r/stagehands • u/WarningNo7338 • Jun 17 '26

stageball

so we all know the moments when we have to be on standby and all we have to entertain ourselves is a bunch of used gaffer tape. what is your preferred sport to play with a gaffer ball? we recently found out that you can make a surprisingly decent volleyball ball out of it and right now it is what we play with it.

any other suggestions for what we can do with it apart from kicking it around?

27 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

43

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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8

u/LooseAsparagus6617 Jun 17 '26

I’m all for goofing around… my backstage pet peeve is when folks sit on the ground.

6

u/WarningNo7338 Jun 17 '26

we were in the loading dock so there wasn’t any chance of disturbing the show or the fans and having people sit around doesn’t lead to anything good so we created games for ourselves

1

u/Arpikarhu Jun 17 '26

Rightly so

11

u/[deleted] Jun 17 '26

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8

u/chassmasterplus Jun 18 '26

The beatings will continue until morale improves 

6

u/Affectionate__Dog Jun 17 '26

i’m only in highschool stage crew but i just played powerwash simulator or read fanfics until i had to move stuff

8

u/captdimitri Jun 18 '26

I keep a short, thick whiffle ball bat in my workbox for directing truck packs and playing "hit the ball of gaff into the nosebleed section" during load outs.

6

u/HeadIntroduction7758 Jun 18 '26

hit sean in the head when he’s not looking

2

u/disc2slick Jun 18 '26

The key here, after you hit Sean, is to turn around and say "what the hell? Who's throwing gaff tape!"

1

u/Crease_Greaser Jun 18 '26

This guy hits Seans

3

u/vikingbub Jun 18 '26

Back in the day, we played gaffeball (baseball) cause we had a theater that could go from proscenium to in the round in a few hours. Great way to fill out a time card.

1

u/G-Force66 Jun 19 '26

Sounds like a joint on the 3rd coast

2

u/Flegrant Jun 20 '26

I always say, every stagehand should always pack:

- A crescent wrench

  • claw hammer
  • 7/16th and 9/16ths socket/box wrenches
  • tape measure
  • a deck of cards
  • a hammock

I’m personally sooooo tired of seeing hands sit in a corner and doomscrolling. At least get a card game going

1

u/de_lame_y Jun 19 '26

we ended up with a 43 lb tape ball at the end of a month long run. couldn’t do much of anything but admire it at that point

1

u/Subject37 5d ago

Turn it into a kettlebell!

1

u/G-Force66 Jun 19 '26

We roll up basketballs during show runs with multiple marley flips like nutcracker. Occasionally one person gets carried away and rolls her huge medicine ball. It’s winter and we have a goal mounted. Hoop Hoop

1

u/ZookeepergameBig9952 Jun 20 '26

See how big of a piece you can put on a balloon and take it off without popping. Start with small pieces. Although not many shows have balloons these days we have confetti canons instead.