#317 - Roy Bickel - Legendary Rigger, Performer, and Industry Pioneer - Geezers of Gear

Episode Transcript
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(01:32):
Hello and welcome once again to Geese of Gear.
Thanks for joining me today. I didn't want to say it, but
God, I'm looking forward to today's podcast.
It is a good one. This gentleman is literally the
godfather of rigging, rock'n'roll rigging, and quite a
story he tells. So I hope you're looking forward

(01:55):
to it. It's a great 1 and I also wanted
to mention that we are doing these two events at LDI this
year and actually registration for Dining with Dinosaurs as a
single event, one event ticket. Basically you can go to just

(02:15):
Dining with Dinosaurs and nothing else.
It is going to be an incredible networking event, some real
legends including today's guest,but a lot of really, really
great people are going to be at Dining with Dinosaurs this year.
It is on Saturday night. So it's a networking event, some
drinks, some food, some round tables, a panel of incredible

(02:40):
people, the who's who of of our industry.
And so Dining with Dinosaurs, asI said, you can go to LDI show
now and you can buy tickets justfor Dining with Dinosaurs.
We of course don't make any money from that.
It goes to the show. And secondly, myself and Jake

(03:01):
Berry, in cooperation with LDI are creating the X live concert
light or concert sessions, sorry, concert lighting
sessions. I was going to say.
And so this is a really cool thing.
It's a, it's a, I think it's like 930 till 5:30 or something
on that same Saturday. So it goes from there straight

(03:22):
into dining with dinosaurs afterthey are two separate events,
but X live really is a deep immersion in a quick one day set
of sessions into concert touringsome very, very important
topics. You can see those topics again
on LDI show website. But, and I think there's a bunch

(03:47):
of passes where it's already included in the past so you
don't have to pay extra. And I can't remember what those
passes are called or anything, but we'll be promoting it a lot
more when we get closer to the show.
So I'm very much looking forwardto both of those events and I
hope that all of you and the entire industry supports it.
These are both going to be perennial annual events at LDII.

(04:10):
Think they'll both be extremely successful this year.
I'm almost positive Dining with Dinosaurs will sell out based on
the success of last year and just the amount of people
talking about it. We're getting dinosaurs reaching
out to us this year saying please make me a part of it.
So really looking forward to that.
And so today's episode is with agentleman named Roy Bickel.

(04:37):
Roy is a legendary rigor performer and industry pioneer
with a career spanning over 60 years.
Roy Bickel is a living legend inthe world of live entertainment.
From his early days as a professional water skier in the
60s in Florida to flying throughthe air as a human cannonball in
a circus, Roy's path has in anything but ordinary.

(05:01):
In 1969, he transitioned from circus tents to concert tours,
launching A groundbreaking rigging career that would span
Broadway arena concerts, Olympics, and global
productions. He helped standardize the
color-coded wire rope system still used today and talks about
that on this podcast, Trained generations of riggers, and also

(05:25):
worked with icons like Elvis Presley, Joni Mitchell, Billy
Joel, Kiss, Destiny's Child, Beyoncé, and so many more.
Roy's expertise has taken him from rigging Mary Poppins to fly
across arenas, to managing safety on Olympic flames, to
innovating load bearing techniques still in use across
the industry. His reputation for grit,

(05:46):
ingenuity and mentorship is unmatched and his stories are
jaw-dropping are as jaw-droppingas his career.
Anesta Lifetime Award recipient and 2025 Parnelli honoree.
Roy continues to work, teach andinspire, proving that curiosity,
courage and character can take you from a hotel pool ski show

(06:10):
to the biggest stages on earth. So please welcome Roy Bickle.
Roy, Hello. How are you today?
Wonderful, Sir. Thank you very much.
Yeah, it's a long time in the making.
I think we actually first started talking about doing a
podcast with you last year priorto the to the dining with
dinosaurs thing. We did.
And you know, Sarah's persistence.

(06:33):
So it took her a year, but but we got her done or we're getting
her done. Yeah, yeah, Sarah's good.
I'm I'm fortunate to have her, so I appreciate you taking the
time to do this. You know, you're doing so many
things as far as giving back to the industry, you're educating
people, you're getting involved in some of the things we're

(06:56):
doing like dining with dinosaursand, and X live and I know
you're doing LDI rigs thing as well.
So, you know, thank you for all of those things you do.
I I love that about our industryand, and you're certainly one of
the leaders leading that charge of mentorship and education and
stuff. You know, certainly when you get

(07:17):
into something like rigging, education is important.
And you know, I'm old enough to remember not the days that you
started in this, but certainly the earlier days of rigging,
especially rock'n'roll tours when guys were wasted out of
their mind and, you know, not using safety harnesses or fall
arrest or anything and, and climbing these rigs.

(07:41):
And you know, it, it, it was certainly a much more dangerous
game, even though the, the, the systems and the, the shows and
stuff are so much larger today. And, you know, when you get into
some of the stuff that Tate's doing with their navigator and
people flying around and all kinds of crazy stuff, it's
certainly got potential for moredanger.

(08:01):
But I think because the industryas a whole has grown up and
become, you know, more educated and more careful and more
professional. Yeah.
So we have so much to talk abouttoday, and I'm not even sure
exactly where to start except maybe at the beginning.
You know, you had what I would call a very unique beginning in

(08:24):
that I believe you started as a water skier.
Yes, Sir. How?
How does that happen? I was in St.
Petersburg, FL going to college,St.
Petersburg Junior College, and Iknew how to ski because I had
learned. And when I lived in Miami and I
was on the way to the beach and I see a ski jump and a bunch of

(08:48):
guys skiing and I pulled over and so happened they needed a
young strong guy. So I joined them and we did ski
shows and around the Bay Area ofSaint Petersburg and Clearwater
and Bradenton and I was ended upbeing the guy that fixed all the
ropes to make special links for pyramids with different numbers

(09:12):
of people, 2 and 3 high. So I got my really basic rope
training while I was doing ski shows and we did crazy stuff.
We ended up doing ski shows and swimming pools.
Hal Elgin, who was the the head of the group, said, hey, I've

(09:32):
got an old Austin, an old car that he wanted to use to pull
skiers. So we figured out how to Jack it
up and we made a drum and well and bolted it, took a wheel off
in the back and bolted it to it.Test the rope to it went through
a pulley in the front and we hada problem of course making the

(09:53):
speed constant. So we came up when we put a bar
in with pins and each each Jack would have a gear and a pin
number. And so Oh yeah, so barefoot
which was the fastest maybe thatwould be second or third gear,
4th pin and you would just hit it to the pin and that would be

(10:16):
your speed till you hit the brake at the end of the run.
This was for a course the pool shows, and we also did them in
marinas and the Marina area where you could really drive a
boat, but you could park the car.
And we did all kinds of accidents and pools, pyramids.
How big were these pools though?Oh, they're like almost Olympic

(10:40):
size, which I think is God, Almost 50 meters.
So what can you do as a as a, you know, show skier or
whatever, from one end of a poolto another end of the pool?
Well, we. We, we used to do a bear for
that. And the way we did that, I was a
Guinea pig. I would have two guys with their

(11:01):
arms out and I'd lay on my back on their arm and then we would
go back and forward till the rope was tight.
And then I would be locked in and I would nod and one of the
guys would signal and the guy would hammer, you know, hit the
pedals in the metal. And that would be instantly,
say, 42 miles an hour. And then sometimes I clear where

(11:26):
I'd be on top of the water and Icould see.
Another time there would be justso much spray I couldn't see.
And he would, like, hit the brake.
And then of course, I would sink.
We graduated to making a plywooddeck that we laid over the side
of the pool. And then we'd get that water

(11:47):
down. So you would stick to it.
I'd lay down on that and then I would hit the water and I
wouldn't sink at all. I would be already at barefoot
speed. And then one time in the very
beginning, you're still depending on the driver to hit
the brake. And he didn't hit the brake.
I hit the side of the pool and we had a little ramp and I said

(12:09):
to him, wow, I'm lucky for you that I hit the ramp.
He said you didn't come near theramp.
And I went over and looked and Icould see little skin marks.
Oh my God. Fortunately, I didn't break
anything and I just skidded on the pool.
Thanks again for joining me on Geese of Gear.
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(13:35):
We did stuff where we on the parade, we would have a boat
towed with a car and we would ski just on crummy skis that we
were going to throw away behind it on the asphalt.
And we did crazy stuff. And then we were the safety boat
for boat races, what we call around the island.

(13:55):
And then what, while I was doingthat, I would go to the beach
and do high bar stuff and we'd practice dismounts to the sand.
And I met the guy that said, hey, you're, you're pretty
agile, why don't you come down and try out for our youth
circus? I said, wow, that sounds like
fun. So it's one of the same.
One of the parts. There was a girl, Fei Zucchini,

(14:18):
who I didn't know at the time, but she would had married the
son of the guy who invented the human cannonball.
Oh my God. And so while I'm working with
her at the trapeze high wire trampoline, while we're doing
that, there was a rash of accidents in the Circus of
Cannonball. Broken back, broken legs and no

(14:40):
deaths. And she said, hey, we need a
cannonball. You want to, you want to do it?
I said yeah. OK, Roy, Roy, hang on a SEC,
because I got to back up a little bit here.
I mean, so first of all, like when you started the skiing
thing, you're in your what, lateteens?
I was like, yeah, 19/20/21 and like 61 or 60.

