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Rigging / Staging

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LTM - Lift Turn Move started as it meant to go on by serving champagne and cake within half an hour of PLASA 2005 opening! Celebrating both the company's first birthday and the 50th birthday of the infamous Columbus McKinnon Lodestar hoist, LTM's John Jones gave out colour reproductions of the original Lodestar brochure. Suggestions that LTM should offer Lodestars at the original price at PLASA 2005 fell on deaf, if amused, ears. Commenting on their first year of trading, Jones said: "I wish I'd done it years ago."

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The Rigging Partnership gave a show debut to its Flywire 3D automated flying system, which is designed to fly products, objects, cameras and performers within a three-dimensional flying envelope. The system has already been used on several projects this year including feature films, where it was used for flying cameras and special effects. Company director Gavin Weatherall noted: "We've had an excellent show, the breadth of international attendance to our stand has been impressive and we feel we've made some exciting new contacts."
ISE 2026 - Banner - Oct 2025

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The second year at PLASA for Nordic, providers of modular staging and decking equipment, and the company is back with good reason. "We also tried Frankfurt back in the Spring, but the response from PLASA visitors proved to be much more positive," said its spokesman. "We had four or five very good orders last year, and hope to repeat that."

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Award winner Hall Stage (see pages 58-59) had great fun featuring the new Visual Act laser guided, servo motor driven stage wagons from Sweden. These are millimetre accurate and come with a dedicated control desk designed to sync' both horizontal and vertical plane movement. Hall Stage also showed two new steel bond systems for touring and installation.

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PCM-Pfaff announced its effective absorption into the Tomcat family of companies. Tomcat owner Mitch Clarke explained the move: "It's a natural fit to our work; Pfaff produce some excellent stage machinery and actuators that we already use in our own projects and those done by sister company Brilliant Stages." Read more in this issue, page 15.

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A busy corner of the show was occupied by ESP(UK), sharing a stand with two of the leading brands it distributes - MobilTech and RVE Technologie. "We've met loads of new people and old friends," said David Stressing. But there were also plenty of new products on show, among them the MobilTech Alptek 5500 and 6500 tower lifts. Adjustable to heights of up to 6.5m with a maximum load of 200kg, the lifts feature a key block system for safety and comply with BGV C1. Franck Dujardin of RVE was pleased to show off that company's newest products, including the Dimkit modular dimming system (shown last year as a prototype but now in full production), the Mini Cube 3W single channel dimmer and the Z10 Serenity modular spotlight.

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As its name suggests, ShowTex is a specialist in the world of textiles. Alu-Shape is a new durable foil product combining aluminium foil and foldability with a subtle weave textile support; endlessly reusable and extremely strong. ShowTex also offers a unique printing service for its Polystretch fabric, printing that maintains colour density and detail even when the fabric is stretched to its limits.

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UK - Automation specialists Kinesys provided all the control equipment for the new grid arrangement at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.

The Millennium Stadium wanted the option of reconfiguring the stadium space as a smaller, arena style venue, enabling the staging of a greater variety of shows. Kinesys were asked onboard to deal with this specific area of the project by lead contractors Blackout. The two companies have pooled skills and resources on several other large ventures.

The largest section of the project is a moving mother grid system that has been installed into one half of the Stadium's opening roof. It consists of 18 five tonne Liftket motors permanently fixed to hanging points in the roof. Kinesys installed all the wiring, designed a complete cable tray system and designed and built all the required control cabinets into the roof itself. All equipment is specif

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UK - Summit Steel installed over 7km of 4mm steel wire rope (SWR) in the five largest (of nine) structures in Regents Park for the 2005 Frieze Arts Fair in London. The largest tent measured 200 by 40m and approximately 9m high. The others were 120 x 40m, 35 x 24m, 45 x 32m and 55 x 50m. The 200m tent is the largest structure of its kind that tent supplier Owen Brown has built to date.

Summit was working for production company 20/20 Events, production managed by Steve Cunningham. Their team of four riggers and two crew was led by Jay Call, and came onsite just seven days before the event opened. The Kent-based company has worked on Frieze Arts for the last three years, each year its role has steadily increased with the stature and popularity of the event.

The wires served two purposes: Firstly, to enable the installation of false ceilings at 4.2m above the floor; these were con

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UK - As reported in the October issue of Lighting&Sound International magazine, Slingco has installed the largest CABLEnet tensioned wire grid system in the world to date at the newly refurbished Bournemouth International Centre. The 2500 square metre installation covering the entire roof space of the BIC's main Windsor Hall was part of an £22 million refurbishment project for the building, undertaken by Warings Contractors Limited from Portsmouth for Bournemouth Borough Council in partnership with the South West Regional Development Agency.

