IA Stage's Flight Wins ESTA's Members' Choice AwardsIA Stage's self-climbing hoist, Flight, won an ESTA Member's Choice Award in the equipment category. Bruce Darden, IA Stage hoist specialist and inventor of the patent-pending hoist, said, "With 22 years in the industry, I feel pretty good." The awards, which were resurrected after a few years hiatus, took place at USITT 2026 Long Beach on Friday, March 20. Upon accepting the award, Darden thanked individual friends and peers for sharing ideas and ingenuity. He also thanked Mark T. Black and Pete Borchetta, IA Stage's CEO and COO, respectively, for funding the research and development of Flight. "It's a proud moment for IA Stage to receive the [2026] ESTA Members' Choice Award for Flight," says Pete Borchetta, IA Stage's COO. "This achievement belongs to our entire team -- the engineers who pushed boundaries, the technicians who refined every detail, and the partners who believed in the vision," Borchetta said. "Flight continues our long tradition of building tools that expand what's possible on stage while keeping safety and simplicity at the forefront. Thank you to the ESTA community for this meaningful recognition." Flight¬, a compact re-configurable self-climbing motorized hoist, is a universally applicable solution that addresses the safety risks associated with conventional methods of accessing overhead equipment. The hoisting machinery of this self-climber is integrated with the payload of the same truss. This means that every time Flight is lowered, the machinery is lowered, too, eliminating the need for additional lifts or ladders. Built into the hoist assembly is the unique CHORD3 bottom batten system. With CHORD3, you can convert the bottom chord of the truss in the field to accommodate Megabetten Lighting Power & Control; scenery batten; track lighting power and control; video panel suspension track, curtain carrier track to standard pipe, and more. ESTA is a non-profit trade association for the entertainment technology industries. Actively involved with the ANSI accredited Technical Standards Program and Behind the Scenes, IA Stage has been a proud ESTA member since 2020. Erin Grabe, ESTA's executive director says, "We're proud to have IA Stage as members of the ESTA community, and our community is clearly proud of IA Stage, too!" Along with Flight, nominees in the Equipment category this year included EXE ACE 1500kg electric chain hoist by Tomcat; Followbot Compact 1000w LED hybrid follow spot by MEGA-Lite; JDC Burst 1 hybrid LED strobe light by German Light Products; Lift12 by Doug Fleenor Design, Inc.; Prodigy Balance hoist by ETC, and ProPlex CodeCommander timecode processor by TMB ProPlex. 
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