(15:03):
Were you just crazy? Were you just like, were you
just a daredevil type of person,type of kid?
Let's let's have Roy try it. Yeah, so all your friends would
dare you to do things, and you were.
On there's water ski and stuff. OK, Is there any besides anybody
here besides Roy that's strong enough to hold the center of a
pyramid? That would be the question.

(15:26):
Wow. Sometimes could be volunteers
and sometimes it would be me against.
Was this it like the Wisconsin Dells or something?
Yeah, Well, yeah, we we competedwith Cypress Gardens, which is
in the center of Florida. We did, I think more stuff than
they did at the time. We did backward tournaments, 15
man too high, 3 high. I forget the number of people

(15:49):
that there were. We did more stuff.
But then if we got hurt, we lostwork.
But we didn't have to cancel a show.
Somebody else could do it. Yeah, I, I went to the, I went
to The Dells probably. Yeah, that was circus people,
the Wisconsin. 91 or something, I think is when I went there.

(16:10):
My, my, my ex-wife was from the Chicago area and I, I visited
her at one point when we were dating and I remember going to
The Dells for, for a weekend andI was like, this place is like
stuck in the 70s. And it kind of was, you know, it
probably still is today. But I remember, I remember the

(16:30):
water skiing shows how great they were.
I was like, wow, where did this come from?
You know, so it came from you. You were one of those guys.
So I didn't do the Dell, but I did all around Florida.
Oh, OK, OK, yeah, I haven't, I, I live in Florida most of the
year and I haven't been to to those places in Florida, so I'm

(16:50):
going to have to check that out too.
So, you know, you, you are some kind of a daredevil, obviously.
And not only are you attracted to that sort of lifestyle, it
seems to take notice of you and go, hey, this guy's special, you
know, he's, he's either crazy enough or talented enough or
strong enough or whatever it is.But so it just kept coming,

(17:13):
right. So after the water skiing, like
you said, you're you're suddenlyjoining the circus and getting
shot out of a cannon and. Yeah, the I lived in Saint Pete,
the Cannon, Papa Zucchini Edmundo was his real name, but
we all call him Papa lived in Tampa.
So I went to Tampa and he, they had a vacant lot.

(17:35):
And the cannon shots are adjustable, like a slingshot.
The further you pull back, the further you go.
And the first shots, it just poops you out.
The cannon is like over the edgeof the net and it just poops you
and then you go two or three jumps until you're at the top of
the net. Then the cannon moves back and

(17:55):
you do the same jump you just did, but now you're landing in
the beginning of the day. So I did.
My 42nd shot was a professional cannon shot and I think
Montreal, and I didn't know it at the time, but he said, oh,
this is going to be a double cannon.
I said, what's that? Well, two of you get shot.

(18:18):
You'll be the second one shot. Ruth, who they called Edwina
because everybody had to be in the family.
Yeah, called me Roy Zucchini. Yeah.
Anyway, they said Edwina or Dwayne, I forget which it was,
will get shot 1st and then you'll get shot out.
You'll follow her in the air about 15 feet behind her.
Don't look at her. I said OK, but I did look at it.

(18:42):
So I was in the early stages andso my jumps and landings were
all good. But later on as I got used to
everything and I would you blackout when you shot because like
1213 GS, Oh geez, I blacked out and I'd come to you over the

(19:02):
net. Then I would adjust myself and
start thinking about landing. Does that happen every time?
Like do you do you black out every time or or just once in a
while? Every time for the about the
first year, towards the end of the first year, I all of a
sudden I didn't black out at alland I saw the smoke.

(19:24):
There was a flash pot and the mouth of the barrel and
something triggered it when I passed over it and it would go
off and the smoke would follow me.
I saw the smoke. I see the net, you know, 140
feet away. I did a long jump.
I did 165 feet, 55 yards and thenest, you know, 100 feet away,

(19:45):
and I know I'm dead. And then I realized I'm still
going up. Then on my landings were all
overturned because I'm looking for the net.
And I finally had a guy, an old cannonball, tell me, says look
with your eyes, not your head. So in other words, don't look
like this. Look over your nose.
So I learned how to do that. And then from then on, all my

(20:08):
landings were really good. Let me let me ask you something,
Roy. So in these cannonball things, I
mean everyone, I think when you're young, especially people
think it's a cannon, you know, that there's actually some sort
of, you know, explosion inside of it and that explosion is
what's projecting you. What actually is it though?
What is the like? Is it a spring of some sort

(20:31):
that? A potion was all bungee.
There were like 24 three quarterinch bungee cables and you're
inside a cylinder like a Oval Coca-Cola can.
Yeah. And the bungee is attached
around the the cylinder that you're in.
And they go through pulleys at the mouth of the barrel, back

(20:52):
through pulleys at the bottom ofthe barrel, which was 23 feet
long, and then goes up and is anchored to the side.
And then a winch pulls it back. And the whole thing really
farther back you pull it the further you go.
But the whole thing was having aclean release.
Not hitting anything on the sides or.
Whatever cable would keep the cylinder from following you in

(21:15):
the air. And.
It was like an over and under shotgun there.
I I'm in the top cylinder and the bottom cylinder where the
other person, usually it was Ruth and then it was a guy named
Wayne Mickey. I worked with different guys.
I was always the guy at the top that went the furthest.
Yeah, interesting. So it's, so it's basically like

(21:38):
a platform, you know, and and then bungees are attached to the
back of it and they pull the platform.
We're actually attached around the sides and it's a cylinder
with a bottom to it. Yeah.
And then a bar, which I never sat on, but there was a bar,
like at the crotch level, so if your knees gave out, the bar
would catch you. I see.
And the girls all sat down, theytold me, but I never did.

(22:01):
I always felt better standing up.
And it's so tight. If you get in with your arms up,
you can't get in. Yeah, You can't get your elbows
tucked in, Right. And I learned after my first or
second time to stop myself at the top, get my elbows in and
then slide down. And then wiggle like this and
then you become real tight so there's no wobble in you when

(22:23):
you're shot. So what keeps you from catching
the sides and like slowing your projection out of it or
whatever? And the cylinder, you're like my
fist, you're inside it and it's on tracks and you're inside it
till it comes out of the barrel.Oh oh, so the whole cylinder
goes forward? And you keep going, yeah.

(22:45):
I get it. I get it.
So you're not just standing on alittle platform and the platform
launches you out, you're actually in a.
Tube and a cylinder with the bottom to it and the whole thing
goes. Oh, OK, I get it.
Yeah. Just curious.
I've. I've never known how that all
worked. I knew it wasn't an explosion,
obviously, but. And, and my five years in the

(23:06):
circus as a performer, prop bossand rigor, we never bridled
anything. Every circus show was laid out
according to where the beams are.
I've got a wire rack. You look for where the main beam
is that you know, and that's where you hang the wire rack,
which doesn't take much weight. Oh, yeah, we'll do crappies over

(23:29):
here. And all the girls that tada, the
girls that climb the rope and pose and look pretty, yeah,
we'll do them here because that's just a lightweight being,
you know, there's no weight. And I handled the girls a lot of
times for 10 bucks a week, you know, I'd handle the rope and
swing it when they wanted to rotate.
And so that that's also interesting and and you know,

(23:53):
you had no training or anything for this, right?
It was just like, hey, you want to go in the cannon and you did
your training there. My acrobatic training was in the
youth service, OK, And then alsoas a cannonball.
I also did trapeze. I was a fill in flyer.
I wasn't a good flyer, but I wasa brave flyer.
I'd fly to anybody, but I did more catching because I was a

(24:16):
good catcher. But a lot of Flyers didn't want
to fly to a new catcher, you know.
But I I wasn't afraid so. Where did you get this?
Where did you get this fearlessness from?
Oh, young and dumb, but I just. Did your parents do anything
weird? Like, were they?
My dad was career Susan Roebuck God in the 40s when Second World

(24:42):
War happened my dad and both my uncles ran to join to join up.
My dad landed in Normandy so to me as a real hero my 2 uncles
look were on boats which doesn'tmake it but not a hero landing
in Normandy. As a hero thing.
And he made it 19 days and he's under a tree limb and a 88mm

(25:06):
tank shift hits a limb above hishead, fragments, takes off his
right hand. He grabbed it.
And he's telling me this. He grabbed it, wrapped it up,
and then the medics finally cometo get him and he's on a
stretcher and he gets shot. Either the thigh or the butt.
On a stretcher. And then they flip him over and

(25:28):
he's shot and either the thigh or the butt.
So he got a triple heartfelt cluster with the three injuries
all on his right side. the VA did good, really good with him.
But then. He survived.
Sears. And he worked for Sears until I
think he was 48 and he retired and he and my mom followed me to

(25:49):
Madera Beach. And even though I was gone with
the circus, I still saw them quite often.
So that. Was did, did they ever sit you
down and say now, Roy, we'd likeyou to maybe think of a
different approach? Getting shot out of the cannon.
I can't blame her for that. My dad watched, I took him to or

(26:10):
I'd say, hey, we're playing Baton Rouge, which was the
closest city that I was doing the cannon and they came and my
mother, he'll hit her eyes. My dad said I think I saw you.
But the the there were two flashspots.
There was a slow burner for the smoke and then a fast burner
which was a bang. There was a bang and then a

(26:32):
puff, he says. But I think the bang made me
jump and I might have missed you.
So I may have just seen the second guy.
Yeah. But anyway, that was so the only
time they visited. Let me ask you, before we before
we move on from the cannonballs and the water skiing and stuff,
how often did you get hurt? I almost missed the net, both

(27:00):
being shot low where the bungee fouled up and it stopped me.
And then one time, you know, I always aimed it and you know, I
could only see the front of the cannon, but I ended and one of
the back wheels was in a rut. So the back was like cocked.
So the barrel instead of going like this, it went like this.

