and normalisation.

The CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) will be the first stage in the process to build a Europe-wide consensus community. The initial objective of the Workshop will be to make an inventory of standards and standard-like documents, as well as legislation existing at national, European and global level. This being done, harmonization of these documents will be sought in order to produce a set of possible specifications which could be implemented throughout Europe. Assuming rapid consensus on the CWA, it is proposed to use this as the basis for the more formal, but longer-term, activity to prepare a European Standard (EN) in this domain.

Using the existing DIN 56950 as backbone document for the general part and both the VPLT SR 1.0 and BS 7905-2, 7906-2 for part A, the CWA 25, as European code of practise, sets the demands, factors of safety, working methods etc., of using truss and stage machinery.
Once accepted as official document, this code of practise will be a leading document in the development, fabrication and use of stage machinery and trussing.

Marc Hendriks from Prolyte, who has been involved in this workgroup from its beginning and chairman of the workgroup “Specifications for design, use and manufacture for aluminium and steel truss and towers”, is confident that this document will end unsafe working practises and customer confusion. “With the calculation requirements and factors clearly demanded in this document, each manufacturer can be judged on the same basis, which enables customers to compare the products on the same grounds instead of having to guess based on the information provided.”

For those who want to order the CWA 25 document, please demand further information through info@prolyte.com or go to www.cen.eu/cenorm/sectors/technicalcommitteesworkshops/workshops/ws25.asp