For an industry as international as live entertainment, it’s not surprising that the load monitoring practices now common in Europe are also being seen more often on this side of the Atlantic and beyond. Venues and rigging companies that have adopted load monitoring technologies include Kish Rigging, The Orange County Convention Center, The Boston Symphony Orchestra Center, The Seattle Opera, Hall Associates, and tours for top bands such as AC/DC. The reason load cell monitoring technologies have become more prevalent around the world is because they can replace guesswork with real-time data — and that becomes particularly important for anyone working with a large grid with dynamic loads. “There is no way that you can just level it by using tape measures,” notes Martin Gehring, an owner at Dart GmbH, a German rigging company that has supported tours for Rammstein’s world tour using load cells from Ron StageMaster from Eilon Engineering. For one of Rammstein’s tours, the rig included 20 truckloads of gear weighing close to 40 tons, and each of the 15 2-ton motors on the journey were equipped with the load-monitoring devices.
—PLSN, March 2012, page 43
