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Rigging / Staging

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Italy - When Spazio Bizzarro, a red and white big top circus tent in Casatenovo, Milan, launched its latest project In The Air, it turned to BroadWeigh for its load monitoring requirements. The project, which was conceived in 2012, is a cultural sports and social centre, offering annual courses and workshops in contemporary circus and performative arts, including street art, music, theatre and dance.
Nicola Bruni, director of Spazio Bizzarro explains: “We knew we would need a reputable partner for this venture and selected Monkey Rigging to help us devise a rigging structure for our new indoor space, Il Delado. Working with Monkey Rigging’s Andrea Mammolenti, we came up with a solution that would give us a safe system for both the big top and Il Delado - the training spaces for this project.”
Andrea adds: “The challenge was to design a structure for th

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UK - When Matt Strigden of SRD Projects was looking for a track solution for a new drama venue at Channing School in Highgate, North London, he turned to Doughty Engineering.
Having worked with the Doughty team for years, Strigden, who heads up the projects department at SRD, knew that they were the right team for the job. He said: “I know Doughty well - the people and the products. I have known sales managers, Dan Phillips and Laurence Dyer for nearly 20 years. Both are extremely helpful whenever I have a design question and are really good at providing the answers we need.”
SRD Projects works across all sorts of sectors; theatres, education, fitness, houses of worship and retail, providing lighting and audio solutions in these spaces and so regularly find themselves turning to Doughty for the right kit. This project at Channing School involved restoring one of th
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UAE - Fantek Industrial, part of the Equipson Group, is playing a key role at Expo Dubai 2020 by supplying all the rigging and structures needed to create audiovisual displays and performance stages in both the Spanish and Angola Pavilions.
The Angola Pavilion pays tribute to its indigenous traditions by taking inspiration from Sona geometry, the ancient art of sand drawing that has been used by generations of its citizens to transfer knowledge. Using interactive spaces and a multimedia show that combines different audiovisual technologies, the Pavilion highlights how traditional wisdom can be used as a starting point to develop innovative solutions to local and global problems. The Angola Pavilion’s central square also features a Fantek stage where leading African artists host daily performances.
Spanish company Eikonos was responsible for designing and installing

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USA - The organisers of the 2022 New World Rigging Symposium (NWRS), which will take place online on 5-7 April, have announced the programme of sessions and the presenters who will speak at the event. Highlights for this year include a follow-up to the popular Rope 201 where Stu Cox, Eric Rouse, and Andy Schmitz will dive even deeper into the intended uses, benefits and drawbacks of ropes, lines, and ties.
Also featured will be the Rope Access session, featuring industry experts from around the country who will explore rope access use in the entertainment industry.
Loading into a university theatre can be significantly different from backing the trucks up to a commercially operated roadhouse. A panel of university venue managers will ask, and then answer, What makes them different? by focusing on the unique challenges of the university setting incl

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UK - Moulin Rouge! opened at London’s Piccadilly Theatre last month. The intimate theatre has been transformed into a world of splendour, romance, glitz, grandeur and glory - with Unusual Rigging brought onboard to help create a world where Bohemians and aristocrats rub elbows and revel in electrifying enchantment.
Jeremy Featherstone, senior design engineer at Unusual Rigging, explains: “We were contacted by production manager Matt Towell to help bring this extraordinarily heavy show into a relatively small venue. The idea was always to create the feeling that the audience is involved in the show - a recreation of the intimate feeling of being at the actual Moulin Rouge. The production weighs in at over 23 tonnes, but the Piccadilly’s grid was only really equipped to deal with half that weight - so we needed to come up with a workable solution.”
With U

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UK - FIX8Group has launched a new in-lift AV experience, designed “to deliver content to customers in a fully immersive, captivating and memorable manner”.
Called elev8, it enables clients ranging from museums to malls, airports to attractions to reach lift users with customised displayed messages.
The elev8 project involves the installation of audio-visual display solutions within an elevator, to which everything from simple static marketing video, 2D animation, landscapes, audio experiences and fully immersive 3D worlds can be delivered.
FIX8Group has already completed a major elev8 installation, at the St James Quarter, Edinburgh. This encompasses a new retail led, lifestyle district that fully integrates into and enhances Edinburgh’s City Centre providing an inspiring, attractive, and vibrant destination for locals and visitors to live, shop, eat, sleep

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Europe - Prolight Concepts UK has expanded the eLumen8 Tank Trap range with the addition of a version with wheels.
Tank Trap consists of a 600mm square steel plate fitted with a 50mm receiver that features wing bolts to firmly secure aluminium or steel tubes in place. A cut out in the base allows compact stacking for transport and storage. Heavy-duty 75mm wheels are fitted to one edge for ease of transportation.

