Rigging / Staging

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14 March 2016

The 30-year old stage was completely replaced, over 500 light-fittings were upgraded to LED, the orchestra pit was refurbished, and the entrance foyer was remodelled with a new box office, cloakroom, digital signage and new heat-efficient front doors.

Grant-making trusts and foundations contributed over two-thirds of the funds raised with significant generous donations from the Monument Trust (part of the Sainsbury Family Trusts), the Wolfson Foundation, The Garfield Weston Foundation, The Foyle Foundation and The JP Getty Jr Charitable Trust. Twenty-one further local trusts were also supportive.

Funds were also raised from the corporate sector, including donations at events and dinners, totallin

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14 March 2016

E1.35 describes a method for measuring and stating the sharpness of the image projected by a stage and studio luminaire. It's meant to be a simple way to distinguish quantitatively between luminaires as to the crispness of their projected images.

For more information, please contact Karl Ruling, PLASA's Technical Standards Manager, at karl.ruling@plasa.org

(Claire Beeson)

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14 March 2016

BSR E1.6-2 - 201x, Entertainment Technology - Design, Inspection, and Maintenance of Electric Chain Hoists for the Entertainment Industry, is part of the E1.6 powered entertainment rigging project. This draft standard covers the design, inspection, and maintenance of serially manufactured electric link chain hoists having capacity of 2 tons or less and used in the entertainment industry. This standard does not cover attachment to the load or to the overhead structure.

BSR E1.6-4 - 201x, Portable Control of Fixed-Speed Electric Chain Hoists in the Entertainment Industry, is a standard for the controls ofte

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14 March 2016

The fan rally, which ran from 10am to 5pm the day before the main game, attracted an estimated 10,000 fans and saw cheerleading performances by both teams as well as the cheerleaders of the Jacksonville Jaguars, who will be playing 'home' games at Wembley from 2013-16. Other entertainment

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14 March 2016

Following record attendance in 2012, the premier entertainment technology trade show in the North has attracted even more companies that are keen to access the 50% of visitors who do not attend any other trade show during the year.

Mark Priestley, project manager at Unusual Rigging explains the rationale behind their decision to book for the first time: "Although a committed supporter of PLASA, 2013 will see Unusual Rigging making its exhibitor debut at PLASA Focus. We have completed a lot of projects in the north of England and Scotland but we believe we will be able to introduce our range of services to new customers at Leeds. When we visited the show last yea

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14 March 2016

Sales director Linda Gibbons said, "It was a huge surprise and such an amazing achievement to win three individual awards. The Le Mark team have worked so hard this year with some amazing achievements, from supplying the 2012 London games with our portable flooring to amazing second-year results with our new Dirty Rigger range of tool pouches and rigger gloves. I'm incredibly proud and grateful to all of them."

Managing director Stuart Gibbons also commented, "What a way to mark 30 years in business - playing a vital role in the Olympics opening ceremony, gaining new distribution deals throughout the year and across the globe for our MagTape professional gaffer tapes & Dirty Rigger ra

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14 March 2016

Wearing elf ears and wizard hats, an estimated 100,000 fans waited patiently to greet their favourite stars including Cate Blanchett and Elijah Woods, who have both reprised their roles from Lord of the Rings.

Mojo Barriers worked with clients director Sir Peter Jackson's production company, 3 Foot 7 and Wellington City Council to install over 600m of barrier along the entire length of the red carpet which lined the city streets.

The barriers allowed fans to view and talk to the celebrities in complete safety as they made their way to the Embassy Theatre where the premiere took place. The carefully-designed configuration featured access gates to allow cast and crew cross over locations and

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14 March 2016

Ahead of their shows in Manchester, production manager Tony Gittins wanted the crew to be up to speed with the latest health and safety considerations whilst working on a live event.

He booked all the crew onto the one-day course at the Academy, which is based at the LS-Live rehearsal studios in South Kirkby, West Yorkshire.

He said, "For the larger tours I do, I always send all the crew to do their Event Safety Passport because it raises their awareness of health and safety when they are working around the set.

"When we booked the production rehearsals for The Stone Roses at LS-Live, I was pleased to learn that the facility no

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14 March 2016

Producing a range of shows, awards ceremonies and events, the 120 seat theatre is a fully equipped space with a flexible format, used by students on the Performing Arts and Technical Theatre courses.

