Entertainment Rigger

Aimee Brown

Grant Fletcher can make trams fly. He once made tween queen Nikki Webster fly. If requested, he could probably make pigs fly, but he’s not a magician or a miracle worker. He’s a rigger, who started out constructing communications towers in the Northern Territory. When he moved to Sydney 12 years ago his career took an unusual twist.

“When I came here to Sydney I knew a few people in the entertainment industry and through them I was introduced to people who needed riggers,” he says. “I started to work for them as a freelance rigger at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. I then went to Thailand, working on the movie The Phantom.”

From there Fletcher’s career soared. He was asked to oversee the rigging for the Sydney Olympic Games opening ceremony in 2000. “I worked as aerial supervisor and was there from the very start to the finish. I oversaw all the aerial work for Nikki Webster,” he says. “I was out there on the field connecting and disconnecting her. It was amazing to look out at the crowd and to know that it was going out all around the world.”

Since then, he has co-ordinated the opening ceremony for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games (including the flying tram), spent almost a year working on Superman Returns, done countless music concerts at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and is now working on a performance piece, Honour Bound, for the Sydney Opera House. But whether working on film sets, communication towers or oil rigs, Fletcher says the principles of rigging remain the same. Riggers are responsible for installing cables, pulleys, winches and ropes to move and position objects (or people). An integral part of the job is meeting safety requirements.

In his latest role he is working closely with the show’s director Nigel Jamieson to translate his vision into practice. “From the start I was involved in the creative process, in the set design, to help make a rig-friendly set,” he says. “Then there’s the creative stage of realising the director’s ideas for having aerial performers as part of the show, sourcing and ordering the equipment with an emphasis on staying within safe working procedures and also having something to do with risk assessment.”

Fletcher says being physically fit is important as a rigger because the job involves heavy lifting and supporting. Prior to training as a rigger, Fletcher worked as a rock-climbing instructor in his home state of Western Australia, then in Darwin. This helps him stay fit to easily climb around the rigging structures, and also helps in dealing with people who have never “flown” in a harness before.

Love your work

How did you get into your job: I did my training as a rigger in the Northern Territory, then moved to Sydney. I did some work at the Entertainment Centre and it grew from there.
Upside: Watching the film or the show or production and knowing you’re entertaining people and giving them a bit of wonderment.
Downside: The one thing I don’t enjoy is when you’re working on a film and you have to wait around when there’s nothing to do.