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USA - ESTA has released six documents for public review on the TSP website. The publications are free to download and read, with comments due by 21 March.
E1.26, Entertainment Technology - Recommended Testing Methods and Values for Shock Absorption of Floors Used in Live Performance Venues sets out the energy absorption requirements for floors in venues used for live performances, and the methods for testing them. This document is to be used in conjunction with all applicable local building codes and requirements. The existing American National Standard is being considered for reaffirmation.
E1.36, Model Procedure for Permitting the Use of Tungsten-Halogen Incandescent Lamps and Stage and Studio Luminaires in Vendor Exhibit Booths in Convention

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USA - Organisers of the New World Rigging Symposium has announced the 2022 edition of the event will take place online on 5-7 April. The symposium will carry nine ETCP education renewal credits for re-certification, and the admission cost is $99.
“We’ve turned the table on the ever-popular session featuring some of the industry’s top structural engineers - Bill Gorlin, Dan Louis, Miriam Paschetto, and Jeff Reder,” say the organisers. “Instead of getting to ask your questions, they are going to tell you the things they want you to know. There was so much we’ve given them two sessions to cover subjects such as ballast, wind speeds, site safety, codes, AHJs and why things don't always stay the same.”
Paul Sapsis will walk attendees through a complicated custom flying system designed for a concert and DVD shoot at the Wembley Stadium - from concept to implem

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USA - Lighting and rigging company RZI Lighting has added a significant number of Stagemaker products to its rental inventory. Acquisitions include a large quantity of Stagemaker award-winning SR10 D8+ compliant chain hoist as well as Motion Labs Hoist controllers.
“Stagemaker continues to impress us with consistent quality and a robust feature set of their products,” says RZI president, Ray Ziegler. “The SR10 series will be a workhorse for our clients. The hoists are a natural fit with our continued growth in the rigging market. The sales and technical support we receive from Stagemaker is fantastic.”
RZI Lighting has remained open throughout the pandemic. Once events started happening again RZI worked quickly in procuring new gear their team had been evaluating during the downtime. Additions to RZI inventory include a full hoist certification centre from Proo

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UK - Thomas Heatherwick’s Materials House was commissioned by the Science Museum in London as an exhibit to show “everything that anything can be made of” for the Challenge of Materials gallery. The idea was that, instead of prioritising any one material to make the house from, and then exhibiting small samples of all the other materials within it, the studio chose to make the house itself from all of the materials.
The result - six-metre-high pieces of each material bonded together into a single element of many strata was built in situ on the first floor of the museum in 1999 and remained a centrepiece of the gallery until December 2021, when Unusual Rigging was called upon to help the museum remove the exhibit from its long-time home, and lower it to the ground floor, ready for transportation to be held in storage.
Robin Elias, director at Unusual Rigging expla

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USA - The 2022 New World Rigging Symposium, taking place virtually on 5-7 April, will bring together professional riggers, engineers, manufacturers, venue managers, educators and students to further their rigging knowledge, hear about challenging projects, get up to speed on new technologies, discuss current industry challenges, and get their questions answered.
The session line-up features an array of subject matter experts sharing their knowledge on: Rope 201, Load Monitoring Systems: Know Your Limits, Rope Access in Entertainment: Training and Usage, Performer Flying Case Study: It Happened at Wembley, Hosting Road Shows at a University, What the Engineers Want You to Know, Touring Overseas: Getting Your Ducks in a Row, Rigging Challenges: Infrastructure Case Studies, Women Riggers of ETCP and Intro to Mental Health First Aid.
The three-day symposium will also inclu