Based only a few miles away, AWC contacted ACSP when looking for a wheelchair-friendly, flexible and safe method for their students to work on rigging technical production equipment at ground level.

The project was led for ACSP by project manager, Lance Bromhead, who worked closely with AWC's theatre technician, Jake Edmonds to provide a cost e

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14 March 2016

Gaffney joins Arena bringing with him more than 20 years specialist experience in the temporary seating installation and engineering industry with project responsibilities including The Open Golf Championship and Cheltenham Guinness stand. Qualified as a Chartered Structural Engineer, Gaffney was managing director and owner of Seating Contracts for 11 years, which then became a part of SGB Eventlink.

Brought in to help develop and manage the significant growth Arena Seating is experiencing following a £6m investment into 50,000 state of the art Clearview seats, he will be utilising his knowledge and understanding for the industry to implement and oversee a range of innovative solutions to new and existing clients.

Gaffney comments, "This year A

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14 March 2016

Based on Lawrence Kasdan's 1992 film and directed by Thea Sharrock, the show opened in London's Adelphi Theatre on 5 December 2012. In addition to the thriller storyline taken from the film, the show features dazzling musical scenes featuring songs from the Whitney Houston catalogue. Designer Tim Hatley references the show's cinematic roots with a "filmic" set in which scenes glide from one to the next through the use of a huge camera-like shutter.

Automation is present in every

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14 March 2016

In the best case the same steps should be carried out again in the reverse order at the end of the event. Especially in view of today's energy debates, saving energy by automated standby activation is becoming more and more important.

So far, all this could only be realised by means of very expensive and extremely complex media control systems. With the Cardinal DVM 194 series Sommer Cable will present a new, very

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14 March 2016

The theatre structure consists of a ground support tower supplied by Star Events and positioned over the stage with an arena tented structure forming the auditorium and connected to the ground support.

PRG designed and installed a 44 x bar Flying System into a Star Events ground support structure, this was managed by PRG's senior account manager, Jay Call. It was 20m high and designed to mimic a theatre fly tower. The system is almost entirely automated using bot

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14 March 2016

Magical track solutions specialist Triple E launched the SDRIVE motorised curtain track system - a simple, lightweight, 'plug and play' motor for ERAIL - in the wonderland surroundings of the Kings Theatre in September and generously donated the first SDRIVE off the production line to the historical theatre as part of the restoration efforts.

"With Snow White keen to keep up her pace to escape the Wicked Queen, we knew the SDRIVE system would be a great help," says Triple E's managing director David Edelstein. "SDRIVE is fast, practically silent, and almost invisible - a winning combination that every heroine needs to survive. As she moves from scene to scene, SDRIVE en

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14 March 2016

LibraWATCH is the latest in the innovative Libra range of products by Kinesys and integrates seamlessly with LibraCELL, LibraPRO and LibraWIFI.

With smartphones and tablets an increasingly popular everyday tool for technicians, riggers and touring crews in the entertainment industry, Kinesys has developed this new, user-friendly and robust load-monitoring experience specifically for all professionals who are working 'on-the-go' with rigged installations.

LibraWATCH offers a fully flexible and fully mobile solution designed so load information can be viewed quickly and clearly via a wired network or through a LibraWIFI wireless connection on multiple portable and hand-held devices.

Once installed

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14 March 2016

For the Fondation Saint-Prex Classics, Gerriets collaborated with the architect Dieter Dietz from EPFL Lausanne. Gerriets produced a four-piece, fire-resistant motorised outer shell made of high-strength, transparent PVC Polyglass covering an area of about 355sq.m. In addition, a roof membrane from 750 g/sq.m heavy PVC was supplied (21.80 m x 11.20 m).

Gerriets also provided a 200m long, three-dimensionally curved JOKER95 track with several FRICTION-DRIVE motors. The construction was designed to withstand wind loads of up to

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14 March 2016

Under the new restructure, AC-ET's UK sales director, Jonathan Walters is now heading up the Rigging Sales department. Rigging sales executive, Matthew Millward is supporting Jonathan in the day-to-day running of the department, as well as dealing with sales enquiries, quotations and demonstrations.

In addition, AC-ET are currently recruiting for another rigging sales executive for their Leeds office.

