It expands the seated capacity of the Windsor Hall to 4,500 and the standing capacity to 7,200, making the BIC a truly world class multipurpose venue suitable for all types of productions - from conference to arena sized stage shows. The Cablenet installation pips Slingco's previous world record, held by the IFEMA venue in Madrid, by approximately 100sq.m. The installation was completed in just seven weeks.
The Cablenet, which uses 36 miles of steel cabling, is an elegant, practical solution that enables BIC technical staff to have safe, high-level access across the entire roof void of the venue's main Windsor Hall, with its extensive in-house lighting rig. No shadows are cast by the grid when lights are shone through it into the space below.
Theatreplan's original specification included partial wire grid coverage of the Windsor Hall and the adjacent, smaller Solent Hall. Later, Waring's design manager, architect Colin Tedder, realized that there would be no other way to safely access not just the production lighting and sound rigs housed in the roof, but a whole host of services like AC, heating and sprinklers. Tedder and Slingco's Nick Dykins then revised the design to include covering the entire Windsor Hall roof with a wire grid for safe access to the whole area.
Apart from the safety aspect, other advantages that Cablenet brings to the IC is an increased ceiling height of 12m: this was previously restricted due to a false ceiling. The venue now has a fast, flexible and dynamic rigging capability.
There are two dual-purpose trap doors in the Cablenet that enable the easy hoisting of equipment up into the grid - via a series of rolling beams. They also open up to give clear followspot beam paths to stage. Their positioning near the edge of the stage gives a neat profile for followspotting, avoiding excess off-target light spillage.
Dykins comments: "The scale of the installation and the accelerated lead-time was a massive challenge. To finish before deadline and on budget is a testament to Slingco's design, production and installation teams and to the support of Warings, theatre consultants Theatreplan and structural engineers GGP - an all round great team effort."
