For the Dancing On Ice tour, Cover It Up supplied a black wool serge 'touring package' of borders and legs, to cover all masking eventualities.
Where it became more interesting was the supply of a series of printed drapes. Two of these were straightforward kabuki drops printed on a gloss satin fabric, the result of a lot of research to determine optimum 'falling' properties - so it ended up in a neat quickly foldable pile on the floor rather than an unwieldy mass that was difficult to move. Cover It Up arranged for these to be printed at a specialist facility in Manchester.
They also supplied a four-piece 'tent' which included two side-wings in the same printed gloss material. The conical tent sections resembled a tepee in shape and were used to conceal Torville & Dean as they made a dramatic entrance via trapeze flown in from the roof, mid-way through the show.
Gibbs was so impressed with the impact of the gloss printed drapes that he decided to replicate a large part of the set from the Britain's Got Talent TV show with a 'soft' version which was cost efficient and convenient for touring.
Cover It Up's Elliot Stennett project managed this one. The BGT TV show stage had staggered wings with an LED screen at the back, which was replaced by a large projection screen upstage for the tour and 8 printed legs instead of the LED wings. The legs are 8m drops and 1.6m wide, in shades of red, white and blue with pictures of London landmarks and scenes along the bottom.
(Jim Evans)
