Show dictionary · Rigging & Staging
Dead Hang
A dead hang is a static suspension: the load hangs directly from a point on fixed-length rigging (steel, spansets, shackles) with no hoist in the path, set to its trim and left there. "Dead hung" scenery or cable picks do not move during the show.
In practice
Dead hangs trade adjustability for simplicity and cost: no motor to fail, power, or control, which suits speaker clusters in installs, cable picks, and anything whose trim is known and final. Adjusting one later means going back up, which is the entire trade-off in one sentence.
The term also appears as a verb and a spec: a venue might dead-hang house drape year-round, and a plot marks which points are motors versus dead hangs. Load math is identical either way; gravity does not check for a hoist.
How you’ll hear it
"The cable pick is a dead hang off beam six; trim it before the truss goes up around it."
Related resources
Part of the eventools.io Show Dictionary, a free glossary of live event production terminology.