(27:21):
So, and I didn't know that because part of the ACT is
styling and smiling and climbingup on standing on the cannon
barrel and as the barrel goes up, you're standing and then at
the top you salute and then get in the barrel.
So I didn't know it was crooked.And I got shot out and instead

(27:41):
of hitting in the center of the net, I would have missed the
net. But I grabbed it the edge of the
net. Yeah.
And then recoiled up. I held on.
It flipped me back into the net.Wow.
It was in the circus. And I had spotter guys.
I used to have movies of this. They said, oh, yeah, we would
have caught you. And I looked at the movies and

(28:02):
they hadn't even moved. They went in after I recoiled.
Yeah, so. You know, I had when I was in
the overturning where I was looking with my head instead of
my nose, I would land feet firstin the net and my knees because
I'm bow legged, instead of hitting my nose, they would hit
me like below the eyes and that black eyes did overturning.

(28:25):
I would twist my ankles. I'd have them taped up.
But eventually, you know, after talking to this old like I am
now this old circus guy and he told me, you know, look with
your head, not your nose. I did no return anymore.
Then I could actually look around while I was in the air.

(28:46):
Interesting piece of advice. Yep.
So you never, but you never got seriously injured?
No, I never broke anything during the in the circus.
My biggest injury was when I wascatching and I was still looking
with my head instead of my nose.And I stretch that over and I
was catching a girl doing a 1 1/2 OK, which is a like a

(29:07):
backward somersault. And her legs were supposed to
hit my arm. But because I wasn't looking and
she didn't know how to do the trick, instead of taking it up,
she traveled it. And so she caught me in the
mouth, knocked me out, took my teeth through my lip.
And I'm just, my legs are wrapped around the the catcher's

(29:29):
trapeze and I'm just passing outand I feel myself falling.
And I tightened up my legs and Ididn't fall.
But I'm bleeding and blood is everywhere.
And I cut down the rope with thegirls.
No. Are you OK?
Are you OK? And I bleed?
Never. I see.
I'm fine. It's the Flesh 1.
Yeah, wow, that is. Crazy they showed me up, I still

(29:50):
got a still bite it every once in a while.
So how did, how did you transition from circus performer
to to rigor? You know, because you, I, I
don't know if people know this. I'm, I mentioned it in the
intro, but you really are kind of the godfather of, of at least
the rigging that we know. Rock'n'roll rigging, theatrical
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(31:57):
This is the foundation of excellence ETC has built over
the past 50 years, and they planto deliver more in the next 50.
For the latest ETC products and installation news, visit
etcconnect.com. Without bragging, yeah, I I'm
the first. Yeah, I was.

(32:21):
We did a date with a cannon where we hung the net.
It normally was on net poles, like the pencil here, the Nets
here. But because there there wasn't
room or there was something thatwent on the ground, they said
we're going to hang the net. Oh, yeah.
What's that? Well, then they have blocking
falls and then the circus riggers, which I wasn't at that

(32:43):
time, hung the point, but I saidto Papa, I said I'm I'm going to
go up and see how that's connected.
So I I was a good climber. I went up and looked at it and
the prop boss, Casey Gibbs saw me says, hey, you're a pretty
good climber. We need a circus rigger.
You want to be a circus rigger. I said sure.

(33:04):
How much said like 125 a week orsomething that's.
Good money back then, huh? And then I gravitated from there
to prop boss and I'm doing a, this is the transition.
So I I'm doing a show in, in NewOrleans, another show in New
Orleans and it's indoors. And Bob Yorks, who was A at the

(33:25):
trapeze act and he was a stuntman, got a call from Disney
and he didn't want to be the advanced tech rigger.
He said, I got a guy right here,let me see if he'll do it.
And Bill Blanton was a certain the Disney guy, and he put me
with Bill Blanton. I spoke to him on the phone and

(33:48):
he said, when can you join us? We're already in rehearsal.
I said, well, I can be there when the show is over in in less
than a month. And what to pay?
It says 275 a week plus 155 per.Damn.
Wow. I'll do it.
So I flew to LA, to KTLA. We were rehearsing in Culver

(34:11):
City Studios. I joined and I from circuses I
learned they can every act carried their own steel and they
would have a short seal and a long seal for each point and
there would almost always be extra steel.
And when you we tied everything,there were no baskets or, or

(34:34):
even chokes that you just wrap it and do a clove hitch or a
rolling hitch and then take the excess and tuck it into the wrap
so the steel's not hanging down.Yeah.
So I always wondered why circus acts didn't have their own
steel. I'd already figured out in my
mind what I was going to do. And on Disney, I said, can I
make all our own steel? And they said, yeah.

(34:57):
So I made five 10s, twenties, 30s and 50s.
And I was. So how am I going to tell them
apart? Ah, red, white and blue.
That was easy. Red for five, white for 10,
Blues for 20, 30s and 50s. What will they be?
I did an alphabetical yellow green.
Yeah. And my blue, yellow green.

(35:18):
And that's still used everywheretoday.
Really. Yeah.
Wow. On Disney, I did all quarter
inch. The heaviest point was 1000 lbs.
And I bought all the shackles. And then we just use 3/8 and
half inch because it was all lightweight stuff.
And did that for five years on Disney.

(35:41):
I was the only touring rigger and we had the bridal things,
which wasn't done before Disney.And in Madison Square Gardens, I
became the touring rigger because there weren't any other
other than circuses. Circuses dead hung with fleet
angle or whatever for a grid that they hung, which was a pipe

(36:02):
grid. And then all the axe, all the
lightweight axe would hang from there.
The heavy act would all be dead hangs.
Wherever there was a dead hang being on Disney, there was a
theatrical floor plan and everything, not everything, but
both things had to be bridled because you had to hang it
according to the plot or the dancers would have to record it,

(36:26):
be choreographed. So the guys in Madison Square
Gardens asked me to move there. They said, well, you can work
here, So what do I make? And he said, you'll make, well,
it's a grunt. You'll make about 1000 a week.
But I was just finishing Disney and gravitated into Rock'n'roll.

(36:48):
And I did theater in between, bythe way.
But I said, no, you know, I can't really move here.
But coincidentally, I'm doing one of the late Disney shows and
it was Osha's first show. And so the Madison Square Garden
guy said, hey, talk to Roy. He's the rigor he he done to

(37:10):
every round in the world, he'll know.
So they talked to me and really asked me a question, is that
safe? Is that good?
I said, yeah, the dangerous acts, you know, you'll see they
have a safety belt. It wasn't really a like a league
legal safety now, but it was legal enough then where if you
fall you don't hit the ground. And in the early days, you know

(37:34):
the performers would wear it mostly.
But the Rigor didn't have any safeties Didn't.
Wear No I didn't. Want a safety?
Yeah, that actually weight that cumbersome stuff.
Well, even for many years when safeties were introduced into
the rock'n'roll industry. That was a rocky pulse and made
that happen. But most of these climbers still

(37:54):
didn't didn't use it, you know? I saw my first harness in 88.
That was actually from Ed Kish and Ed Kish and Rocky Paulson
and Joe Branham, Bobby Grenier. They all worked for me in the
early circus days. I supplied all the rigors in the

(38:16):
when Rock'n'roll exploded. And because I've been to all the
buildings, I would still do a side survey because now rigor or
excuse me, buildings are gettingthere, their ringing guy, their
AutoCAD guy. Yeah.
And then I would have to go overwith them where where we were

(38:37):
going to hang and what we were going to act and how much weight
it was going to be. So a lot of your, a lot of your
work probably in the early days was sort of like consulting,
like where either venues or actswere coming to you and saying,
hey, Roy, you know how to do this stuff, how should we do it?
Yeah, the the early vendors would call me and saying, you
know, hey, what rigging do we need for Elps or what rigging do

(39:01):
we need for the Stones or Aerosmith, you know, the early
acts. And I, I would tell them
actually going back to Disney, they asked me, do you have any
credentials? And I've got years of experience
with no credentials. They said you need something.

(39:22):
So I spoke to a guy named Doug Rawson with Cable Co in LA and I
said I need to get a certification of some kind.
Is there any rigging certification?
And I said no, there's not. But we have a crane class which
certifies that, you know what rigging gear is and what ratings

(39:43):
are. And so I said, oh, I'll take
that class. So the class was on Queen Mary
and Long Beach. That's where the class was.
So I went there, I took the class and I got that from Doug
Rawson. Roy Bickel is shown to be
knowledgeable and certified in the use of wire rope rigging and

(40:07):
clips. Some kind of wording like that.
Yeah. And then later on, wow, though,
which rigging classes came to bewith guys that I thought, you
know, Rocky Paulson, Bill Sapps's, Ed Kish.
Small names, small names in the industry.

(40:28):
And Joe Brown and then me, we all had rigging classes.
And then in 2004, Rocky got hooked up with ASA and the ETCP
rigging certifications and he asked me to be one of the
subject matter experts. In 2004, I was living in here in

(40:48):
Vegas and the classes were in Kansas City.
So I became a one of the subjectmatter experts with Rocky and we
wrote the arena certification questions and answers and we had
to have an attorney there because we didn't want to be

(41:10):
sued later if something happened.
So there was a lot of multiple choice and that's what I did and
I did all my paperwork to get ECTP rigging certification and
my certification 0010. My goodness, you want.
To do it, that was even before the arena certification, and I

(41:31):
became 011 so #11 for that. That's wild.
Early certification, I'm still active, I still have the cards.
I still CSETCPALDI. In fact, when I when we go
there, I'll be there, of course.Yeah, that's wild.

