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Rigging / Staging

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Star Rigging installed their new spot platforms, designed and launched in 2002, into this month's Disney Channel Kids Awards, held in the Docklands Arena in London. Star Rigging provided all the rigging for the televised awards show, which featured stars of the moment including Holly Valance, Gareth Gates, Blue and Liberty X.

The new spot platforms were purpose-built in 2002, as prefabricated structures to provide a safe working area for the technicians on the platforms. The custom-built handrails and lifting points make it a quick and easy system to install. The modular systems are highly adaptable and can be increased as required from 8ft in multiples of 4ft sections. On this occasion there were two single spot platforms, one holding four lights and operators and one adapted to carry the amp rack for Wigwam’s PA. Star Rigging also rigged Wigwam’s flown speaker equipment,

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The highly anticipated season of Cameron Mackintosh’s Miss Saigon enjoyed a stunning opening at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Thursday 17 October. The lavish musical first graced London’s West End at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane over ten years ago, and has been played in theatres around the world making it one of the most successful musicals in the history of musical theatre.

Creating the touring version of such a large scale musical has required the innovative and dedicated work of many disciplines. Stage Technologies, having worked on numerous Cameron Mackintosh productions in the past, such as The Witches of Eastwick, Oliver! and the Netherlands production of Miss Saigon, were pleased to have been asked to rise to the challenge once more and provide the stage automation for the tour.

The show itself is highly automated and Stage Technologies ha

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Tomcat’s second annual Las Vegas Motor School, held immediately after LDI 2002, was a major success for the company. Building on the popularity of the first class offered in Las Vegas in June 2001, the company enrolled over 40 participants for the two-day course. These received instruction on chain hoist motors by Don Dimitroff of Columbus McKinnon, fall protection lead by Morgan Neff of Mine Safety Appliances and truss theory taught by Keith Bohn from Tomcat USA. In other Tomcat training news, the annual four-day Tomcat Hoist and Rigging Workshop will be hosted by Tomcat USA in Midland, Texas on February 5-8, 2003.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Australia-based Brown’s Precision Welding, manufacturers of high quality aluminium products, has announced a new product, Brown’s Multifunction Tower (BMT). At the heart of the BMT’s innovative design is an adaptive connection plate allowing any existing industry standard truss to be incorporated into the tower or ground support design. This cost-effective approach also results in the Multifunction Tower being one of the most versatile systems available in the world today.

Beau Southey, managing director of Brown’s Precision Welding and designer of the Multifunction Tower, says: "The BWT is designed to maximise the usability of every component and integrate effectively with which ever truss the end-user requires including any existing rental stocks. Even the sleeve block may be used independently as a truss corner block."

The tower itself comprises a

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Following Vertigo Rigging’s mammoth undertaking at this time last year at the Odeon Leicester Square, for the premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the company returned to the same location for the launch of the latest Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

Paddy Burnside was again Vertigo’s project manager for the event. This year the company rigged two ‘goalpost’ screen supports, constructed from James Thomas SuperTruss, in front of the Odeon’s two side billboards, onto which were flown LED screens supplied by Light Media Displays. The trussing supports were braced back to the building using chemical fixings, and the base of each leg was encased in a three-quarter tonne concrete block, clad in plywood - these latter, cast at Vertigo’s workshop in Bermondsey, to comply with Westminster Council requ

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Our House, the new Madness musical, opened on 28 October at the Cambridge Theatre in London's West End to rave reviews. With a fictional Sliding Doors-style storyline, and featuring songs by 80s chart-toppers Madness, the musical comedy is set in London's diverse and vibrant Camden Town.

Selected to provide the stage automation for the new production, AVW Controls designed and manufactured the control systems, carried out the automation fit-up, technical rehearsals and provided training for the theatre's technicians. AVW's award-winning Impressario automation system controls a total of 22 moving pieces, including six rotating doors, flying and tracking house portals, a motorized bridge, a travelator and a sliding door at the rear of the stage. Stephen Rebbeck, Our House production manager, said: "Impressario is central to the show and, as there are so many moving elements,

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ChainMaster of Eilenburg presented a new add-on console for the VarioLift at the Plasa Show in London. The Extension Board constitutes a useful complement to existing VarioLift controllers, offering in particular the ability to control manually different chain lifts at different speeds using two analogue joysticks. It is possible to cascade several Extension Boards. In addition, existing programs can run simultaneously, staggered in time.

