Because of numerous requests, the deadline for submitting ideas to the 11th Biennial Tech Expo has been extended until Friday, December 1. Loren Schreiber, Chair of the Tech Expo Committee, urges all with interesting ideas to download instructions, and submit an application. Applications can also be called in to the USITT office at 800-938-7488.

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USITT members will have additional time in the 2007 election cycle to return ballots. Ballots were mailed at the end of November, and must be received in the USITT office in Syracuse by Monday, January 5, 2007.

All current members receive ballot instructions, a ballot, a blank white envelope to ensure anonymity, and a postage-paid envelope for returning their marked ballots.

Members are urged to make their selections and return the ballot promptly.

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Students who want to see the world's largest exhibit of theatre design, would enjoy meeting colleagues in theatre from around the world, and have a passport which is up-to-date are ideal candidates for the USITT Student International Travel Award. 

This award is offered biennially and is timed specifically to encourage students to travel to the Prague Quadrennial to experience this incomparable international opportunity for theatre designers and technicians. Those lucky enough to be a student when the PQ is on, will want to take advantage of this opportunity to be selected for a $1,000 travel award. To apply, students must be current USITT members, enrolled full time and in good standing in either an upper division or graduate program in theatre, and have demonstrated excellence or outstanding potential in research or design. The application includes a 500-word proposal of the specific project or knowledge the students seeks to obtain through this experience. Applications are due January 3. For additional details and applications forms, click here.

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The ANSI Board of Standards Review approved the reaffirmation of ANSI E1.3-2001, Entertainment Technology– Lighting Control Systems-0 to 10V Analog Control, on October 13 making it the R2006 version of this control scheme. Six days later, the Board of Standards Review approved ANSI E1.17-2006, Entertainment Technology – Multipurpose Network Control Protocol Suite, better known as ACN: Architecture for Control Networks.

Both will be published in the next few weeks. The new ANSI E1.3, being a reaffirmation, has no substantive changes and will only differ from the 2001 version in its note that it is a reaffirmation and in the list of working group members. ANSI E1.17 is a new standard that is a suite of more than a score of documents, some of which are hyperlinked to each other. It will take more work to prepare for publication, but absolutely minimal formatting changes are expected. This should shorten the preparation time.

The biggest and most pervasive change to the E1.17 documents will be adding the approval date on to each document in the suite.

For more information, contact Karl G. Ruling, Technical Standards Manager, ESTA, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1005, New York, NY 10001; 1-212-244-1505; fax 1-212-244-1502; or e-mail standards@esta.org.

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The draft standard, BSR E1.6-1, Entertainment Technology--Powered Winch Hoist Systems, is available for public review from now through December 25, 2006. BSR E1.6-1 deals with powered winch systems that do not use serially manufactured electric chain hoists, and is intended to establish requirements for the design, manufacture, inspection, and maintenance of powered winch hoist systems for lifting and suspending loads in theatres and other places of public assembly. The public review materials are available on the ESTA website.

This is part of a larger E1.6 project to draft standards for powered rigging systems in theatrical venues.

At its meeting on October 18, the Rigging Working Group voted to start working on BSR E1.6-3, Safe Use of Serial Manufactured Electric Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry. The scope of the project is the operation and safe use of electric link chain hoists having capacity of two tons or less and used in the entertainment industry. This standard is not intended to cover the design and maintenance of the hoists, since that would be covered by E1.6-2.

Anyone interested in working on the BSR E1.6-3 project is invited to join the Rigging Working Group or comment on the draft document when it is available for public review. Membership in the working group is open to all who are affected by the work of the group. There is no fee, and membership in ESTA or any other organization is not required, but voting members must attend meetings regularly and vote on letter ballots. The Rigging Working Group is particularly interested in having representatives from dealer or rental companies as voting members.

Information about joining a working group is available on the ESTA website.

Public review of the draft standard, BSR E1.27-2, Entertainment Technology-Standard for Permanently Installed Control Cables for Use with ANSI E1.11 (DMX512-A) and USITT DMX512/1990 Products, has been extended through December 25, 2006. The draft standard describes the types of cable to be used to interconnect products that comply with ANSI E1.11-2004 (DMX512-A) or with USITT DMX512/1990 in permanent installations. The description includes definitions of acceptable cable and connector types and the ways in which they may be used. The draft standard and its supporting public review materials are available at www.esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php.

For more information, contact Mr. Ruling.

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