Q&A with Celeste Brown, Part I

Rhino Staging’s Operations Manager in Tennessee Celeste Brown recently sat down to answer questions about Rhino’s new office space in Nashville, synergies with clients and venues, stagehand field days, and more. Read Part I of her interview below.

The New Office

Q: How is the new office treating you and your team? What is the new space allowing you to do better or for the first time and are there any future plans or hopes that you already have for it.

A: We love it! It’s been a long work in progress getting this space, so it’s very exciting to have it finally become a reality! It feels like we have our own identity within the Nashville market. The day they put up the Rhino sign on the building…. *chef’s kiss*

We are extremely excited for what the future holds for us. We have been putting a strong focus toward training and safety and with this new space we are finally able to really put that in motion! Before, in our old space, we would have to coordinate trainings with the building. Now, we can hold any type of training we want, whenever we want!

Proximity to Clients

Q: In the new office, you and your team are located close to several of your top client venues. Does this proximity offer particular advantages to Rhino in servicing those clients? 

A: It really does! It’s so much easier for us to go and do check-ins with clients and our venues. It means a lot to our clients to do actual physical check in instead of emails or phone calls. We are also in the same complex as Go West Creative and Worley Sound. We work with them a lot, so it’s cool to see their operations more up close and personal.

Likewise, being closer to downtown gives our stagehands more opportunities to pop in and say hello. We’re always busy and don’t always get a lot of face-to-face time with our stagehands, so the distance helps bridge that gap a little bit.

Training Space

Q: With respect to the warehouse space that you will be converting, at least in part, into a training space for your climbers, riggers and rope access technicians, has your team that’s heading that up had much input from the other Rhino training centers that have made similar conversions and how helpful has that been to them?

A: Our Rigging Manager Joey Shirk and Assistant Director of Training & Safety Mike Harbin have been working hand in hand with Johnny Stebbing (National Director of Rigging) and Steve Davis (Asst. National Director of Rigging) on building the ideal rigging training center for us. It’s been a fun process watching it go from a “wish list” to reality. 

Q: Speaking of those other Rhino training centers, will yours operate as those do, hosting Rhino training events not only for your team members but for Rhinos from around the region and country?

A: We would love for that to be the ultimate goal one day! We have a lot of ideas for our space and hope to share them with the surrounding Rhino markets one day.

We did have a training opportunity recently with Marathon Music Works, where they hosted an Active Shooter training and invited us to participate. They were gracious enough to let us invite some of the Rhino Georgia Supervisors for the training as well.

Venue Partnerships for Training

Q: No doubt, having your own training spaces is going to be great boon to you and your team, but you haven’t been waiting on that, you have developed off-site training place options and have two clients, Marathon Music Works and The Pinnacle, that have allowed you access to their spaces in order to conduct training events. How did you develop those relationships so that this possibility became a reality and how helpful has it been to both your team and the venues when it comes to developing skilled crews to staff their events?

A: Marathon Music Works is a client we have had for many years and love working with them. We started conversations with them about trainings a long time ago and have slowly started putting the bricks in place piece by piece until it finally happened! It’s a newer relationship with The Pinnacle, but a similar situation. Plus, having our stagehands train in venues that they work in helps them become more familiar and more comfortable within that space.

We’ve also been able to invite them to participate in some of our trainings as well (OSHA 10, Scissor Lift Certification, etc.). We just recently just held a Master Electrician training class at The Pinnacle and a few of their people got to join. It’s a great tradeoff and it helps strengthen our relationships. We look at it as a perk of partnering with Rhino Tennessee!

Stagehand Field Days

Q: At both of the above mentioned venues, you have conducted what you call “stagehand field days.” For these you set up several training stations where small groups of Rhinos simultaneously train before moving onto the next station. This is a fascinating and somewhat novel format. How did this develop and what do your trainers and trainees think of it?

A: Do you remember in elementary and/or middle school when you would have a day of play of all different types of outdoor activities? We basically used that model, but with stagehand knowledge! We worked with some of our more experienced stagehands to see what they wished they were taught at the beginning of their stagehand journey and it grew from there! We also do feedback cards at the end of every Field Day, and we really take that into consideration so that every Field Day gets better.

Overall, I would say we get a lot of really good feedback. Sometimes with this job you’re just thrown into it and the chaos of a load in or load out can be overwhelming. The Field Day is a fun and laid-back type of class for people to slow down and ask questions they may not get a chance to on site. 

It also gives an opportunity for some of our part time stagehands/supervisors a chance to shine. For example, we do a “Carpentry 101” class that is taught by stagehands Brandon LaDuc and Jay Ripka alongside our Safety Manager Matt Stokes. At The Pinnacle, we have access to stage decks, pipe and drape, and barricade. They do a really good, in-depth job at breaking everything down and letting stagehands get their hands on everything.

Part II of our interview with Celeste coming soon.

Read more interviews with Rhino Staging team members at the links below.