(41:51):
So how where did it go from Disney after that?
From Disney, I had a short run, OK Pete Feller did all the
Broadway shows. He was like these shop and he
did Disney as well. And he came there and he watched

(42:12):
me rig and he watched me fly Mary Poppins and then Peter Pan.
And it was a console with an inductively coupled antenna and
a single phase unit shred on each side of a WAVY track that
powered these cars. He had six cars with push button

(42:33):
control, forward, reverse, up and down, slow, medium and fast.
And he saw me flying Mary Poppins, which I'll talk about
in Mary Poppins accident in a minute.
And he said, hey, if you ever leave Disney, come to New York
and I'll keep you busy doing Broadway shifts, OK?
And at that time, I wasn't thinking about it.

(42:54):
Hang on one second, while we're still on Disney, was Disney like
really important to the foundation of rigging in that
they had the money and they had the ideas and engineering and
stuff to be able to come up withsuch grand vision?
And because it was the first show that really hung to a plot.

(43:16):
Yeah. You know, and I had to go survey
every venue to make sure we could play it and rigid rules,
you know, oh, if we can't hang the proscenium here, we can't
afford to come do the show we hang here.
So we're going to have to not dothis venue unless you change.
Prior to hang from a plot was just basically wing it.

(43:38):
It was it was wing it and the only shows that I there were
eyes shows and circuses. They both had a grid.
Yeah, They would hang A-frame, didn't matter where it was,
because aerial acts and choreography wasn't according to
the grid. Why didn't you just move a
light, which was done with bucket trucks in the early days,

(44:00):
I believe. Yeah, On Disney I was the
focuser and that was the climber.
Interesting. Oh no, I was talking about Mary
Poppins. Mary Poppins flew and son she
hung by an umbrella with a wristband and I was a flock, the
automation guy and I forget whatvenue it was.

(44:23):
She got about 75 feet and lost power to her trolley.
So I'm on headset and I holler. Mary's dead and I take my
headset off, throw the power button, run back, say to the
ladder, climb up, traverse out to where she is, throw my rope
down. Guys on the ground, which we

(44:43):
already had just figured out if it ever happened, they tied a
thick rope on. I pulled it up to above her and
then she transfers from her umbrella and her arm is getting
sore by then but she's still singing.
Oh my goodness, she didn't even stop the show.
This was a live show I assume. The rope, she looks at me and

(45:06):
now is a thank you and then goesdown.
Doesn't miss a beat. Guys on the ground are holding
the rope and the show goes on. Wow.
Up to the rest of the show. She can't fly, but we still do
the show so huh. Nobody's hurt, but the whole
audience sees it. They're all clapping like crazy.

(45:26):
Well, was there, was there a Disney?
Was there a, was there a Disney executive somewhere who needed,
who needed oxygen? When he heard on the radio,
Mary's dead. Yeah.
The production manager, the queue caller, they're all there.
Yeah, Mary's dead. Mary's dead is.
Yeah, Mary's dead is not something you want to hear over

(45:47):
the COM system, I guess. They, they knew what I meant,
Mary. 'S dead.
Yeah, it. Was I did want to say Mary's
lost power. I'm going to run up and.
You didn't have time for all that nonsense and.
Then the crew knew. Yeah, yeah, that makes.
Sense and on script somebody else was going to climb up, but

(46:07):
my adrenaline was flood flooding.
So I ran back and I climbed up. And also I was a faster climber
anyway. Yeah.
Young and dumb in those days. Yeah, it sounds like it.
I like it. Thank you.
So go back to the story after Disney now.
OK, so I went to Rock'n'roll. I'm, excuse me, I went to

(46:31):
Broadway. Yeah.
And I did Chicago, The Wiz, Pippin, Chorus Line, Not in that
order. Small shows, Just just little
shows, right? Pardon.
Just the little shows. Well, they were big at the time.
I'm joking. Yeah, I'm joking.
Pete Keller Scenery built all the shows while I was doing

(46:52):
that. This is the real transition.
Coincidentally, they built the set for Jethro Tull and Pete
says, hey, I need somebody to head up for Jethro Tolter.
That's going to be 2 units because we're building it.
I said, Oh yeah, OK, I'll, you know, I like Rock'n'roll.

(47:14):
I have a lot of rock. I mean, I like Broadway.
I have a lot of stories from Broadway.
But I said, yeah, Rock'n'roll sounds exciting.
I think I'd rather do that. So I did Jethro Toll.
I put the crew together with allDisney people.
Casey Gibbs, who was still in the business, but he wasn't
doing rock'n'roll yet. Macy's the one who got me into

(47:37):
rigging on the circus. OK.
So he was on one unit, I was on the other.
Anyway, Bill McManus had the lighting.
He's out of Philadelphia. Yeah.
And I helped him put the riggingtogether and he said we're going
to use chain motors. And I had used one on Chicago.
So yeah, I thought that would bea really good way to do shows.

(48:00):
So he said. But we have to figure out how to
make them work upside down. In those days, right side up was
motor up on a trolley and a factory or in a theater, because
that's where I'd seen one on Chicago said.
But we want to turn them over and have them in a box and have
the chain go up and hook it. But they don't work right.

(48:22):
So we puss with it and met with ACM and then figured out that
you could turn the contactor over because they were gravity
contactors, which means they wouldn't work upside down
because the relays were and thenright side up they would work

(48:42):
with the with the contractor upside down.
But if you lay the motor on its side it would chatter that it
was still gravity. So we got CM to put a coil in
and make 110 Volt contactor. So you hit a button for up and
the contactor was two way flip. It would flip one way and your

(49:04):
three phase would go up. You go the other way and they
would cross phase and the motor would go down.
So we started out on Jethro Tullwith an advanced truck carrying
just the chains and then and therigging and then we'd, you know,

(49:25):
do the bridle or the dead hang and then when the hang the chain
with the butt with a an airlift.In the early days they were
airlift compressed air. Yeah.
And then the guy went to take the hook, light it up, hook it
into the bridle. We'd nod our heads if the bridle
was good. Eyes were at 45 feet.

(49:49):
And we did a couple of shows like that then discovered, hey,
we don't need, you know, the disconnect the the chain from
the motor, which is what we had to do and then mess up the
limits. So we had to bypass limits and
everything. But we ended up that we didn't
have to pre rig because we didn't know how long it was

(50:09):
going to take overnighters, two different units, you know.
So we would end up at show AI mean Rig A here, that's AB Rig
B, and then we would do reggae with the day off.
Leapfrogging basically. Yeah, Leapfrog.
Yeah, you know, there's still now shows the leapfrog and then

(50:31):
as as we got better at it rigging wise, we didn't have to
leapfrog, you know, as long as we started ringing, long as
rigging truck was on time, we would have a pretty good flow
for the day. Yeah.
You ready for band sound? Check in the afternoon.
Yeah, what what were in those early days of, of rigging like

(50:56):
that with motors, what were someof the complications or
challenges that that you discovered and had to overcome
other than flipping the motor which you've.
Already covered getting qualified rigors.
Yeah. So I supplied most of the rigors
because shows what all clients call me.
When I did the Stones in 75 God,one of the opening acts was the

(51:21):
Eagles. Another one was a Rufus Chaka
Khan. I mean, acts in 7576 with, hey,
we can make some money if we carry our gear and hang sound
where we're not blocking all these seats.
And but there were no rigors, touring rigors.

(51:42):
So I took my stash of guys, Joe Branham, Mike Grassley, Jim
Barnes, you know, all these early rigors and then I would
break in new rigors where I would have them do do the out.
So this, you know, you could climb and do the out.

(52:02):
Once you learn how to do the out, then you'll know what's
done. And I can have you do a load end
where you're actually hanging the points.
You'll see by the and it's all tying, knot tying, clove hitches
and rolling hitches. We took the same things I had
learned in the circus, which wasn't technically correct, but

(52:23):
rigging had not really been advantage yet.
As. Far as baskets and chokes you
just took you put long seal at the top of a bridle and adjust
it and tied it. You're always perfect in
elevation and in location. Wow.
As I after I took the class witha cable Co, I learned, well,

(52:46):
you're not really supposed to tie steel, but right now that's
what we got to do. And then learned, wow, you know
what if we put a short cable at the top, we can do a basket or a
choke. Chokes are not even good, but we
did them and then we can really we later on we evolved with that

(53:09):
kiss with a sack chain, which originally was deck chain from
chips and he he took it integrated into his rigging.
He was an electrician for me on Disney and he liked it.
So he he formed his rigging in San Francisco and he really was

(53:30):
dead was deck chain, which evolved into stack chain,
special theatrical alloy chain. That's what stack stands for and
used that on Alabama and wow, that made it work for bridling.
It was easy. Yeah.
You know, it was easy once you figured the bridle out.
You have a a choke or a basket at the top and then your stack

(53:51):
chain and then your 5 or 10 or adog bone, which was another
invention. A dog bone, a varying length
would be 2 foot, 30 inches or three feet.
So those made rigging even more refined.
And then as things went on show rigors we're we're still

(54:13):
climbing that we had to climb because house rigors hasn't
gravitated there yet. As sign went on, house riggers
say, wow, we want to get on thiscall.
We got to be able to climb. And then as rigors, there were
more and more climbing rigors, the road rigor like myself would
end up, oh, we don't have to climb.
We go in, Hey, house guys, you know how to call points.