Free group assignment is a further useful feature of the Extension Board, making the console suitable for live use. Any number of chain lifts and groups can be freely assigned to the two joysticks in a free configuration. The VarioLift Extension Board is robustly constructed and sufficiently durable to withstand all the rough treatment of day-to-day live use. It comes equipped with a 15" touch-screen integrated into the folding lid of the control

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Summit Steel were in action at the Birmingham Motor show, following on from their flying feats at the Paris event last month. Their clients this time were Vauxhall (via Early Action/CP Electrical) and Mini (via Act Live). Both stands were project-managed for Summit Steel by Ken Nock. The Vauxhall stand involved two Summit elements and featured the biggest roof of the five-hall event, spanning approx 50m x 40m subdivided into 6m bays. The construction of this grid involved a massive 780m of Thomas SuperTruss, 78 corner joints and 26 Lodestar hoists.

The grid ceiling was built and flown in just one working day, by a Summit team of 10 - an impressive achievement within a very short timescale. One of the great advantages of using the Thomas SuperTruss in situations like this is its strength, and the fact that large spans of truss can be supported by fewer hoists than conventional trussing

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Liberty, from Harlequin, is a new sprung floor panel system intended either for permanent installation in dance studios, or portable use for touring. Other applications include gymnastics and aerobics, stage floor, or rehearsal room floor. Liberty sprung floors are generally used in conjunction with a non-slip vinyl dance surface selected from the well-known Harlequin range of Cascade, Reversible, Studio, Tempo or Fiesta.

The floor panels themselves are formed from multiple layers of birch, bonded with waterproof phenolic resins to form an 18mm thick and stable substructure for the vinyl surface. Each full size panel has 45 dual density elastomer blocks, spaced at regular centres. These absorb impact and give a consistently even energy return over the entire surface of the floor. Harlequin Liberty sprung floor panels combine consistent shock absorption and uniform suspension across th

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PCM, the entertainment division of Pfaff Silberblau, has completed a major refurbishment of stage equipment at the Carnegie Hall in Dunfermline. PCM's Projects team, led by Tony Griffiths, worked closely with Hall Manager Evan Henderson and Jim Ganley from the venue's technical department to realise the project. The new facilities are designed to enable Carnegie Hall to receive a wide array of increasingly technically complex productions.

The process has seen the updating of most of the Hall's stage equipment, and the removal of all its existing, complicated arrangement of diverted manual hemp and winch sets. The new installation started with the insertion of a 40m long timber walkway and an access bridge in the roof void - all designed to aid the easy maintenance of the new equipment. PCM then rigged 13 11m-long, 4-line, hemp sets and cleat rails, complete with 150mm multi-block ball-

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Peter Gabriel’s first North American tour in nearly 10 years opened in Chicago last week. The tour is due to cover around 22 cities in total and incorporates new material from his album ‘Up’ along with many of his favourite hits. Stage Technologies, who have provided automation for Westlife and Janet Jackson’s ‘All For You’ tour have recently collaborated with Total Fabrications, working with director/designer Robert Le Page in providing American Peter Gabriel fans with a spectacular centre stage production.

The show was structurally very complex to design, with the understage area required to act as the main storage facility for the tour. To optimize this space, Total Fabrications, who have provided set design for Kylie Minogue’s ‘Fever’ tour, incorporated a donut revolve made from aluminium. The 15m diameter revolve is thin enough

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After a busy 12 months which has seen Total Fabrications Ltd (TFL) provide stage sets for artists including Kylie Minogue, S Club 7 and the Commonwealth Games, to name just three, the time has come, say the company, to acknowledge the outstanding efforts of one Neil Darracott.

"Technical Director is a role of increasing responsibilities," said TFL’s managing director Chris Cronin of Darracott’s new appointment, "one that requires both qualifications and understanding. TFL has always striven to place safety at the core of everything we do, from manufacturing process through to utilization of the finished product. Since Neil first came on board to develop T2 as an entirely new concept for the trussing industry, he has contributed heavily to establishing standards in unique areas. He’s simply the ideal man for the job."

Darracott, besides being a we

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Theatre Projects Consultants has worked all over the world, but never created a drive-through theatre - until now! At the eleventh hour, the Emir of Abu Dhabi has called in Theatre Projects Consultants to work on a new 500-seat waterfront theatre being built for the Royal Court, one of the requirements being enough space between the stage and the stalls to allow the frail leader to be driven to his seat.