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Germany - HOF is expanding its company management team with immediate effect. Dennis Klostermann and Isabel Inclan, two experienced employees are joining the management. Together with Björn Heinzmann, managing director and shareholder at HOF since 2003, they will lead the company as a trio.
Björn Heinzmann will continue to manage the areas of technology and finance. Dennis Klostermann, who has been with HOF since 2006 and was previously key account manager, will be responsible for sales and product development. Isabel Inclan was previously in charge of marketing and will now represent the marketing and human resources departments.
Hans-Wilhelm Flegel, who founded HOF 25 years ago, is retiring from management and operations, but will remain with the company in an advisory role. "I am pleased that a new generation is now taking over the company management at HOF. I a

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Sweden - Power distribution specialists StageSmarts has added Pierre Nyström and Jakob Aronson to the team at their manufacturing facility in Arboga.
Nyström has extensive manufacturing and testing experience from the electrical power industry, most recently from Alstom. Aronson is an experienced field service engineer who joins the company from Kone lifts.
“Guys of this calibre are very hard to find, and we’re super excited to have them join our growing team of craftsmen. Their extensive expertise will strengthen our company and help us innovate and build even better products,” says Mats Karlsson, CEO of StageSmarts. “We’ve seen steady growth over the past nine months, and with Pierre and Jakob onboard, we can increase our capacity while at the same time maintaining the highest build quality.”

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USA - Area Four Industries has announced Will Todd as the new president and CEO of Tomcat US and Area Four Industries America. Todd has been with the Tomcat brand for more than 20 years, working through various departments. He began in sales covering the central region of the US, then moved to project manager, followed by product support supervisor, then design manager, then COO and now president/CEO.
“The best part about Tomcat is the relationships we forge in the industry and within our own building,” says Todd. “We strive to create relationships that are more than partnerships with our customers. If our customers are successful, then we are in turn. Within our building, we all work together towards our goals. The goals for the company are shared within the building, everyone provides ideas and input to help us all reach those goals.”
He adds: “The wide var

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Germany - Sixty82 has confirmed Berlin-based edelmat. as its newest reseller for Germany.
Edelmat. services include consultation, conception, implementation, as well as service, for rental and installation projects in the field of event technology. It is here that the human being is in the foreground, and edelmat.’s well-trained specialists maintain consistent contact with each and every client to develop budget-oriented and individual solutions.
Sixty82 and edelmat. have very similar values and goals, and the cooperation between the two companies has proved promising. “At edelmat. we connect people through conception and technology,” says edelmat.’s Ayke Bröcker. “The innovative solutions of the Sixty82 brand fits perfectly into our portfolio and our joint work is successful and fun. It is partly for these reasons we chose to become a reseller for Sixty82.

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UAE - The United Arab Emirates marked 50 years as a nation with 50 days of celebrations, culminating in a spectacular live show from Dubai’s Hatta Water Dam in the Hajar Mountains featuring a floating stage and drone-launched fireworks, produced by live event specialists, LarMac Projects.
The show charted the country’s history in the lead-up to its inception in 1971 and across the subsequent 50 years.
For the country’s Golden Jubilee, the creative team - led by artistic director and designer Es Devlin and LarMac executive creative producer Jo MacKay - knew that the boundaries of possibility needed to be pushed to their limit.
The initial show was live streamed on 2 December and followed by 10 additional performances that took place between 3-12 December, featuring specially composed songs and poetry, drone-launched fireworks, a light show, water displays a

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UK - Independent rigging specialists Rigging Team has appointed Adrian Skelton to the role of project manager at the company’s Stevenage headquarters.
With an extensive career spanning over 25 years working within the live events industry, Skelton brings with him considerable expertise. Beginning his career in the world of touring theatre before gravitating toward the area of specialist rigging projects, he has more than 3,000 events under his belt, including numerous high profile engagements such as the G20 Summit and 2012 Summer Olympics.
Working previously as head of rigging at ExCel London, Skelton has built a comprehensive understanding of all areas of the project management remit.
Rigging Team director Adam Searle says: “Ade has amassed a wealth of specialist knowledge, working at the highest level. His management capabilities, hands-on style and thoro

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USA - Main Light has expanded its truss inventory with GT Plus truss from Tyler Truss. Both Main Light East and West now have the standard 10’, 8’, and 5’ lengths in stock in addition to bases, corners, Tyler’s indexable spigots, and necessary accessories. GT Plus truss features redesigned leg sleeves and locking leg collars that allow for smoother operation.
The GT Plus truss inventory purchase continues Main Light’s commitment to building inventory that offers benefits for their clients. “By having the moving lights safely and securely travel in the truss, this eliminates the need for road cases, which means less space is needed on the truck,” states Randy Mullican, general manager for Main Light. “GT truss saves on space, weight, and reduces fuel consumption, which our clients really appreciate. It also speeds up the load-in and -out times as well, again

