Rigging is the part of an LED wall where a planning mistake stops being expensive and starts being dangerous. The arithmetic below is how crews plan a hang — but every number it produces is a plan, not a permission. Point counts, point loads and hardware all get verified by a competent rigger before anything leaves the ground.
A flown wall hangs from bumper bars (hanging bars) along its top edge, and bumpers come in one-, two- and three-panel widths that combine to span the wall: a twelve-column wall might fly on four three-wide bars, or three three-wides plus a two-wide and a one-wide, depending on what the shop owns. The plan has to come from real stock, not from a formula that assumes infinite three-wides.
Bumpers are also specific to their panel system. A bar made for one manufacturer’s cabinet — often for one series — does not fit another, so a shop running three systems owns three separate bumper pools, and a shortage in one cannot be covered from another. This is why a proper plan tracks bars per system, and why "we have plenty of bumpers" is not an answer until you know which system they fit.
The common planning convention is one rigging point per three metres of wall width, minimum two points. A six-metre wall plans on two points; a ten-metre wall on four. Wider spacing concentrates load and increases bumper deflection; tighter spacing costs hoists and truss capacity. Venue steel, truss layout and hoist availability all move the real answer.
Each point then needs its hardware. A workable planning ratio is two steels, two spansets and four shackles per point — the exact house standard varies by shop, but deriving hardware from the point count is what keeps a truck from arriving four shackles short.
The static number is simple: wall weight including bumpers, divided by the number of points. A 1,200 kg wall on two points is 600 kg per point. But loads are not static — hoists start and stop, and the moment a wall begins to move, the load on each point briefly exceeds its static share. Planning multiplies by a dynamic factor, commonly 1.2, so that 600 kg static plans as 720 kg.
Compare that figure against the hoist rating and the venue’s per-point limit, and flag anything close. Then have the whole picture — points, loads, steel, spreader arrangement — verified by a competent rigger. That sentence appears on every RigPlan printout because it is the actual rule.
How many panels can hang below one bumper is a property of the cabinet’s frame, and manufacturers that build for rental publish it: ROE’s Black Pearl BP2 V2 is rated to hang 20 high, the Carbon series 12, the outdoor Vanish V8T 22, and Absen’s touring flagships publish 20-metre maximum hang heights. Exceeding a published limit puts cabinet frames — not just rigging — outside their rating.
Many install-oriented panels publish no hang limit at all, because they were never meant to fly. When the datasheet is silent, treat any assumed limit as conservative, and ask the manufacturer before planning a tall hang. RigPlan warns differently in the two cases — "exceeds the published limit" versus "over the assumed maximum" — because they are different kinds of problem.
Ground-stacked walls trade rigging points for floor structure: base frames or stacking feet, ballast or tie-back above a few metres of height, and wind loading as the dominant constraint outdoors. The pack list changes shape — no steels and spansets, but the stacking hardware and ballast that never appear on a flown job.
The decision is usually made by the venue: no suitable steel overhead means stacking, no floor space or sightline budget means flying. Plan both variants of a recurring wall and the pack lists differ enough to justify saving each as its own template.
RigPlan does this arithmetic for you. Enter the wall once and it derives panels and spares, rigging from your own stock, circuits, the data wiring plan and the full pack list — free, no sign-up.
Open the calculatorWhatever the manufacturer publishes for that system — rental panels commonly rate 12 to 22 high (ROE Carbon 12, Black Pearl BP2 V2 20, Vanish V8T 22). If the datasheet is silent, the panel probably was not designed to fly high; ask the manufacturer rather than assume.
Wall weight including bumpers, divided by the number of points, multiplied by a dynamic factor (commonly 1.2) to cover hoist starts and stops. The result is compared against hoist rating and venue limits, and verified by a competent rigger before the wall goes up.
No. Hanging bars are built for a specific cabinet and usually a specific series. Shops running several systems keep a separate bumper stock per system, and a shortfall in one system means sub-hiring bars for that system, not borrowing from another.