Although the original plan had been to erect a tented theatre, this was abandoned when the Royal Court decided it wanted a more permanent structure and contracted local company Algeemi Code to design, build and fit-out the new facility. Soon after the metal framing had been put in place, it was realized that there were opportunities to improve the design and one of the Public Works Department's architects contacted Theatre Projects: within a week Mark Stroomer, design director, was in

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S. Leonard Auerbach, ASTC, founder of Auerbach + Associates Inc. has announced that both of the company’s divisions have changed their names to more accurately reflect recent company expansion. The name of Auerbach + Associates, Theatre and Media Facilities Design Consultants, has been changed to Auerbach · Pollock · Friedlander, Performing Arts/Media Facilities Planning and Design. Auerbach + Glasow, Architectural Lighting Design, is now Auerbach · Glasow, Architectural Lighting Designers and Consultants.

"The new name recognizes the firm’s growth and evolution from a San Francisco-based consultancy to a national entity with a thriving New York City office and a busy Minneapolis project office, marking yet another step in the ongoing development of the firm," said Len Auerbach.

The change of name also reflects the rise of two of the company’s principa

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TeleStage Associates Plc has secured the contract to provide stage engineering equipment for the prestigious Wales Millennium Centre. The contract calls for the design and supply of a wide range of stage equipment, covering multiple orchestra elevators, seating wagons, fire and acoustic doors, counterweight flying, powered hoists, movable auditorium towers, house curtain and adjustable proscenium.

The Wales Millennium Centre will be the focal point of the redevelopment of Cardiff Bay and will provide a world-class venue for the full range of performing arts. As part of the contract, TeleStage will work closely with Sir Robert McAlpine - the design and build contractor. Carr and Angier are the Theatre Consultants and this project also marks the next step in the long and productive relationship that has existed between the two companies.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Guests on board Crystal Cruises' Crystal Serenity, which goes into service June 2003, will be able to watch first-run movies in a luxury 200+ seat projection theatre with state-of-the-art audio visual systems, including audio enhancement for the hearing-impaired. Responsible for the entertainment design and installation for the Hollywood Theatre is MAVCO, whose Director of Engineering, Rob Shuard, asked Triple E to design and supply a custom projection screen, with variable pre-set masking using the company's Chaintrack system. Shuard said: "We needed a system that allowed for multiple masking presets including anamorphic 2.35:1, widescreen 16:9 and standard 4:3. Given the restricted space on board the vessel, Triple E's Chaintrack system was chosen for its ultra-low profile and its ability to turn tight corners."

The 4.7m wide x 2m high screen required black masking panels t

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Gearhouse South Africa was extensively involved with the Auto Africa show (23-27 Oct) - Africa’s biggest motoring event. Bill Lawford was Gearhouse SA’s project manager for the event, running a team of 30 Gearhouse technicians. The bulk of the company’s work at Auto Africa 2002 was in providing sound, audio-visual equipment, rigging and decking. In particular, rigging the trussing proved no small feat - Gearhouse SA rigged over 500 different hanging points throughout the three main Auto Africa exhibition halls.

Among the 25+ stands that Gearhouse SA was involved in were Land Rover, Ford, Mazda, Alpha Romeo, Fiat, Chrysler Jeep, Renault, Honda and Porsche. The range of equipment was extensive: for example, a cube wall on the Mazda stand involved 48 separate cubes. "To set that up they had to be perfectly balanced and stitched together which was quite a job,"

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PCM’s famous Lodestar Motor School continues its on-going world tour, with the first, highly successful event to be held in Dublin. The School was co-ordinated by top Dublin-based lighting sales and installation company Stage Lighting Centre, run by the charismatic Pat Walsh, assisted by Paddy Farrell. It was held in the prestigious Abbey Theatre in central Dublin - the National Theatre of Ireland.

28 people attended the School, presented by PCM’s tutor-in-chief Tony Dickson. They came from all areas of the professional entertainment industry from across the country. The two-day Motor School covered many topics. A king pin of the PCM course is the complete stripping down and re-assembling of a Lodestar motor, enabling students to learn about the role and significance of the machine’s electrical and mechanical components, and how they inter-relate. Working in pairs, st

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Star Hire (Event Services) Limited joined the cream of the pop world once again when it installed the staging for the 2002 Top of the Pops Awards in Manchester.

