It's the sixth Cirque production that Summit has put into the venue, and Alegria was also the first Cirque production which Summit were involved with in the central London venue, back in 1998.
The 2006 project involved the preparation of 104 points of rigging, for which Summit has supplied 40 of their own Lodestar motors in addition to using the house hoists.
Summit also designed a completely new rigging infrastructure, involving the installation of nearly 400m of Summit's James Thomas Supertruss. This was needed for Cirque to produce their daring, highly acrobatic production - normally staged in their own purpose-built big top - into a completely new and different venue. The Albert Hall is a challenging venue in which to work, but Summit now has the task down to a fine art, says the company.
Prior to Christmas a Summit team of four riggers had worked a week of night shifts installing and proof testing anchor points, and repositioning house hoists in order to facilitate an efficient load-in, which commenced on Boxing Day.
Summit's Chris Walker led their team of 11 riggers working both day and night shifts over a five day period between Christmas and New Year, to ensure the show was ready for its first rehearsal on 31st December 2005.Walker worked closely with Cirque's rigging project manager Denis Horth, their special projects technical director, Marc-André Leclerc, and with RAH technical show managers Adrian Bray and Simon Frost.
(Chris Henry)
