Semi-permanent Pedestals/Piers
 

Where may I find more information about the performance and installation of semi-permanent pedestals (or piers)?

A new rear A/V booth is being designed for our church auditorium. The rough draft is just 19x5 feet, with an 18-inch raised floor; however, that's barely enough room for the four computers, mixer, light control board, and five A/V engineers, let alone a tripod. A pedestal seems like it would take less space than a tripod.

Are there any pedestals available off the shelf? The only models I found on B&H were for operation with a dolly. Ho do we mate it with a 100mm or 75mm bowl? We don't really need the pedestal motion, so a fixed-length design would be sufficient.

For a custom design, what are the guidelines for anchoring and height? Could we use, say, an eight foot pedestal with a 200-pound cement shoe as an anchor? Would it suffer from greater vibration than a tripod of equal height? The auditorium is on the second floor, which makes matters a little worse.

Should the pedestal be anchored to the raised floor, or would that increase vibration?

The only pedestal installations I have seen myself are for telescopes; they were anchored in the ground using cement, and were reported to be very stable, but they're generally done with no connection to the surrounding structure, so that the only source of vibration is the telescope and the earth itself (which, last I heard, is pretty stable.)

So would a pedestal even be appropriate in this situation?

You could just mount a hi-hat to a solid thing (like the window sill of the A/V booth.) This would give a very solid mounting point, and I assume this booth will have a window made out of cinderblock, so it will be easy to attach. And no pedestal required.

Thanks for the hi-hat suggestion, that solves the tripod mating problem. Now all we have to decide is whether to mount the hi-hat directly to the booth or to a freestanding pedestal: I don't know which one would have less vibration.