The Awards, hosted by Ronan Keating, attracted a veritable A-List of pop stars, from Best Newcomer Will Young, to double- winner Kylie and Lifetime Hall of Fame winner Sir Elton John. They also performed live sets alongside Miss Dynamite, Blue and the Manic Street Preachers.

The set, designed by Miranda Jones of Mermaid Design, was in keeping with the look of the televised weekly programme, but expanded to fit the dimensions of the enormous Manchester Evening News Arena. Star Hire was contracted to supplement the Arena’s own staging system to house the huge production. This included building the awards platform sited to one side of the stage and a temporary ‘bridge’ and red carpet walkway connecting the plat

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PCM’s Projects division has supplied the main theatre space in Dublin’s Liberty Hall Centre for the Performing Arts with specialist lighting bar winches. The new venue has been completely refurbished - along with the rest of this historically significant building. It was re-opened as the Performing Arts Centre by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, TD.

Installation of the new lighting and technical infrastructure was undertaken by Dublin lighting supplier Stage Lighting Centre, who also supplied a full set of stage curtains, complete dimming system and stage lanterns. They worked very closely with Brian Tracey, Liberty Hall’s head of technical, throughout the installation period. When it came to custom engineering and installing the specialist lighting bars required at the FOH and forestage positions, Stage Lighting Centre’s Paddy Farrell approached PCM.

Working to the s

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The Jewish Free School's new campus in North London was officially opened by PM Tony Blair in October. Designed by leading UK architects Terrence O'Rourke, the new campus provides a base for approximately 2000 students.

In charge of the development of the 22,224sq.m facility was Jarvis plc, a facilities management and infrastructure services group, and the first company to win a schools project under the government’s Private Finance Initiative. The Jarvis team worked in partnership with the local education authority to create the facility, and also with a number of sub-contractors - amongst them Maltbury, who fulfilled the staging part of the contract.

As the facility's main hall is used for school presentations and exams, the Jarvis team wanted to provide under-stage storage for the exam desks without lifting the height of the stage. To achieve this, Maltbury designed and buil

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Could LDI capitalize on the renewed focus on business demonstrated at PLASA just a few weeks earlier?Ruth Rossington headed to Vegas to find out.

With PLASA providing a much needed fillip to the business, the question everyone wanted answering about LDI was whether it could pick up the baton and continue where PLASA left off. Well the jury’s marginally out on that one - certainly, the first day got off to a blistering start, but there were definitely times when things felt quiet on the show floor. That said, all the exhibitors I spoke to reported good levels of business and that’s the only yardstick a trade show should be measured by.

Much of the product on display had already made its presence felt at PLASA, but there were some real innovations and some noticeable trends. The undiminished homage to all things LED continues, to the point where Ellen Lampert-Greaux, part o

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Fifteen months in the job, and already the Fairfield Hall’s new technical coordinator Ian Locke is beginning to make his presence felt; not least in the realms of safety. "Before I took the appointment I could already see this was a very, very busy venue; sometimes three performances a day, so I knew safe working practices would be paramount."

Consequently there has been, in his own words "huge changes", not least the recent installation of a new rigging grid above the famous Fairfield stage. "The existing grid was well past its sell-by date, so in September of 2001 I visited PLASA to see what was available. At the time I didn’t even know Total Fabrications’ T2 system existed (hardly surprising as it was barely a year since launch) so when I stopped by their stand I was more than impressed with the system."

Being a prudent shopper, Lock

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Star Rigging joined a star line-up in December 2002, rigging the set and production for the Top of the Pops Awards, as they celebrated a successful year for the pop world. In a year that brought us Pop Idol and Fame Academy and more pop tours and radio roadshows than ever before, the Top of the Pops Awards gave its own accolades to the most successful acts of 2002. The show attracted the year’s hottest property, from Miss Dynamite, winner of the best R&B act, to Kylie and the Manic Street Preachers. Star Rigging was once again contracted to supply the rigging for the entire set, lighting, sound and screens for the awards, held in the Manchester Evening News Arena.

Phil Broad was head rigger for the show and worked with the organizers from the concept of the stage set to the practicalities of the rigging on the day. Phil worked with the client, BBC Worldwide, production manager St

  1. New affordable truss from Stage Tools Truss America
  2. PCM announces new Irish distribution deal
  3. Triple E goes behind the scenes at QVC Studios
  4. Forbes-Black joins Columbus McKinnon
  5. Prolyte's 'Axion X' price reduction on X30 truss
  6. Slick and Total Fabrications
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