People working on theatre stages are unconsciously facing hazards at their workplace: indeed, stages are the only work-places where persons are permitted to work under hanging and/or moving loads without adequate protection. Traditional standardisation activities relating to machinery (especially lifting equipment) cannot take account of the specific requirements of the industry – indeed the specific issue is outside relevant EU Directives.
There are some national activities, but even these are limited. The result is a somewhat confused pattern of administrative regulations not really suited to the specific equipment and with little commonality between countries. On the other hand, often equipment used by travelling shows is moved across frontiers.
In that respect, CEN has been approached by a group of manufacturers and users who wish to draft a CEN Workshop Agreement in order to increase safety in the "Lifting equipment for stages within the entertainment industry" – LESEI. The proposal will help opera and theatre directors and stage equipment manufacturers work towards pan-European standards.
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, harmonisation of these documents will be sought in order to produce a set of possible specifications that 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.
The workshop is currently on schedule, and the final presentation is expected on the Showtech 2007 in Berlin.
For your information, you can download here the following documents:
Click to Download:Cen 25_approved_business_plan
(last update: 24/10/2006)