(54:37):
Oh, yeah. And then house guys became
really better than us road guys at calling points.
But they know what size basket you need or you can't wrap there
because there's an air duct or there can't wrap there, there's
a catwalk connection. So house guys now call points
really better than Rd. drivers. So in those early days, like you

(55:00):
said, you'd bring your guys or whatever.
So where were you getting these guys from?
Like, were you going to the circus and saying, hey, let me
teach you how to climb and be a rigger or whatever, or.
They, they originally came from the circus and from Disney.
And then they would be guys thatwe would pick from the vendor

(55:20):
crew. You know, vendors like lighting
or audio. There wasn't really mini vendor
crews in those days, but they would have, there would be
somebody, man, I like this, you know, and I would have guys,
they would be my ground rigger. On these early turns.
There wasn't the money to have atouring Rd. rigger and a touring

(55:43):
ground rigger. The ground rigger for lighting
points would be a lighting gate.Hey, you want to be the ground
rigger for the lighting point? Yeah, there would be somebody
that would want to do it. Same with audio.
And you would teach them really what the assembly components
were going to be. Then there was not basketing or

(56:05):
choking. It was mostly what the assembly
component. We'll do 5 and 10 here and only
a 10 here and 30 here or 20 and so on like that.
And then they would make the assembly and if they didn't know
where to tie it on, you would tell them where to tie it on.
And we would leave the length ofthe top and put the tail of the

(56:30):
cable and the tail of the bowling, you know, bowling,
clove hitches, rolling hitches, Those were the main knots we
used in the early days. Interesting.
And the guys were from there. I'd take them out on on the tour
and you come and be my ground begger.
I'm going to let you do the loadout.
Yeah, that makes that makes sense.

(56:52):
And you can climb and get there.OK, now the next show, you're
going to go up on the hang. Yeah.
You'll watch on the hang. Once you've got know these what
you're doing, we'll let you hanga point.
And that's how it gravitated or grown from no rigor.
So now there's loads and loads of.
Yeah. So as you were starting this

(57:14):
industry basically? Yeah.
Were there any, and I hate to talk about accidents, but were
there any significant accidents that really helped to evolve
either your thinking or the industry as a whole or the
products that were being used? Like did accidents cause
innovation? Yes, thanks to Rocky, Rocky

(57:38):
Paulson was saved. Rigging became really safety
conscious. Yeah.
And oh God, John, I forget his last name in Chicago working for
me, Fell rigging. I never wore gloves and I always
kept my hands in shape by dragging him on catwalk hand

(58:01):
rails or whatever I could drag him on.
Anyway, he was wearing gloves, and we're in Chicago, and then
it's the stockyard Amphitheatre,and he's hanging points and he's
over the balcony and he's climbing up and he's wearing
gloves. You know, you don't tell
somebody how to climb. You suggest ways to climb.

(58:22):
And I said, you know, I don't wear gloves, but if you want to
wear them, So yeah, I want to wear them because I don't want
to cut my hands. OK, So he's wearing gloves.
He's climbing up and the Stockyard Amphitheatre was what
it sounds like. It had candle shows, Stockyard

(58:42):
all came in there and use it with dirt floor and the dirt
goes up to the ceiling. And so the beams were all dirt
dust coated. So he's climbing, grabbing the
beam and he gets where he thinkshe's holding on to steel and
he's not. He's holding on to the dirt and
it breaks off in his hand and hefalls and he's over the balcony

(59:07):
and the edge of the balcony is here, and down here is death,
and here is 2020 feet. He falls and lands here in the
sea. He's hurt.
But he's not killed. And so John, God, I should
remember his last name. He's a Chicago local guy.
And so that was a safe and safe thing on Disney.

(59:32):
Joe Granum fell. He was.
He filled in for Mickey on the motorcycle and for some reason
the wheel came off the wire. It was a motorcycle on a high
wire. Wheel came off, flipped him off
and he fell, landed on the stageand lived.

(59:52):
But he's hurt. Yeah, I went to see him in the
hospital. While I'm glad to see you, Joe,
he said. I'm dying to see you.
Oh my goodness. Funny.
Remark. Wow.
Cavada, one of my early riggers on Disney and South America, I
did the side survey, had to go up on the roof of the Quonset
Hut, Herativa, Brazil, and George went down there to do the

(01:00:15):
show and he's walking on the roof.
He steps on a skylight falls through.
This is the sage lying on the concrete and Mike Relicas the
producer breathed. Joe George breathed, but he
didn't and got, you know, some rest in peace.
George passed away. Oh no.

(01:00:36):
Another guy on a rock show who fell and died.
So. But did you know wanted to make
it where Yeah. Falling and dying is not a
hazard of the job. Falling and having a rescue plan
is the job. Now, if you fall, you'll be
hanging below the beam and everybody has to have a rescue

(01:00:59):
plan. So that was part of the TCP when
Rocky called me because I'm still the number one godfather
of rigging and he called me to join the the certification crew
in Kansas City. And that's what really, I mean,
there were already harnesses, but there was no requirement.

(01:01:21):
Yeah. So really Rocky and Ed Kish
helped buildings facilitate safety lines, you know.
Yeah, you can. It makes us a safe theme to rig
on. You have the safety line.
One of the rules of safety linesis the anchor has to be and the

(01:01:44):
line has to be good for £5000. So that's was a basic rule and
that's what everything was designed for.
Maybe the beam itself wouldn't hold 5000 but horizontal tension
would hold 5000. So that was those guys safety

(01:02:04):
wise were instrumental in it. Me, I got it off the ground and
I made it where you you can hangand show.
Yeah, well, we got new rules. Well, this is what we got to be
able to do. We have to be able to climb out
on that beam and be safety enough.
So one way that we did actually in the Legion Stadium here is

(01:02:28):
you leapcrog your safety. There were not safety lines, but
you would have three attachment points that you would carry on
your harness. So one is you're always hooked
with. It may not always be this one.
It might be this one if you're always safety not.
And the other two, you're leapfrogging.

(01:02:49):
And so, oh, you come, here's a vertical beam.
You attach here, you know, disconnect here, go around over
here, hook on, unhook this one, shuttle across and so on.
Yeah, So you know that done. Nowadays, there's a lot of
horizontal line, which there aren't in most places.

(01:03:09):
Excuse me? The interesting thing about
safety, I'm sure, is that at in rigging is, I already mentioned
this before, but like, I've known a lot of guys who are kind
of like Cowboys who are like, Ohyeah, I don't use those things.
They slow me down or whatever. Yeah.
And I mean, I think eventually it became mandated.
Did you know Billy Brennan? Probably, yeah.

(01:03:33):
Yeah, God, the lighting company here.
Yeah, yeah, it's cinema serviceswas.
Still around? They went to Yeah Cinema.
Services. They became part of PRGA.
Long time ago. Yeah, but but Billy, you know,
being a rigger and also a mountain climber, a very avid
mountain climber, One time, one time at a dinner he was telling

(01:03:56):
me a story because he had two rules when he went climbing. 1
He didn't use any safety ropes or, or you know, what are they
called pitons, the things that you # into the rock.
And he didn't use any of that stuff.
He free climbed. And the other rule was he never
told anyone his plan, where he was going or what he was doing.

(01:04:17):
And so he told me one time he was in Australia and he was
climbing in a crevice and he fell to the bottom of the
crevice and he broke like virtually all of his ribs in the
fall. And so he laid there dying for
about two days, I think was the story.
And then he finally said, well, looks like I'm going to live.

(01:04:40):
I better find a way out of here.So with all kinds of injuries,
plus most of his ribs broken, somehow he climbed out of this
crevice because nobody knew where he was.
He wasn't going to be rescued. So, you know, it's, it's just
that mentality, right? It's like a just a danger loving
mentality I think you know. I have a couple of falling

(01:05:00):
stories. Do we have time?
Do we have time? Of course we got loads of time.
One was on Disney. I was a focuser in the early
days. We had 1020 foot steel lighting
dresses that hung 4 on each sideand the two on the end with all

(01:05:22):
static lighting. So because nobody else climbed,
I would be the climber. I'd climb up 50 foot on the on
the cable ladder, which I'll go into that in a minute and then
go traverse out on the cable hodto get to the first Truss.
And then I would go cable hod, Truss, cable hod Truss till I

(01:05:43):
get to the furthest one in the line and then I would sit on it
till they stop swinging. Oh, I'm 150 feet away from where
I started. Picture the stage of like a
basketball floor. It was made to fit inside a
hockey ring. Anyway, so I'm way down stage

(01:06:04):
and I'm sitting on the Truss waiting for a stop spinning.
Coincidentally, the Sway Pole act, which was part of the show,
was rehearsing. There's four poles that are 5055
feet high and they're right. One of them's right next to me.
It was a lady. And she's on her post and she's

(01:06:28):
57 feet away from me. And she starts her routine.
So I don't start focusing. I'm going to, I wait because I,
I'm, I can almost kiss her. Yeah, but I just be, I'm still
on the trust. And she starts her routine and
the post swings away from me andis heading back to me and she's

(01:06:51):
going to slam her head on the seal lighting Truss.
So I put my hand out, catch her head and, you know, buff her
back and stop her from hitting alighting Truss.
And then we both stop swinging. She looks at me again and mouths
thank you and continues with rehearsal with one eye on me the

(01:07:13):
whole time. And then they they're done
rehearsing. So I focus that trust, you know,
go to the next one, same, reverse and repeat.
Wait for it to stop swinging because the cable swag brings
both the trusted together. Yeah, you know.
And then I go trust the trust. Now I'm back to the first trust.