It expands the seated capacity of the Windsor Hall to circa 4,200 and the seated/standing capacity to 6,500, making the BIC a truly world class multipurpose venue suitable for all types of productions - from conference to arena sized stage shows. The CABLEnet installation pips Slin

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UK - British Harlequin's association with The Wells Summer School has continued into a fourth year, converting three major areas used for dance at Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells into suitable performance spaces

.Harlequin's roll out dance floors were laid in the main hall of the school, where the parquet floor was covered with Harlequin Studio. Harlequin Cascade, which is the same flooring that The Royal Ballet dances on at The Royal Opera House, was used to cover the wooden floor in the Auditorium and also for the large marquee erected in the school grounds.

Artistic director of The Wells Summer School Francesca Filpi, worked closely with British Harlequin. She said, "The wooden floors on their own are too hard and slippery for dancers and potentially dangerous, too. I am glad our students are able to enjoy the same quality of dance floors that we have

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UK - Joint directors Paul Butler and Ian Robson have completed the successful purchase of Northampton-based full service AV company Mushroom Event Services.

"Mushroom has always ticked along quite nicely and we already had a very solid client base," explains Butler. "However, Ian and I realised that to progress things, it was necessary for us to have full control of the company."

The first contract for the new regime at Mushroom was the Marriott Global Pursuits Event, held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel, where they supplied all the lighting and technical facilities for the in-house client based exhibition. "We colour themed the room, supplied the sound system and specialist lighting, which was mainly LED, as well as a colour changing wall and a boat that was used for a feature area," comments Butler.

This was followed by the PLASA Show

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USA - Working with Upstaging Inc, Tomcat built 25 custom light frames to hold a variety of instruments, including projection that had to be precisely located, for Sir Paul McCartney's current US tour. A large projection wall is created using five independently flown modules with custom light frames to create a wall measuring over 60ft wide by 25ft deep.

Many custom hardware components were also fabricated for rigging equipment on this tour, some of which were constructed from one of Tomcat's specialised extrusions. Tomcat's design department worked closely with Upstaging to design and engineer the light frames for this custom application.

In addition, other custom brackets were fabricated to attach two sections of Tomcat's Swing Wing truss, to create moving lighting modules. "The McCartney tour required a fair amount of unique trussing and hardware elements," explain

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UK - Mojo Barriers UK supplied 209m of Mojo Steel Barriers to keep horses and crowd separate at the Horse of the Year Show this month. Grandstand Media Ltd have produced the Horse of the Year Show (HOYS) since it moved to the NEC and it has remained a firm favourite with competitors and the horse fans from all over the UK.

Mojo Barriers UK manager Kevin Thorborn oversaw the project, highlighting the co-operation between the international offices of Mojo Barriers underpins the success of the show. The Mojo Steel Barriers are painted and prepared in the De Meern (Netherlands) office so that they match the high quality of presentation demanded by the HOYS organizers.

Thorborn commented: "In our first year [2002] we spent a lot of time working with the organizers, measuring and planning the configuration of the barriers for the main ring. They had to accommodate advertising h

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UK - Tomcat UK has appointed Malcolm Davis as Europe sales representative. Davis comes to Tomcat UK with wide-ranging sales experience which he gained throughout the UK, Europe and Middle East at companies like Strand Lighting and Zero 88 Lighting where he was the distributor sales manager.

"I'm very encouraged as to the long term plans for Tomcat UK and excited at being given the opportunity to join them," commented Davis. "After being out of the industry for a while I'm looking forward to coming back and making an invaluable contribution to the future growth of the company."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Slingco has installed two CABLEnet tensioned wire grids into the new 1200 seater Perth Concert Hall in Scotland - the first new build full scale concert hall to be constructed in Scotland since 1990. The £17 million project is the result of an international architectural competition chaired by Eva Jiricna and won by BDP's Glasgow office in 1998.

The main Gannochy Auditorium is a completely flexible concert Hall space, and it's here that the two tensioned wire grids are installed. The grids were, originally specified by theatre consultants Carr & Angier as the safest way for technicians and maintenance staff to work flexibly at height in the roof space above the stage and auditorium. Slingco's Nick Dykins was contacted by BDP two years ago as the build entered its final phases, and asked to submit a tender for the grid installation.

The installation was project manag

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The Netherlands - This November, Russian President Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to visit Holland in more than 300 years, and Mojo Barriers were contracted to provide the security barriers.

The two day official visit involved the Russian President visiting Amsterdam's Dam Square to lay flowers on a national monument and Zaandam's City Square, before moving on to the Royal Palace in The Hague. The following day, he remained in The Hague for meetings with the Dutch Prime Minister.

Mojo Barriers worked with (Amsterdam and Zaandam) City officials and police officers to create safe areas within the cities so that President Putin's safety during the visit was ensured.

