Engineering in Entertainment Seminar

Why Things Don’t Fall Down (Until They Do)
A Minimal-Math Guide to Loads, Failures, and Engineering Insight

The TET Fund is offering a new engineering seminar, specifically designed for stagehands, taught by Local One Brother, Matthew Saide.

Engineering isn’t about equations—it’s about understanding how forces move and where things can go wrong, and that affects our safety and the safety of the audience. In this seminar, you’ll learn the fundamentals of load paths, structural behavior, and failure modes using everyday examples from performance spaces. We’ll dissect a real-world collapse, uncover how material choices and shapes affect strength, and apply it all in an interactive design challenge that puts you in the engineer’s seat.

Please see the outline below of topics covered in this course:

• Engineers – who they are, why they are important, and my background
• Understanding load path – what it is, and identifying it in typical theatrical systems
• Basic Physics – Newton’s laws and Free Body Diagrams – what they are and how to draw them
• Basic Statics – Understanding how loads flow through members
• Material Properties – Understanding what stress and strain are and how they relate to each other
• Static Failure Methods – Understanding the various ways something can fail and how to prevent each from happening
• Fatigue Failure Methods – Understanding how something can fail due to repeated loading and how to identify it
• Case Study – Kansas City Hyatt Regency Hotel Skywalk Collapse
• Design Challenge – Apply our understanding of load paths and how things fail to conceptually design a complex piece of stage automation
• Ask an Engineer / Q & A

To RSVP, please email Ryan McDonough at [email protected]