J&C Joel's project manager Tony Griffiths co-designed the Unibar with Slingco's Nick Dykins, and Maurice Power Theatre Consultants specified it for the Mill Theatre. J&C Joel worked closely with its premier Irish distributor, Stage Lighting Centre, on the installation and commissioning of the system.
The nine 4-line Unibars - eight over the stage and one advanced bar in the auditorium - are each designed to raise and lower up to 400kg on 10m long suspension bars, The Unibar system allows the quick and easy raising/lowering of suspension or bars for scenery, lighting and AV equipment with a motor-driven unit.
Unibar was seen as the ideal solution to fit into the confined spaces of the Mill Theatre. The main auditorium is built underneath a cinema, so both stage space and flying ability are restricted. However the Unibar itself is light, flexible and can be located at 400mm centres, therefore a lot less space is required than for a conventional Pilewind winch system. This coupled with low power requirements made Unibar the ideal choice.
At the Mill Theatre, the standard multi directional control facility is a key feature of the system - allowing suspension bars to be raised and lowered simultaneously. The Unibars can also be grouped together, so several can be raised or lowered together.
"As with all flying systems, safety was paramount" explains Griffiths. The Unibars design safety factor of 8:1 provides additional confidence to clients this along with working and back up limits give piece of mind," (4:1 being the standard BS reg # 7095 item 5.2.1).
The Theatre is staging a wide variety of productions and particularly championing the staging of new, experimental work and interactive productions. Technical manager Noel Hagan says: "The Unibars are user-friendly and very quick and easy to set up - everything you need for a busy receiving house, we can operate them in and out with no hassle at all for everyday tasks like re-gelling and re-lamping, pre-focusing, etc."
In addition to the Unibar system and control, J&C Joel also supplied a full set of stage blacks (borders, legs, cross and rear stage) and damson coloured proscenium and valance drapes to the intimate 200-seat space. Also, to increase the flexibility of the equipment four, SWL 120kg, 4-line manually operated hemp sets where installed for the lifting of light loads.
Griffiths says: "It's been a challenging project that's generated great teamwork between Stage Lighting Centre, Slingco and ourselves. We completed everything in just 10 weeks from receiving the order to completion - that included designing, manufacturing, testing, installation and commissioning of the project!"
(Chris Henry)
