Promoters Metropolis Music brought in Nine Yards to manage the production located in one of Bristol's best-known landmarks. The site was obviously not designed for hosting concerts, so the production team liased with Bristol City Council and had to be especially considerate of their environment. Hence it was decided to cover the whole area with Rola-Trac to achieve effective protection.
Guy Wightham, Rola-Trac's project manager, had to plan and execute installation of the system. Site visits two weeks ahead and immediately prior to the production build, ensured that it could be installed within the tight schedule. Wightham explained: "Queens Square was relatively inaccessible and left us a small area to work within. I carefully scheduled our build around the rest of the production as the two days allowed for installation and extraction left very little leeway."
Guy managed a crew of 20 and it took around 400 man-hours to complete the task, starting from Thursday morning with 6 artic lorries of flooring being delivered. The topography of the square presented various challenges, with obstacles including architectural lights, benches, raised manhole covers and trees to work around. The ground also rose by a couple of feet to a central statue, so the skills of the installation team ensured the Rola-Trac linked and met around the statue. Wightham explained how he approached the build: "The nature of the Rola-Trac product range allowed us to lay this around all of the obstacles. It's my opinion any other product would have struggled to achieve such effective coverage and take in all of the obstacles in the park."
The team installed 4,000sq.m of the company's heavier duty Supa-Trac system in front of the stage area to give increased protection for the crew to work off with fork-lifts in front stage. A further 11,200m/sq of Rola-Trac, covering all of the gravel pathways throughout the park, so the square was filled from the stage to the surrounding wooden fence-line on all sides.
(Lee Baldock)
