Technical Manager for Lyric Theatre, Belfast

Purpose of the Post

The Technical Manager is a key member of the production and technical team. They will work alongside the Head of Production on the planning of both the in-house programme and visiting programme in both auditoria of the Lyric. They will lead on all aspects of health and safety and statutory compliance with respect to the technical operations of the theatre.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

Productions

To ensure that all Lyric Production’s production teams, and all visiting companies production teams feel welcome, engaged, and received the highest level of technical support available;
To ensure that all productions which take place in either of the Lyric’s auditoria achieve the highest possible standard within the available resources of the organisation;
To attend and contribute to production meetings as required;
To attend and support rehearsals as required, including room set up, temporary staging, PA, and sound playback.

Operational and Financial

In conjunction with the Head of Production, to prepare staff schedules and rotas to meet the needs of the theatre;
To ensure that all production and technical work taking place is appropriately planned and staffed;
To liaise with visiting companies to determine their technical needs and staffing requirements;
To ensure that all performance spaces, rehearsal spaces, workshops, gantries, and other working spaces are well maintained;
To manage the inventory of technical equipment across all spaces and to ensure that repairs and maintenance of equipment is carried out in a timely manner;
To ensure that all technical specifications are kept up to date and correctly distributed to creative team members and visiting companies;
To manage the planned preventative maintenance of all theatre plant and equipment and to oversee and record all periodic thorough examinations and inspections of equipment as required by regulation;
To maintain a register of all technical equipment and to ensure that any asset disposals are correctly recorded;
To work closely with the finance team and the building and facilities team to develop and maintain a register of all fixed assets across the organisation;
To plan for the upgrading of technical equipment, and to maintain a register of potential capital projects which can be acted upon when funding opportunities present themselves;
To contribute to the development of a capital budget;
To ensure that correct procurement procedures are always followed;
To ensure that all out-of-hours working sessions are appropriately staffed to ensure fire compliance;
To ensure that all production companies, in-house and visiting, are appropriately briefed with respect to health and safety, first-aid, and fire responsibilities;
To ensure that all performance spaces and working spaces are maintained at a comfortable level of temperature and ventilation and to act, when necessary, on the theatres’ Building Management System;
To manage the theatre’s Building Management System to achieve energy efficiency and savings in so far as is reasonably practicable;
To manage the technical departments consumables budget;
To maintain and develop good relationships with local and national suppliers to procure sales and hire deals on the best terms economically and with consideration of environmental sustainability.

Health & Safety

To support the Head of Production to ensure health and safety compliance across the organisation and to champion good health and safety practices;
To lead on Health and Safety within the theatre and to ensure adherence to health and safety compliance in all performance spaces;
To ensure that all technical and performance operations are carried out in compliance with relevant health and safety legislation and within the parameters of the organisations health and safety policy;
To ensure that technical department and technical area risk assessments are carried out and distributed to all production teams and visiting companies;
To undertake assigned training within the organisations Health and Safety training portal;
To develop and plan training programmes for members of the technical team;
To comply with all relevant legislation including the promotion of a health and safety culture within the production team;
To be active in the continued development and delivery of a safe and healthy workplace including the development of safe and efficient systems of working;
To keep abreast of current developments in health and safety;
To remain current with industry best practices.

Other

To always observe the strictest confidentiality;
To comply with the theatre’s policies and practices on health and safety, and equal opportunities;
To attend staff meetings and department meetings as required;
To work for the benefit of the whole organisation;
Any other duties that may reasonably be required.

This list is for guidance only and is not exhaustive. The post holder will also be required to carry out other reasonable duties as required by the line manager.