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UK - London welcomed in 2022 with a spectacular city-wide display, sending a message of thanks and hope to the nation and the world. Jack Morton, the global brand experience agency, helped to develop the original concept and worked in partnership with the Mayor of London’s office and a dedicated team of experts to create an extraordinary experience for the second year running.
The 13-minute show designed for home-viewing was broadcast live on BBC One and watched by a global viewing audience of millions.
Jack Morton’s creative show team worked in collaboration with On the Sly for the music production, Titanium Fireworks for the pyrotechnics design, and Skymagic for the swarm drone sequences.
Patrick O’Mahony, creative director of Skymagic, comments: “We were delighted to collaborate again with Jack Morton to design and deliver the drone light show for Lo

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UK - With government advice putting the decision-making onto the shoulders of the public and consumer confidence eroding as a consequence, the live events sector is stressed to the limit, says industry organisation #WeMakeEvents (WME).
Despite a devastating 2020 and a challenging 2021, businesses in the industry have worked hard to exceed revenues last recorded in November 2019 by the same month in 2021. But, says WME, the current climate has already eroded this by 80% during December 2021 and is forecast to continue through January.
From the UK’s first lockdown in Spring 2020 until summer 2021, companies in this sector only received around 12% of the Cultural Recovery Fund (CRF) awards whilst many of the freelance technical specialists who work in the industry are still catching-up on their finances, having had no work for over a year.
WME says in a statement:

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Croatia - Perinic Sistemi is the latest company to be appointed an exclusive distributor for Sixty82 and will be covering the Croatian market with immediate effect.
Perinic Sistemi has been operating in the Croatian market for over 25 years. Beginning life as a rental company for sound systems, the company expanded its business over the years to include the full range of equipment needed for the entertainment industry.
“The main reason we chose to be a Sixty82 distributor is because of the long term relations we have with the company’s top-quality and experienced personnel who have always been extremely professional, fast and patient with all our questions and requests,” says Iva Perinic from Perinic Sistemi. “The products are high quality, made to last, and at the same time easy to use.”
Perinic Sistemi will distribute the whole SIXTY82 product line,

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France - Dushow recently helped deliver the world’s biggest concert, Global Citizen Live, as lead technical partner for the Global Citizen Live event in Paris.
Serving as the main official service provider for the broadcast event which featured Ed Sheeran, Elton John, Black Eyed Peas, Christine and the Queens, Doja Cat and Måneskin, as well as special guest performances by Angélique Kidjo, Charlie Puth and Fatma Said, and raised more than US$1bn to fight climate change, famine and vaccine inequity.
Dushow partnered with its video-specialist subsidiary, Alabama, and sister company Magnum to deliver a complete technical solution encompassing audio, LED, lighting, video, cabling and power.
This tour de force was made possible thanks to the wider Novelty Magnum Dushow group offering organisers a single point of contact for the complex 20,000-person show.
T

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UK - Doughty Engineering was the supplier of choice for Audio Light Systems when the company was contracted to kit out a lecture theatre and public event space at Norwich University of Arts (NUA).
Neil McLucas, project manager at Audio Light Systems explained: “We were brought on board by NUA to supply and install cabling infrastructure with numerous facility panels, production lighting boxes, a bespoke truss/ hoist system, sound reinforcement and AV infrastructure, to allow for a multipurpose space.”
Audio Light Systems has worked with the team at Doughty on several projects over the years and knew that Dan Phillips, Doughty’s special project manager would understand the exact requirements of the project and deliver a workable solution. Dan commented: “Having been briefed by Audio Light Systems, we came up with a range of kit including all the facility panels,
  1. Registration opens for NWRS 2022
  2. Sixty82 appoints PSP distributor for Serbia
  3. Open comment period extended for rigging code
  4. Celebrity contestants face Unusual challenge
  5. Stagemarket becomes Sixty82’s distributor for Russia
  6. Stage One and Mark Ager form partnership
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