(01:07:34):
They all stop swinging. I holler, you know, OK, I didn't
trust everything. Good.
They nod yes. So I have to traverse to the 2
cable picks which are block and fall cable picks and this is
like first show of the year. So I'm buffed but I'm not real
buff I'm a little weak. So I I get to the the hang point

(01:08:00):
which is 2 to 3 block and fall with the rope coming out of the
top block goes and tied to hockey rail or something.
I forgot what it was tied to andI grab hold of the rope to help
swing me around it because it's like a a peek like this and I
fall off 50 feet. What?

(01:08:22):
Hold on to the rope and I I lookup and I know eventually two
blocks are going to hit each other as I keep going down and I
know it's going to burn my handsbut I'm mentally ready.
I'm either going to hold on and burn the S out of my hands, or
I'm going to slide down to whatever is on the ground.

(01:08:45):
Yeah. OK, so I hold on.
My hands are hot as hot as hell.No gloves.
I I fuck I land with my feet in two different cable boxes and
they're almost crotch height butnot quite crotch height.
So I land Wow and I control let the rope go up and one of the

(01:09:08):
lighting guys is sitting there. Wow boy that was cool.
Can you show me how to do that? I said that later.
Yeah, yeah, maybe not. Wow.
A later on accident in the circus in the old days, you know
what a a cable ladder is. Yes, of course.
OK. They're usually 8th inch or

(01:09:29):
three sixteenths with aluminum rungs.
Holes are grilled in it. The rung is got a crep below it
and above it. It doesn't matter how you grab
it, that's how you climb. In the old days, like in the in
the circus, they were made out of three strand rope with a
wooden ring. The wooden rings were like

(01:09:50):
tapered and yet they stuck through.
OK, in the old days you just climb, grab the rung and climb.
I was climbing up to do something on a wire on a trapeze
act and I'm climbing up and the rung pops out and I fall off
backwards from about 25 feet. Oh no.

(01:10:12):
OK, luckily, knock on wood, luckily I I'm over a slack net
and the net is just above the ground and so I get a full body
muscle tense. I I have better words, but I
can't really use one neck. And I flatten out spread eagle

(01:10:35):
and I land in the net and I hit the ground and I don't hit the
ground hard enough to hurt me. Knocks the wind out of me, but
nothing broken. Wow.
And I just thank, thank God I'm alive.
Wow, you know 2. Main accidents.
It, it sounds like in that business, you're always so close

(01:10:58):
to death, like everyone, most people fortunately get lucky and
hit something on the way down orcatch something on the way down
or whatever. But you're, you're just like
that close, you know? On on Disney, we had games that
we played to make us strong. One game would be we had

(01:11:19):
scaffolding for Mary Poppins andthen later for Peter Pan.
We flew Kathy Rigley, but we would hang from it was like 3
sections, hang, swing back and drop to catch the next bar 8
feet down. That would be one way we'd keep
build straight. Another way would be to hold on

(01:11:42):
to this bar and swing to that bar.
We only did that on the low one where if you fell you only 8
feet above the ground, she'd be all right, right.
But we did that a lot. And then we do one where we
would have these trolleys that flew people.
They'd be, we'd have two of themfacing each other and two of
them would be hanging on. And the gang would be who can

(01:12:03):
hang on the longest while it's going up.
Eventually you're going to be too high to drop or too afraid
to drop. And that's what you're looking
for. You're looking for the other guy
to drop, and then you'd drop immediately.
But we never got hurt. But every once in a while, oh
shit, I'm too high to drop down.Yeah, or they're still hanging.

(01:12:29):
Oh, my goodness. You know, Roy, Roy, it's funny,
when, when I was a kid, I thought I was pretty tough, you
know, growing up in a small town.
And and to me, tough was, you know, I rode my banana bike
without a helmet. You know, the stuff that the
stuff that you're talking about is.
Unbelievable. No kidding.

(01:12:49):
Yeah, no kidding. And without.
Without. Things in in those days.
But without any education on it,without any knowledge, like you
were just, you were learning as you went, so you didn't know,
you didn't know the limits. We had our strength.
Yeah, so was your was your firstRock'n'roll tour, Joni Mitchell.

(01:13:10):
Was it? What now?
Your first rock'n'roll tour? Was it Joni Mitchell?
No Jethro Tull. Oh, right, yeah.
First tour with chain motors. Yeah, Joni was I, I think my
second one. OK, Joni, we didn't have chain
motors that I remember, but there must have been in the
early days. Most tours stack sound.
They didn't hang sound until theStones.

(01:13:33):
Actually, on Jethro Tull we had a basket and we stacked in the
basket and hung the basket untilthe hunters that couldn't afford
a rigor just just house like Elvis.
Yeah, yeah. Elvis, well, had me, but he
didn't turn with lights. Yeah.

(01:13:54):
Well, one second, one second, one second, because I want to
ask you a question about Joni Mitchell.
I read somewhere in your notes that there's actually a song
with your name in it. A Joni Mitchell song with your
name in it. Bickle the rigor.
I forgot the song, but she sang it and I I thought it was funny
and Madison WI that I would repel out of the ceiling the

(01:14:17):
time landing right next to the piano when she says bickle the
rigor. Wow.
So, and the song was actually a ballad, but anyway, I I climbed
up of course, and I'm already snake my rope down where it
wouldn't be, you know, an eyesore or she wouldn't see.
It Yeah. Which I did, and then I wrote

(01:14:40):
Pal down. I stopped right above her head
so she would see me and then went down where she'd say Bickle
the rigger. And so she says Bickle the
rigger. I said Bickle the rigger.
She says that Pickle the rigger again, Bickle the rigger and so
on. I wrote a song and sang it to
her in the band on the plane, which I don't have a copy of it

(01:15:02):
handy, but I was Robin Ford was a guitarist and he accompanied
me and it was to the the music was to Robin Hood, Robin Hood,
but it was Robin Ford was what Iwhat the first verse was that I
did a verse on the eighth of theband, including Joni Mitchell

(01:15:23):
that rhymes with Bickel. That was the last one.
And I don't know how I had the fortitude to do that.
I'm trying to watch my language.You don't.
You don't have to for me, don't worry about it.
That that's wild though. Do it in front of her in the
band. Yeah, that is wild.
Like where where did you come upwith the idea that I should go
and share this song with them and maybe they'll record?

(01:15:45):
It well, she and I hit it off well, Didn't have no romance,
but she spent a lot of show a lot of time with me between
shows. Her boyfriend didn't like it.
Are you? Are you sure?
Are you sure you are? Are you sure you weren't the guy
that you're so Vain was about? Well, could have been.

(01:16:08):
Did she write that? I don't think so.
Yeah. Oh, that Wasn't that her?
No, that's Carly Simon. Carly Simon.
My bad. I always get them.
Confused. One of The Pioneers as well.
Of course, yeah. Yeah, and it was her plane we
flew on that was on 2 tours. I've only flown hers and Elvis.

(01:16:29):
Wow. Elvis had five planes or five
planes on the tour we had. We had a hotel.
Every night we made last call because the only thing that hung
were audio points. Claire Brothers, Bruce Jackson
was the audio guy. He would tell me where he wanted
them to hang. We had sometimes one, which

(01:16:50):
would be two points, sometimes 2, which would be 4 points,
sometimes 4, which would be 8 points.
And but he was always the audio guy.
I spent the show on the stage right wing, which was his
monitor wing. Usually they're on stage left on
Elvis. Elvis wanted it on stage right

(01:17:12):
And then I was standing there with him and then if there was
some barricade issue, Elvis would give me the nod and then I
would go. It could be two ladies fighting.
It could be too many security guys there because he didn't
want any guys there. He wanted all the attention on
him. But usually it was a couple
ladies in the audience got a couple of Elvis stories.

(01:17:36):
Yeah, please. One I I did not tell yet I'm I'm
on my wing and he's I don't knowwhether it was AI think it was a
ring or watch he had and he was slapping hands the ladies in the
audience and one of the ladies ripped off the ring.

(01:18:01):
I think it was a ring and he only three of us knew it.
The lady and Elvis and me because I'm watching all the
hand slapping because I figured somebody would grab him and pull
him into the audience. That never happened.
So fortunately but anyway I see the lady who grabbed the ring
and so I jump off the sound riser and whole ass between the

(01:18:27):
barricade and the sage. You know keep an eye on the lady
and I happen the corner of my eye.
See Elvis? He shakes his head and mouths
the word no. Wow.
His head again and continue singing and I go back to the
wing and to my knowledge the ring could be worth a million

(01:18:50):
million now. Because he didn't get.
It I didn't see security head out there.
So he wouldn't, he wouldn't let you get go get it back.
He didn't want the disturbance. Wow, so were you like his sort
of makeshift security guy? Or makeshift security, his
family and Linda. What Every once in a while there

(01:19:11):
would be a a Bleacher set up backstage for guests and I would
walk them to the to the the riser, not barricade to the
little riser. And it was unofficial.
No money for it with Colonel Parker, who he knew me.

