Health and Safety requirements can seem overwhelming, especially in an industry going through an intense process of standardisation. Harry Box of UK Rigging and Chris Higgs of Total Solutions Group know a thing or two about the issues that riggers face on a day to day basis. "The current trend seems to be in trying to establish who is actually in charge and who is going to be held responsible should anything go wrong," comments Chris. "Typically people in this industry are genuinely concerned with working safely and have done so for years - we just don't like being told what to do!"

Working in the rigging industry means keeping abreast of current thinking and responding to the changes. One of the best ways to do this is to lead the discussion. "The National Rigging Certificate is helping us all raise standards and having a positive effect on riggers, employers and venues," says Chris. "Riggers and the people who are responsible for them are getting training and qualifications, getting their act together. I think that now, we're almost all united behind the idea that if we don't regulate ourselves, we'd pretty soon have totally inappropriate rules imposed on us."

Their seminar, 'How to Eat an Elephant', aims to show us how to produce the paperwork - and both insist that it's not as hard as it looks. "The paperwork that we are often asked for really isn't that hard to generate; in fact we are probably already doing the thinking. Although we can't give you all the answers, we can certainly give you some confidence about how to go about it."

'How To Eat an Elephant' takes place on Wednesday 20 April @ 10:30am - click here to book your place.


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