Rigging / Staging

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14 March 2016

The Easi-Build Pipe and Drape system comprises heavy bases with adjustable telescopic horizontal and vertical aluminium poles and can accommodate any drape. The system is neatly packaged for easy transportation in boxes or carry bags requiring minimum labour at maximum speed in any location.

"Our Easi-Build Pipe and Drape system is aimed at all customers. Never before has it been so quick and simple to erect a temporary drape structure," says Steve Tuck, managing director at Blackout.

(Chris Henry)

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14 March 2016

Kinesys were asked onboard by Total Fabrications' Chris Cronin, who designed and built the 14m wide by 8m deep structure that moves several times during the performance and is in full view of the audience throughout.

The platform needed to move up and down as well as tracking upstage and downstage, so Kinesys supplied five of their Velocity drives and a laptop running their proprietary Vector software.

The four two tonne winches - one in each corner of the structure - were supplied by TFL and travel at up to a quarter metre a second, the platform is tracked by a single motor and line shaft system and is controlle

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14 March 2016

Two technicians attending the course were the recipients of the Nicholas Van Wijk Bursary. These bursaries are the kind gift of Heather, widow of Nicholas van Wijk who spent most of his working life in the West End Theatres. He was Master Carpenter at the Aldwych Theatre in London from 1994 until his death in October 2003. Nicholas always laid great store in passing on his stage technical knowledge to the next generation. The recipients of the bursaries were Christoph

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14 March 2016

The Blue Room now boasts almost 4,000 members, with over 110,000 messages posted since its official launch in January 2003. With over 4.5 million hits each month, the Blue Room has proved very popular. "The introduction of a Wiki is something which we've been working on for a while. We saw that the Blue Room was becoming, in part, a repository for a vast assortment of technical knowledge and advice, and an online encyclopaedia seemed like the next logical st

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14 March 2016

Stardraw.com has delivered all its products exclusively through its website since January 2002. In addition to the initial installation of long-established design/documentation tools like Stardraw A/V and Stardraw Lighting 2D, users employ the website to download program updates and to access libraries of more than 50,000 high-quality sym

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14 March 2016

Steve Dolan, senior project manager, said: "This project provided a very interesting graphics challenge, as from the basic visual artwork we needed to produce graphics that met the constraints of television advertising standards and that weren't blatantly advertising the programme's sponsor."

Advertising agency Stream commissioned Stage One to build the sets, which covered the space of one entire indoor football pitch, at the

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14 March 2016

Heath received his MFA from The Penn State University at State College, PA, in 2003. He has technically directed over 30 theatrical productions and has designed lighting for more than 100 events. His background includes experience as a rigger, master electrician, sound engineer and crew chief. On the pre-production side of the table Heath has over fourteen years' experience with multiple CAD programs working with general layouts, build draw

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14 March 2016

Contracts won with cruise and ferry lines can be among the most lucrative in the world: there is currently $14.2 billion being invested in new-build activity and numbers in the cruise ship orderbook are at their highest since 2002. There is also renewed strength in the region's shipbuilding industry and the refurbishment and re-equipment sectors are also experiencing a growth surge.

The presentation, led by Seatrade MD Chris Hayman, will cover the opportunities that exist for PLASA Members in the cruise sector and the value of attending the Seatrade Med exhibition in Naples in October where f

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14 March 2016

The first Supplier H&S Forum took place in March of this year and was extremely well received by the Jack Morton Event Production Team and its rigging services suppliers. Representatives from Vertigo Rigging, Summit Steel and Blackout were all invited to the forum to discuss in detail proposals to ensure compliance with the Work at Height Regulations and their impact on t

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14 March 2016

Proven to 250kg with dual suspension lines attached independently of both motor and ball, the new swivel carries the load with complete safety, leaving the rotator to concentrate on rotating. The company will be showing these and other ideas at the AC Lighting North Trade Show in Leeds (25-26 April) and the ABTT Trade Show in London (14-15 June).

(Lee Baldock)

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14 March 2016

The main brief was to incorporate a cable shield or 'mini loom box' for ensuring that the cables can be kept neat and tidy along the rear of the case when in use and when packed away. Loom boxes are a standard feature on 5 Star's large audio mixing console cases, and so it was logical to incorporate this element of the design into the final layout. "Pioneer wanted a practical and good looking system case to compliment the small footprints of both the CDJ and DJM units," explains John Barsby, 5 Star's product development manager. "The loom box needed to be large enough to take the cables and compact enough to keep the case dimensions within the agre

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14 March 2016

Martin Clark acted as project manager for a team of 40, who completed their first circuit of the course on the Saturday, installing the structures across the course in potentially hazardous conditions before the road closures came into force. Martin's experience working on the race over the past 12 years was a great advantage in liaising with organiser and the police to prepare the structures and co-ordinate the operation across 36 hours on site.

Lucy McCrickard, director of LGM Consultancy, has organised 11 London Marathons and explained the

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14 March 2016

Following on from their involvement with Live 8 last summer, the company resolved to act upon the philosophy that was adopted for the iconic event, the message being to unite and address unacceptable levels of poverty across the World, particularly in Africa.