(01:19:32):
Sometimes he would do it. Sometimes he would be busy and
he would tell me to do it and I'd walk him over.
He he also would Zing out cars stars.
You've probably seen that on video.
Chicks in the audience. The other the other show.
This happens. He zinged one out.

(01:19:53):
Two ladies get it and it's a bigscarf and their tug of war on
it. Neither one given up.
Nice catching, you know. Gives me the look again.
So I go out there and I see the 2 ladies.
I wiggle my hands in there and calm them down.
And a pocket knife. I get the knife out.
I cut the scarf in half. You screen their hands, they

(01:20:16):
have 1/2 and they're happy. He gives me a little subtle nod.
Because that could have been a bad one.
What a what a great diplomatic idea you had.
You know, a nice way to solve it.
You have part and you have part.Here you go.
Yeah. Yeah.
I did. I did another Colonel, Colonel
Parker story. I think we were in Charlotte and

(01:20:38):
Elvis had two shows and when I booked my schedule in 77 or
could have been 76, I didn't realize he had two shows.
So I booked Queen in Atlanta thenext day.
So because the Queen didn't havea tour worker, so it's like 5 in
the morning. I already had it covered with

(01:20:59):
Bruce Jackson and with the houseguy.
It was all catwalk rigging, fortunately.
And so I get on the elevator at 5:00 in the morning and Colonel
Parker's on there on the on the elevator.
He says, what do you, what are you doing here at 5:00 in the
morning? I said, Oh, well, I've I've,
I've got, I'm doing Queen in Atlanta and I got to be there by

(01:21:19):
8:00, he says. Don't you charge Elvis for
today. Oh my goodness.
Wow. But I'm glad he didn't really
ream me out. Wow.
Get to the lobby and I get on a taxi and I don't know what he
did. Fortunately the out went good.
I went and did. Queen and I hung at the
barricade off all show and it was still the days where there

(01:21:43):
weren't climbing rigorous. Was being out.
Do all the points. Was being out with Elvis as cool
as one might think it would be? Oh.
It was great. I mean, because he wasn't as the
King. Yeah.
And I was that coincidentally I was in Vegas with Bruce Jackson
because Elvis was slated to openthe Hilton Conrad room.

(01:22:09):
He was doing the theater and he wanted to do an arena type room.
So the day before we have the show in Portland, ME, Bruce and
I are doing a side survey. He's giving me A&B.
This is where I really want sound, but if I can't get it
here, you tell me where the closest spot is.

(01:22:29):
That kind of thing. So I went up and I don't
remember detail of where the location was, but finally Elvis
nods and I nods. I come down, we go to our rooms,
have a early, early, early flight, and I'm meeting at him

(01:22:50):
in his room. I didn't know if my phone was
ringing already, but I wasn't there to answer it.
Then in his room, phone ring. Booth picks it up.
Yeah, Roy's here. What do you mean?
Don't text the flight? But the king is dead.
Oh no. And so right away, we turn the
TV on, you know, and it's in thenews, but it's not confirmed.

(01:23:13):
Wow. Reportedly, something has
happened with Elvis and at Graceland.
More details to follow. So we stayed there and then they
were goes that he's dead. Wow.
Or missing, as the story goes. Yeah, Yeah.
Is he still alive? I think I saw him when I was

(01:23:34):
getting ice cream in Nashville one day.
Yeah, no, that's a that's a wildstory. 10,000 Maniacs Natalie
Merchant did an Elvis song and she knew that we had talked a
lot that that I had done Elvis. She said why don't you, while
I'm singing the Elvis song, comeout here on stage and do an

(01:23:56):
Elvis dance. So I said OK, which I did.
An Elvis dance. And Elvis dance.
I don't remember what it was. Just weird.
Yeah. And then trying to look cool.
And we did that a few shows. That's funny.
That's funny. Wow.

(01:24:17):
And you, you did Sinatra too, right?
I did. Yeah, I did.
Frank and his Turing gaze, late 70s, middle 70s and his security
guy said you, you on the tour? I said yes, I see you always
hanging by the stage. I said yeah, I'm always checking

(01:24:38):
everything to make sure it's safe.
And he says don't touch his hair.
What? He said you're OK around the
stage, but don't touch his hair.So I don't know whether it was a
toupee or what, but. I I would, I would guess that's
got to have something to do withit, but. 82 I think it was.

(01:25:03):
I opened exchange manager for Thomas and Mack here in Vegas.
Yeah. That's a UNLV yeah Arena, and I
wish I did autographs in those days.
It was Frank and Dean and Sammy and what's the fourth guy that
was in the? The Rat Pack.
The Rat Pack. Yeah.

(01:25:24):
Joey Bishop. Yeah.
And they were the. One that nobody ever remembers.
They were the name then in Vegas, yeah, I think I did all
the climbing because there therewere still no house guys and not
many house guys in those days. Wow, that's incredible.
What a what a friggin life you've lived.
That's unbelievable. Yeah.
And then came here to do a show for PRG.

(01:25:50):
Jerry Harris was the the CEO. He was I think the first CEO
after Pete Feller. Oh, Jerry Harris was my
automation guy when I did Chicago in the Wiz.
Anyway, so he was the head of PRGI, came here to do a show and
then the the local guys said, boy, move here and you'll,

(01:26:13):
you'll make plenty of money. So I did and then then I was at
the Convention Center for 18 years and doing one off, you
know, doing corporate 1 offs doing award shows like with with
Michael Jackson and New Kids on the Block and Beyoncé flew

(01:26:36):
around the world, you know, doing award shows.
Actually Cancun, Hong Kong, but moving here and as soon as I
moved here, cinema services wanted me to head up the crew
with the Sands and I was still in Turing mode so I didn't.

(01:26:58):
But then I got asked to do GES at the Convention Center.
GES still does LDI. Budget LDI for 20 years.
Wow. So I know most of the people and
then even as a local guy, I would head up the ETCP guy on on

(01:27:18):
the LDI show because they they wanted an ETCP guy, which was
me. That's wild.
So, you know, crazy question. Like aside from safety, how has
rigging evolved since the beginning of time?

(01:27:38):
You don't need to go do a site survey too often anymore, you
just get an AutoCAD. AutoCAD and Vectorworks have
really changed rigging. In the old days, like on on
Disney, I had to do a site survey because there was nothing
on paper to look at and I would tell them what and where I was

(01:28:02):
going to hang shit and it was almost always OK.
But with AutoCAD, you know, I, Ilearned the vector works, but
was never really very good at it.
So I had a girl and then I wouldput in where we were going to
hang trusted, you know, we'd figure out where the state was

(01:28:23):
going to go because front of stage would determine where all
your points go and rock'n'roll. And then I would mark stuff,
mark riddles, pencil pad, I would call it.
And then I'd hand it to the girl.
She would convert. It would be APDF, which is also
would read, read and AutoCAD a vector work.

(01:28:45):
I'd look at it and say Yep, that's good or that's not good.
Yeah. And never had to do vertical
components that too much would do horizontal components for
cable waste because that's really most mostly what houses
cared about. Yeah, that's what really changed
it. My son Ben is head rigger.

(01:29:07):
In fact, he left today from Miami on Morgan Wallin.
Oh wow, and. He he's got it down.
I mean he does AutoCAD. All the riggers today do it.
I used to say that I did it, butnow I've forgotten so much I
don't see I do it anymore. Yeah, yeah.
But that's been the main change,along with safety rules and more

(01:29:30):
rigid weight requirements. You know, I guess there's the
local rigor that looks at the AutoCAD and each of the venues.
The last tour I did was Duran Duran couple years ago.
Lighting. I did it and I put rigging in it
and then they said they sent it to all the buildings.

(01:29:51):
When we play at the gardens, they said you're less than 100
grand. It doesn't matter where you
hang. So it became easier because
house guys, houses are built better now.
In the old days we had to do quadruple bridles and that was
no ratings at all. Just because you can look at it,

(01:30:12):
say boy, that's not going to hold.
This will hold and do all kinds of bridling, sometimes for
location, sometimes for weight ratings.
Yeah. But now it's a a science, it's a
there's a house guy that knows it all, knows his venue and a

(01:30:32):
road guy that knows his show. Yeah, I, I would assume that the
gear has obviously changed an immense amount as well as far
as, you know, motors, motor control systems, including the
safety that's built into those, you know?
But motors, there's really not much has changed other than

(01:30:55):
there's many motors and many different brands of motors.
There's still basically a quarter ton you hardly ever use.
There's half tons, 1 tons, and two tons and every tier uses
them. Quarter tons are just like
you're carrying it for somethingthat maybe could only be used
once in a while. Yeah, yeah.

(01:31:15):
So it's like using a bunch of half inch shackles.
Strength wise they're fine, but why carry them when they don't
fit anything? Yeah.
So now 5/8 and 3/4 is mostly theonly shackles you carry and you
can use a double 5/8 for 3/8 steel.

(01:31:40):
So 33 strengths of motors, 2 sizes of cable and 2 sizes of
shackles is all you don't reallycare.
Yeah, in fact, on my on my DuranDuran, I still in my mind have
yellow 50 foot steals that I'm going to order.

(01:32:02):
And I call call Bill Renssel, who is a good friend of mine.
I said, hey, here's our schedule.
Is there any building that I need 50 foot steel?
He says no. He says shows are hanging higher
and buildings are higher, but you don't need 50s anymore.