Tracie Young has moved into the new role of rigging services manager, where she is now overseeing the in-house specialist Rigging Services department - including their vast quantity of popular spare parts in stock for CM and other bran

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14 March 2016

The cases form part of a shipment of eight vehicles that have been dispatched from Ely, Cambridgeshire based Megahertz to South American broadcaster, Vision Venezuela (ViVe), a government owned cultural broadcasting organisation.

The project comprised two complete Mercedes 2532 OB trucks and two 2532 Tender vehicles which carry all the flightcases containing the 'loose' gear, plus four further vehicles, two for satellite news gathering and two for production - all built on Toyota Land cruiser bases.

Megahertz has been using 5 Star for at least the last 10 years for its case requirements. Megahertz Production Manager, Bill O'Flynn comments, "5 Star are excellent, always reliable, the products are well made and quality engineered while the turnarounds a

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14 March 2016

Agency AKQA (acting on behalf of Microsoft/Xbox) commissioned Cinimod Studio to create this spectacular illuminated structure - based on the Halo 4 Glyph symbol - which would be one of the largest and brightest man-made structures to ever fly over a capital city.

Cinimod Studio turned to Litestructures to help bring their concept to life. The solution drew on Litestructures' experience of creating 'impossible' structures using aluminium components. To fulfil the brief, a selection of proprietary products from the Prolyte range were specified, including the main structure frame created from a combination of S36R truss straights and custom corners. The in

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14 March 2016

Sapsis installed fall arrest equipment in both performance spaces at the Goodman - the 856-seat Albert Ivar Goodman Theatre's proscenium stage, and the flexible thrust-style stage in the (maximum) 450-seat Owen Bruner Goodman Theatre.

Daniel Porter, one of the ETCP-certified rigging professionals on the Sapsis staff, supervised the entire installation. He and his crew placed eight ProPlus horizontal lifelines on the Albert's catwalk, balcony rail, and loading bridge, as well as 36 ProPlus self-retracting lifelines (SRLs). These SRLs feature a dual inertia braking system, which stops a fall with minimal

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14 March 2016

Blitz is now the sole onsite preferred supplier for audio, video, lighting and staging across all event spaces at ExCeL. These include ICC London, the UK's largest fully-flexible- 5,000 seated auditorium; Capital Hall, London's largest banqueting hall seating up to 3,000 guests; the 87,328m2 multi-purpose Event Halls; the 45 Gallery Meeting Rooms; the self-contained Platinum Suite; and the Capital Suite comprising 17 individual meeting rooms.

Blitz first partnered with ExCeL in 2005 and this will now be the third time the parties have signed services contracts. The new agreement has come about in response to the ongoing business development at ExCeL, particularly following the successful launch of the ICC facilities in 2010. The v

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14 March 2016

Those looking to acquire new skills or re-qualify in backstage disciplines for live events can now book on to one of the following courses via www.backstage-academy.co.uk:

Rigging Course, Wednesday 16 - Thursday 17 January

Event Safety Passport (SPA) Course, Wednesday 27 February

Stage Pyrotechnics Course, Thursday 28 February

The two-day Rigging Course takes place in the arena-sized studio on site at LS-Live and is tutored by industry veteran Eric Porter. It's a practical and theoretical training course targeting anyone who works with rigging equipment and wants to improve their equipment knowledge, safety awareness, practical techniques and theory. Delegates will carry out practical sessions on a truss rig in the stud

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14 March 2016

Nominations are voted for by industry professionals, making this shortlisting an accolade of Unusual's standing in the business. The awards highlight projects undertaken in 2012, which has been a particularly busy year for Unusual who constructed, among other things, the tallest tower and the longest cable camera in the world, at 100m and 2.5km respectively.

Other diverse projects have included Sports Personality of the Year 2012, the current Hollywood Costume exhibit at the V&A, The Bodyguard in London's West End, UK tours for

Phantom of the Opera, Lion King and Oliver!, production services for Piccadilly Circus Circus and the strengthening of the roof t

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14 March 2016

Edinburgh's Hogmanay - celebrating the 20th anniversary of the world famous street party SEGL were contracted by Unique Events for the 13th successive year and provided a 15m VerTech stage system for the centrepiece 'Concert in the Gardens' show featuring Scottish 80's legends Simple Minds.

The stage specifically designed to integrate with the listed Ross Band Stand structure located in West Princess Street Gardens was erected over two phases spanning the Christmas festivities. The 41m wide frontage provided rigging facilities for four audio hangs and stage right and left wing Imags to give the audience a great view of the show. Production access features including substructur