Taking this on board, the team at Star Events Group have committed to make a difference by sponsoring the development of an educational facility, aptly named The Star Events Group School of English. By funding the rental of the school premises, and by providing basic classroom supplies, the company hopes to make a huge difference to the lives of the local community in Guinea Bissau.

Maddy Sheals, director of HR at SEGL, said: "We have always had a social conscience

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14 March 2016

The three year contract sees Blitz supplying ExCeL with the latest in AV equipment. Blitz also has an on site technical team to provide any additional support for the venue's clients. The alliance will ensure that ExCel's clients continue to benefit from the option of in-house expertise and technical staging services of the highest and most creative professional calibre. The service will be available to organisers usin

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14 March 2016

Give it a Name was a new indoor festival concept launched in 2005 at London's Alexandra Palace This year the festival developed to run over two days, in two cities (London 's Earls Court and Manchester 's MEN Arena ), with two stages in the two venues.

Lost Prophets and My Chemical Romance headlined 26 bands that gave tens of thousands of fans ten hours of non stop music, with two stages allowing quick change-overs, creating a great atmosphere at both venues.

Showsec manager Paul Joy ran a team of 120 trained crowd management professionals at the MEN Arena, looking after the fans front-of-house, the pit area and the backstage. Steve Reynolds ran the FOH Showsec team of 200 staff at Earls Court, and the two managers liaised through-out the weekend

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14 March 2016

The benefit of the operation was also dramatically demonstrated on Live 8 weekend in 2005, when the UK industry completely ran out of stage roofs. But Star Events Group was able to come to the rescue provide a 20m Orbit system by shipping it over from Italy to the organisers of B-Live on Clapham Common at very short notice.

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14 March 2016

Since 2004 Charcoalblue, created by Andy Hayles, Jack Tilbury, Jon Stevens and Gavin Green, has also been working on the RSC's new Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon.2005 saw commissions from English National Opera and Bristol Old Vic, in addition to being appointed by the National Theatre to work on its new studio redevelopment with Haworth Tompkins Architects. Following this, Aldeburgh Productions appointed Charcoalblue as theatre consultant for a second concert hall space at Snape Maltings, and to Newcastle Theatre Royal for a renewed flytower.

This year Charcoalblue was awarded the

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14 March 2016

It incorporates two braked geared motors, a four-way limit box with BGV-C1 rating and optional encoder and a safe working load of up to 500kg. Its control system provides fixed or variable speed up to 10 metres per minute via a touch screen HMI unit and a switching power matrix enables two inverters to control up to 10 hoists via a single 13A or 6A 240v supply. It can be mounted either directly onto a grid or fixed to roof steels so that no lateral load is placed on the

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14 March 2016

Recent qualifications undertaken by staff to enhance the specialist skills required to work across different sectors include the NEBOSH General Certificate (Hannah Charlton), National Rigging Award A1 Assessor (Simon James) and the Institute of Acoustics Certificate of Competence in Workplace Noise Assessment (Tim Roberts).

TESS managing director Mike Richmond said: "The Investors In People award, along with our new infrastructure reflects a continuing commitment to expand the diversity of areas we work in, and raise the quality of service to clie

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14 March 2016

Take That, riding high on one of the most remarkable musical comeback stories so far of the 21st century, have received great critical acclaim for their new show. The tour reunites many of the successful production team that propelled the band to stardom in the 1990s including production manager Chris Vaughan, LD Simon Tutchener, artistic director Kim Gavin and Summit's Jon Bray.

Bray says: "It's really good to be working with so many of the original team again. Take That were the first band to use a large moving bridge over the audience and it's good to see that trick back in the show, plus a host of other ambitious movement and automation effects."

The epic set for the 2006 tour is design

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14 March 2016

With the creation of this new P/S, specifically for the world market, The Pocket Console DMX can now be used virtually anywhere. Electricians, lighting technicians and designers worldwide can now find out why these very portable units have sold so well from Broadway to Hollywood. From backstage to soundstage, The Pocket Console is found anywhere in the US where DMX is found, says the company. For the professional, this may be the most convenient, economical access to DMX control in the market today.

Each "Wall Wart" comes with a full kit of standard 'clip-on" male A/C adapters making The Pocket Console user friendly around the globe.

The BCi line includes the Original Pocket Console DMX, the Wall-M

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14 March 2016

Entec has experience of working with several leading Russian artists, and for this show, their crew co-ordinated in advance with Kirkorov's touring crew to ensure the busy show day ran smoothly.

Lighting designer Boris Volkov design involved three upstage trussing triangles, constructed from mini-beam and hung off nine points from two rigging trusses, plus two straight A-type front and mid lighting trusses.

His operating style was based on 'beam technology' with lots of dramatic beam and gobo looks from lighting fixtures spread across all of the trussing elements. These included 26 Vari*Lite VL 200

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14 March 2016

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14 March 2016