(01:32:23):
A 30 and a 20 for the few 50s you would need works, so I
didn't order any. 50s and 50s have kind of gone by the
wayside. In the old days we even had 100
footers, which you need black, which you don't.
Nobody needs those nowadays and 50s now if you don't need that
often. So 510 twenties, 30s and dog

(01:32:46):
bones. Well, what about what about the
size of shows nowadays though? Like, you know, especially
stadium shows, obviously. Yeah, on Disney, I had a bunch
of riggers, but that was training camp on Disney was flat
from like 80 to 85 for me. And that was training camp.

(01:33:08):
Everybody, almost everybody was a rigor.
For instance, landing Lander, I think he's on Garth Brooks now.
He was one of my trainees on on Disney and Kish.
I had on Disney Bill Renssel fora few shows on Disney and
they're all head riggers in their own right now.

(01:33:30):
Totally qualified and with Kish rigging, Joe Brannon with
Brannon rigging, Rocky Paulson with Sage rigging.
Yeah. Yeah, those are the game
rigging. That's wild.
That's wild. But what I was asking you
though, Roy, what about, what about the size of shows now?
Does that create additional complications cause some of

(01:33:50):
these rigs obviously, like if I think back to the 80s and 90s,
you might have had 20 moving lights when moving lights came
out. Now every show has 1000 moving
lights, things like that and theLED screens and and the rigs are
much heavier the speaker systems.
I did with two of us 2 riggers, but now the riggers, Rd. riggers

(01:34:14):
don't have to climb. You don't need as many Rd.
riggers. My son on Durant, on Morgan
Wallen has four riggers, 4 Turing riggers.
I I was one of them when they played the Legion because one of
the guys couldn't make it. And there's just so many points

(01:34:34):
and so many things to watch and load sells, you know, for
hanging video and some audio useload cells, which shows point
weight because now we're really forced to to watch loads on
things that are that change every day, right?

(01:34:56):
So video of something you're depending upon all the guys that
hang it. And so I spent the day on the on
the load cell, like I'm looking at the monitor my computer.
Now you you watch that all day till videos that trim so you
don't overload any point becauseyou if you don't load it evenly

(01:35:19):
you could end up having a point overloaded.
Right. Yeah, we.
Want to make sure we're not worried about overloading the
house deal, We're worried about overloading a motor and have
something fail within your own rig.
It can. Fail below the ceiling or below
the ground support. I, I see some of these outdoor
shows, these stadium shows and they scare the hell out of me.

(01:35:41):
Like, you know, the size of these shows and the amount of
gear that are on these rigs and stuff it, it just scares the
hell out of me. Like I'm like.
Ground supports are getting bigger and stronger.
Yeah, I was the rigger for Rock and Rio here in town in in 2015
and the you know, John got down my my mind, my mind went blank.

(01:36:08):
The the roof company said no, don't have to worry about
overloading anything. You know, we have an engineer on
fall. Yeah.
So I did end up calling the engineer for a dying out, you
know, the the rig once we were some things you have to guy out
even even an outdoor ground support.

(01:36:30):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
But let let me get this straight.
You're still working. Mostly retired.
But but you're in your mid 80s, you said you just did a show
like couple years ago or something where you were the
rigor. I yeah, and I did convention
work last year. That is incredible.

(01:36:52):
I don't know was Mark and Weiland this year.
I'm I'm mostly retired by familymy my wife and son.
Wow. Both the mentally I think I'm
ready. I mean, I do get tired quicker.
Yeah. I mean, I feel good.
I sound. I think I sound.
Good. You sound great and you look

(01:37:13):
great. And I mean.
For an old guy. But you're in your mid 80s and
you're still doing rigging. That to me, blows my mind.
I mean, it feels to me like it'sa young person's sport these
days, you know? I haven't had to climb probably
for 20 years. I, I actually, I did on Creed on

(01:37:34):
New Kids on the Block. I think it was a nine.
My son was one of the riggers and had to climb a ladder to do
something on there. Austrian.
Austrian rape or something? Yeah.
And my son said you're too old to climb.
That was 10 years ago. He wasn't wrong, Roy, he wasn't
wrong. I will tell you I'm I'm a bit

(01:37:55):
younger than you and I'm too oldto climb, that's for sure.
Don't you also have a granddaughter in the business as
well? My grand Yeah, Valeria, she's a
a local rigger and she rigged with my son every once in a
while. That is awesome.
She's a good, she's a good climber.
I'm not a good climber anymore, yeah, but she knows how to hang
points. She can pull 1/2 ton by herself.

(01:38:17):
I don't know if she's got a one ton yet, but she's got a half
ton motor up by herself. That is impressive.
That's impressive. That's good.
Yeah, that is impressive. So you've got 3 generations, 3
generations of Bickles. Yeah.
Yeah, well, and that's a lot of stories.
I mean, when you guys sit arounda dinner table or something, the

(01:38:38):
stories that are being told are unbelievable.
Yeah. Yeah, I.
Did a keynote in 2012 in London.I forget who that was for.
Plaza. I think Plaza.
Plaza. Yeah, you got it better than me.
Yeah, well, I read your notes. Good.
Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, your story's

(01:38:59):
incredible. I appreciate so much.
You've taken some time today to to talk with me.
About going into the couple of movies I've done.
Oh well, let's do that quickly, OK?
I did AGI Jane and and Orlando and they needed somebody to hang
out a ground support that would hold all of their monitors for

(01:39:24):
the control room for GI Jane. That was all sending and they
wanted, they didn't want monitors on the table.
They wanted them all hung. So that that was kind of
uneventful. It was just a good experience.
And then I did Oh heavenly dog with Chevy Chase that did that
Montreal and I, I learned something there.

(01:39:45):
They they hired me to do Heaven's gate.
They have a gate that would openand close remotely, which was no
problem, but they also had a tube like banks have them now
where you put a cylinder in it and then compress air shoots it.
And that was a message from the pearly gates, I think, to the

(01:40:06):
throne. And I looked at the tube and it
was on a slight angle. I said that looks ugly.
So I moved it. I made it level.
It really wasn't my domain. You know, I just did it to make
it look good. Yeah.
And the gaffer said, hey, who moved that?

(01:40:26):
I said I did it. I said it wasn't level.
And he says here's why it wasn'tlevel.
He said watch the little cylinder.
He went to shoot the cylinder. He said, see how it stopped?
I said yes. He said that's because there's
not a compressed air he built when it's level.
We had to make it downhill. Oh no God, I'm sorry if I went

(01:40:50):
there. Don't mess with somebody else
stuff without talking. To him, yeah, that's a good
point. Then then I did Star Trek
Generations. My job on that was to belay,
which is safety off William Shatner.
OK. OK, so we're a valley of fire
outdoors with cliffs and everything.

(01:41:12):
So we're shooting a scene live where I'm holding his rope
because he's like up next to a drop off where without safety be
fell or die or or be severely injured.
And they're shooting off blowingup stuff.
And I, I'm on this ballet line and I, I'm see in the corner of

(01:41:33):
my eye. They hadn't done it live before.
And I see all the stuff blowing up and I hear Roy and I turn
around and look, it's William Shatner.
He goes focus because he he caught me with my eyes off of
him only for a few seconds. Wow.
So he was very alert. Hats off to him.

(01:41:56):
So I didn't watch any of the stuff, I only watched him.
Yeah, wow, that was a. Learning lesson too.
Pay attention to your job. That is so cool.
That is so cool. No repercussions on it, nobody
got hurt, but it was learning because I did all the lines up
and down the mountainside for everybody.
They could use ropes to pull themselves up.

(01:42:18):
They wouldn't get killed if theyfell, they would just slide in
the dirt. Yeah.
Anyway, sorry. What an experience.
I mean what, what a life. Again, I, I appreciate you
sharing all of this with us, Royand I, I actually one last thing
I want to mention, I mentioned it at the beginning, but you're
going to be at LDI in a few different events this year.
And, and again, I'm appreciativeand I'm sure the entire industry

(01:42:40):
is going to be appreciative, butyou're going to be part of the
rigs sessions. I guess I'm doing something
where I'm one of the organizers with Jake Berry called X Live
and you're going to be a part ofthat.
And you're also a part of Diningwith Dinosaurs, which is when

(01:43:01):
sort of the whole industry gets to rub shoulders with legends
like yourself and have a couple of drinks and some food.
In the 70s when I did, yes, JakeBerry was a keyboard.
Oh really? And I, even today, are still
friends. That was his first gig, as I
recall. He talked about it on my podcast

(01:43:22):
and then he. Brats out and is a renowned
production manager now. Yeah, we do rock Linux.
He was, he was one of the speaker guys.
Yeah. And I come into a room and he
would say, hey, everybody, there's Roy Bickel, the oldest
rigger in the world. That was how he would introduce

(01:43:43):
him. Well, he wasn't wrong, he wasn't
wrong, he wasn't wrong. You know, I mean, when you, when
you created it, you know, there was no riggers before you.
So that's, that's pretty awesome.
It's an amazing story and I appreciate you sharing it and
and I look forward to seeing youlater this year at the LDI show.

(01:44:05):
Thank you very much. And thank you, Roy, and you have
an incredible day and week and summer and I'll see you let.
Me know when this is going to bebroadcast so I can watch.
It yeah Sarah will get that to you in the next week and and
just I'll. Hang on for Sarah.
Yeah, one second. Thanks.
All right, Roy. Bye.
Bye. Music.

(01:45:33):
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#317 - Roy Bickel - Legendary Rigger, Performer, and Industry Pioneer

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#317 - Roy Bickel - Legendary Rigger, Performer, and Industry Pioneer