Mark Gibson - Circus Rigging & Safety

Sign in Subscribe

Mark Gibson

Mark is the Managing Director of Aerial Edge and has been performing in circus arts since the year 2000. Mark has been working at height since 1983 and circus rigging since 2002

Learning in 2023

Learning in 2023

Welcome to all the new members who have joined us over the last month or two, and a happy new year to everybody. Over the last two years, we've evolved the focus from our Rigging@Home series of videos and articles to topics of more interest to circus professionals. We

Inspecting and Maintaining Your Silks

Inspecting and Maintaining Your Silks

This article is designed to be used alongside six Circus Safety & Rigging videos with Mark Gibson from Aerial Edge, Glasgow’s Circus School, and Catherine Knowles, from Community Circus Paisley. There are also two other articles: Selecting Your Silks and Rigging Your Silks. You’ll find links to everything at

Rigging Your Silks

Rigging Your Silks

This article is designed to be used alongside six Circus Safety & Rigging videos with Mark Gibson from Aerial Edge, Glasgow’s Circus School, and Catherine Knowles, from Community Circus Paisley. There are also two other articles: Selecting Your Silks and Maintaining Your Silks. You’ll find links to everything at

Selecting Your Silks

Selecting Your Silks

This article is designed to be used alongside six Circus Safety & Rigging videos with Mark Gibson from Aerial Edge, Glasgow’s Circus School, and Catherine Knowles, from Community Circus Paisley. There are also two other articles: rigging and maintaining your silks. You’ll find the first video and links to

Risk Assessment Livestream October 14th

Risk Assessment Livestream October 14th

Livestream: Risk Assessments Chris Higgs & Mark Gibson discuss risk assessments, how we do them and what approach we should take in this month's live stream. Y [https://youtu.be/kY0vqKscg3E]ou can watch the session here [https://youtu.be/IjQnhnVVUXg]. Who loves playing with fire? Most circus people! Risk-taking is

Video Rigging from truss

Video Rigging from truss

Recording Inspections

Recording Inspections

This article explains how to record inspections of equipment and is designed to be used in conjunction with these documents: * Inspections in Circus Rigging [https://circusrigging.info/inspection-in-circus-rigging/] which goes into the regulatory background, and * How to do an Inspection [https://circusrigging.info/how-to-do-inspections/] * Templates for thorough examinations under LOLER,

How to do inspections

How to do inspections

This article explains how do to inspections of your equipment and is designed to be used in conjunction with these articles: * Inspections in Circus Rigging [https://circusrigging.info/inspection-in-circus-rigging/] which goes into the regulatory background, and * Recording Inspections [https://circusrigging.info/recording-inspections/] which explains which forms to use and what

Livestream 8th July 4pm BST- Documenting Inspections

Livestream 8th July 4pm BST- Documenting Inspections

Chris Higgs & Mark Gibson covering how to document inspections, and the different types of records you would keep depending on the type of inspection. This took place on 8th July at 4 pm BST on our YouTube channel [https://youtu.be/kY0vqKscg3E] bring your questions and comments to the session.

Circus rigging from truss

Circus rigging from truss

This article discusses how to suspend circus equipment from box truss. Update: We have a video [https://youtu.be/-nUZqLCx9W4] we created on the topic For circus rigging, we use equipment from many different sources – most commonly the lifting industry, rope access, scaffolding, and sailing equipment. All are governed by

Setting up the NoFit State Circus Tent

Setting up the NoFit State Circus Tent

Rigging in the entertainment industry course

Rigging in the entertainment industry course

This month we look at the Total Training three-day Rigging for the Entertainment Industry course in our series of articles about the types of training out there, to help you discern which ones would be appropriate for your specific needs. Chris Higgs, who manages Total Training, gave a detailed presentation

Bryan Donaldson Full Interview

Paid-members only

Bryan Donaldson Full Interview

Bryan Donaldson's Rigging Fundamentals Course

This month we caught up with Bryan Donaldson to speak about his career story and his Rigging Fundamentals course. This is the first in a series of articles about the types of training out there, to help you discern which courses would be appropriate for your specific needs. The video

Inspection in Circus Rigging

regulations Featured

Inspection in Circus Rigging

We all recognise regular inspections are needed for aerial rigging equipment in circus. This article is designed to help answer the questions: * What do we need to inspect? * How often do we need to inspect it? * What types of inspection should we perform? * What does the law say? All equipment

Inspections, big tops and circus schools

Inspections, big tops and circus schools

We've moved the next live stream back to January as we've had too many new learning opportunities come up! Thanks to everyone who reached out with ideas and contributions to what we should do next, keep them coming. NoFit State Circus Build Team NoFit State have invited me down for

Technical Symposium Members Access

Paid-members only

Technical Symposium Members Access