Across the two cities, more than 1300 metres of barriers were used to seal off areas of the Cities to the public and there were twenty road closures achieved using vehicle gates. Mojo Barriers was re

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UK - Alton Towers has once again celebrated the end of season with three evenings of spectacular fireworks, lasers and special effects, and for the second year running Stage One built the huge supporting structure for the event's giant video screens.

The structure consisted of two 10 metre high scaffolding towers, positioned 18 metres apart and connected by a run of truss and track. Running along the track were six screen columns, each 1.2 metres wide by 6 metres high. The screen columns were directed by Stage One's Q-Motion control system, enabling them to move to the left and right in a pre-programmed set of sequences and groupings.

Marcus Exelby, Stage One's project manager for the job, said, "We can provide expertise and professionalism in abundance and linking that in with our unique Q-Motion control system really is a winning combination."Chris Foster, producti

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UK - Blackburn-based HSL supplied full lighting production and all lighting and video rigging for the recent Happy Mondays tour. This culminated in a massive sold-out late night show in Manchester Evening News Arena, taking the Madchester dance gurus back to their clubbing roots.

Lighting designer was Andy Liddle, who last designed for the Mondays back in the mid-eighties when they were supporting New Order. He was asked onboard to do these shows by tour manager Neil Mather. The tour was project managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

Liddle designed an adaptable rig based on four upstage/downstage 'fingers' of truss which were assembled in 10ft modules. This was for easy break down and installation into the smaller venues, whist still retaining the look and aesthetics of the stage. The fingers were raked with the upstage ends lower and the downstage ends higher points. At Manchester t

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UK - Automation specialists Kinesys has designed and built a motion control system to truck the Rolling Stones' B Stage out into the middle of the auditorium for their current A Bigger Bang stadium shows. The tour plays North America this autumn and Kinesys is renewing its association with their production, having worked with the Stones on the Licks world tour, where they provided a complete, tourable 32 axis variable speed control system for all the tracking and flown elements of the show.

Kinesys was approached for this project by the tour's set constructors Brilliant Stages. The B Stage truck, a major element of the show, detaches itself from the main stage at the relevant point, and trundles 80 metres (260 feet) down a walkway out into the middle of the stadium with the band onboard. It then rises up in the middle of the arena, allowing the band to play a coupl

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UK - Baldwin Boxall can now provide a PC touchscreen paging station to enable simple, intuitive control of a Voice Alarm system. By touching the relevant part of the screen, the operator has complete control of paging (emergency or routine) to all or selected zones. In addition to the emergency and routine messages that are already stored on the routing matrix, the operator can record and store a number of extra messages. These messages can then be chosen from a drop down list and broadcast to the selected zones.

Background music can also be controlled via the paging station which is designed to be very easy to use, with simple on-screen messages and menus that appear when a function is selected. The paging station user has clear indications on the screen to show which zone/areas are in use by other operators/paging stations and what messages are being utilised.

A useful featu

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UK - Since Arena Structures' revolutionary TFS was launched in the UK two years ago, it has hosted the most prestigious exhibitions, concerts and conferences, but in a first this Autumn; one TFS took on cathederalesque stature for the Church of Scientology's Annual UK Gala Weekend.

This year's event built on the Church's consistently increasing popularity since its inception in 1954, attracting over 7,000 international guests over the weekend of events to Saint Hill Manor in East Grinstead, including John Travolta, Kelly Preston, Isaac Hayes and Ann Archer. Realising the increased demand in capacity two months in advance of the weekend, Saint Hill events manager Tatjana Keenan contacted Arena Structures.

Mark Shelly was Arena's project manager who installed the 40m x 95m TFS into the manor grounds; incorporating a stage and two Star Orbit arches to carry the technical producti

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Europe - GearSource Europe Ltd, the web-based company marketing used and ex-demo equipment to the entertainment industry in conjunction with USA-based GearSource Inc, has announced that its website has gone live.

The site - at www.gearsourceeurope.com - is aimed at anyone looking for a bargain or interested in turning their excess stock into cash, and more than 1,500 lighting, audio, staging, and audio-visual items already listed, say the company.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - The Association of Britiush Theatre Technicians (ABTT) has announced the dates of forthcoming technical training opportunities in early 2006, to be held in Stockport.

.On Saturday 7 January, 'Knots & Splicing' will cover the handling of different ropes and tying knots proficiently and safely. Knots that are useful in a theatre situation will be taught by practical demonstration. Attendees will learn knots including bowline, clove hitch, reef knot, wagon hitch, rolling hitch and sheet bend, and also the tools for splicing ropes, and to differentiate between the different natural fibre ropes. The tutor will be Spike Thorrington and the course will cost: £100 + VAT.

On Saturday 14 January, 'Counterweight Flying' will teach the safe handling of counterweight sets and will cover: terminology, parts of a counterweight set, loading and unloading, operating, first line main

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