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One promoter we work with has it as a contract clause. As well.
As an aside it does make you wonder when asked to do something for your own and others safety people complain.
Band: No problem, whilst we're on the subject our insurance company requires a list of all of your PAT tested items too because it doesn't matter if our gear is tested and yours isn't.
Venue: Ah....we've just checked and we don't need your certificates after all
RINSE AND REPEAT
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
We offered to do a charity gig for nowt but we couldn't play because we couldn't evidence PAT but this was in a council building where they were a bit stricter.
I've never had to produce individual certificates for items, and 90% of my work is for councils and schools.
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youAt the other end of the scale, I have known people to just buy a roll of PAT stickers off eBay and stick them on all their (untested) kit. If they are using that to get gigs, it is fraud, and they would be hung out to dry if any of that kit caused an electric shock or a fire.
Doing it isn't hard. Visually inspect the item and cable, plug it into the (usually automated) tester, and it either passes or fails.
We've got all the testers at work for testing 240V wiring built in to various vans, but I made a point of avoiding the training as the last thing I want to do is spend my days crawling around in vans removing panels, to do something a trained monkey could manage.
My Trading Feedback | You Bring The Band
Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after youFeedback
A quick "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" conversation and all of a sudden the gig was back on.
I can honestly say that I maintain all our gear properly and we have good PLI though.
Most of the time it’s irrelevant and the person asking for it doesn’t even know what it means, he or she is just asking for it because somebody a few rungs up the chain or at a remove (e.g. insurance company, facilities management company, or whatever) who also doesn’t know what it is or what it means thought it looked like a good idea and stuck it in a procedures manual, policy document, or whatever.
Almost never an issue with pubs and clubs (and if it is there are plenty of pubs where it isn’t), very often an issue at conference centres, wedding venues, etc and occasionally at festivals which are big enough to require multiple contractors working together to provide services to the organiser.
If there are specific events/venues/whatever you’d like to play and where it’s a requirement then getting a local specialist in to do all the band’s kit as a job lot isn’t very expensive at all and doesn’t cost a fortune so it’s not worth the time and effort to try to work around it - in our case it also brought a few minor issues (generally with spare mains leads, mains extensions and the like which had been lurking at the bottom of a bag or case unused and unloved for years) to light.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
Basically if your capable of visually inspecting a mains cable for damage and can test earth continuity and insulation resistance then you can PAT test your own gear and make your own spreadsheet listing your gear, the date it was tested and wether it passed. I also list the earth impedance and the insulation strength. I don't agree with flash testing ... it can damage equipment.
PAT testing is no indication of a piece of equipments safety internally .... a Live wire loose inside an amp and about to fall onto the chassis will pass a PAT test. However because the earth was PAT tested this will result in a blown fuse rather than a shock when it hapens (if fused correctly ) I've also repaired a Behringer SMPS unit which caught fire in a powered mixing desk 4 days after a PAT test as the PAT test can't anticipate the bridge rectifier is going to go short circuit or any other internal malfunction ... only the basic mains in connections and chassis earth.
Hotels and such generally are hapy to have a PAT spread sheet emailed over along with you PI proof. It covers them and once your done it once you only need to update it
Getting four people from that distance away co-ordinated at the premises of someone qualified to do it, unloading four cars of gear, hanging around miles from home while it's being done then reloading the cars all during office hours is not just difficult, it just isn't going to happen.