All electricity is safe as long as it’s used correctly, i’ve had more than one shock from a domestic 13A ring main and yes, it’s painful – and can be lethal.

The current required to be fatal is as little as 30mA under the right (or wrong) circumstances so any supply can deliver that, I seem to remember once of the reasons why three phase is more dangerous is something to do with them being out of phase as well.. either way I haven’t heard of a case where someone has survived a shock from a three-phase supply so it does somewhat encourage you to treat it with rather a lot of respect

Other thing worth noting under the topic “Lighting Distro for Dummies” … I’ve met many people from various walks of life who dabble in lighting (i include myself under that “dabbling” category also) who don’t realise that a dimmer channel at 0 is still “on” and has a very real and very painful 230v present at the output

Lampies have more experience of these temporary supplies than standard electricians so are ideal to crew the mains department. The right bits of paper usually belong to those who oversee the work and the test/inspect guys (who usually know more about earth loop impedance that what the rigger want from a supply).

We all do our own thing.

I did this on the G20 Summit at Excel, just mains – the lighting department being a different crew. You can imagine how important the electric supply is on a large site like that.

Cheers
Jimmy