Rigging / Staging

LiteStructures on the Tour of Britain

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - 96 cyclists, competing as sixteen professional teams, battled it out over a total of 800 gruelling kilometres to be the first under the Tour of Britain finish gantry, which had been designed and built by LiteStructures.

The internationally renowned event was set over five stages, starting in Manchester - the home of British cycling - on 1 September. The transient nature of the event meant that the gantry had to be lightweight for easy transportation, free standing so that it left no trace once removed and of an adjustable width because the finishing line was a different width for each stage.

With the gantry having been so well received on the Tour, Mick Bennett, technical director at the Tour of Britain and also show director of Cycle, The International Cycle Show, chose to use it again as the gateway to the show when it runs from the 23 to 26 September. He said: &

Dancers at the Wells Summer School, Tunbridge Wells.

Harlequin roll out dance floors for The Royal Ballet

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - The popularity and reputation of The Wells Summer School, where dancers from The Royal Ballet instruct children from 8 to 17 years, has expanded and this year embraced three major dance areas - all converted to professional dance floor standards courtesy of British Harlequin plc.

Francesca Filpi has been organizing The Wells Summer School for three years now, based at the Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent and held this year over a period of ten days in August. Here a relationship has been forged between The Wells teaching faculty from The Royal Ballet and Harlequin providing roll out dance floor solutions. In the main hall of the school, Harlequin covered the hard parquet wood floor with Harlequin Studio flooring, which was also the choice to cover the wooden flooring in a large marquee erected in the school grounds. The solution for the Auditorium wood

Blackout weighs in for MTV Networks Europe

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Drapes and rigging specialist Blackout was recently appointed by MTV Networks Europe to realize an elaborate Gothic set at the recent MTV Icon event. This was an exclusive live tribute to rock legends The Cure, staged at Old Billingsgate in London.

Featuring performances and testimonials from artists and celebrities influenced by the band - including Marilyn Manson, Razorlight Blink 182, AFI and the Deftones the event will be beamed across MTV Europe's Networks of 120 million homes from October 2004.

Blackout's project manager, Kevin Monks, headed the team and collaborated closely with the MTV Networks Europe production management team. Blackout rose to the challenge of designing and supplying a trussing structure in line with the building restrictions imposed by Old Billingsgate's Grade II listed status.

The atmospheric Gothic set designed by Simon Beresford required o

The ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle' on the main stage of the Norwegian Theatre. Photo by Leif Gabrielsen.

Visual act upgrades Norwegian Theatre

Details: 14 March 2016

Sweden / Norway - Visual act, the Swedish stage automation specialist, has recently completed the installation of a new control system for the Norwegian Theatre in Oslo, involving the replacement of drive electronics for 119 fly bars and point hoists. The system installed is capable of operating all the drives simultaneously, as was ably demonstrated during the testing period, when the company's technicians made the most of the empty stage by programming continuous movements and effects involving all 119 drives.

The latest version of Visual act's operator desk was selected as it is especially designed for permanent installations, providing an ergonomic work area suitable for many hours of use on an everyday basis. Three operator desks were installed - one of which is wireless and can be moved to the house for rehearsals.

The control system has fully redundant servers and po

Orbital expands BTR System's potential

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - As the exclusive UK dealer for Telex Radiocom's BTR 700 and BTR 800 intercom systems, Orbital Sound has announced eight new sales of both systems, which have been used on a variety of applications across the live broadcast and production industries. Deployed on projects as diverse as Edinburgh's International Festival, Glastonbury Festival, a host of West End Musicals including Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest production The Woman in White and, most recently, on location filming the new Sahara Productions' blockbuster movie - Sahara - starring Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey.

The systems have proved their versatility and simple operation straight out of the box, providing the perfect solution in any environment where real time 2-way communications are required. Orbital's sales and installation manager Tom Byrne collaborated with Joe Buxton of MR Technical S

Stage Technologies in Hong Kong

Details: 14 March 2016

Hong Kong - In June 2004, only 13 months after the contract was awarded and with the theatre remaining in full operation throughout the period, Stage Technologies successfully completed the final phase of a project to refurbish the flying system at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. The automation solution, installed in the venue's Grand Theatre, means that the Hong Kong Cultural Centre is now equipped to provide flying effects to stand alongside the most prestigious and technically advanced performing arts centres around the globe.

The work included the design and installation of a counterweight assist flying system, able to switch between powered and manual flying. With the initial phase of the project due to be delivered in November 2003 the project management and design teams pulled out all the stops to achieve the deadlines. Jim Roberts, Stage Technologies' project manager com

Austrian Truss Construction

Details: 14 March 2016

Austrian Truss Construction was showing its multi-frame trussing which offers excellent stability, as there is no welding on the frame. Designed for ease of transport the sections can store inside each other and three will fit into a truck.

Total Solutions Group

Details: 14 March 2016

Total Solutions Group seemed upbeat, having used the PLASA Show to highlight its recent re-branding. The 'Group' now serves as an umbrella for the familiar brands - Total Fabrications, Slick, T2, new wave truss and the company's training initiative, Total Training.

PLASA Shorts . . .

Details: 14 March 2016

5 Star Systems from Holland featured products from a new intelligent lighting manufacturer in Budapest, including a 250W wash fixture. Also showing was a prototype 38-LED moving light, using 3W blue and green LEDs and 1W reds.

Taiwanese company Acme Effects launched the iSoloution range of lighting products in association with UK partner Pro Light Concepts. With no Western backing, the company has worked hard to ensure its products are distributed worldwide.

Alongside its ranges of control options, coloured fluorescent tube specialists Anytronics were showing new additions to the outstation options for its Anylight systems, the new DP804 dimming pack and its enhanced range of T5 fluorescent fixtures.

Swedish company Beacon AB was showing its comprehensive gobo catalogue with over 350 new gobo designs. Still attracting strong interest was its Blackline range of gobos launched at PL

Columbus McKinnon Entertainment

Details: 14 March 2016

Klaus Weber has recently been appointed as regional manager, Germany, Austria and Switzerland for Columbus McKinnon and was with the team at PLASA for the first time. The Hurricane manual chain hoist designed for inverted and regular use made its UK debut.

Litec

Details: 14 March 2016

Litec Srl had plenty of new products, with the debut of the EXE brand, a dedicated range of electric control equipment for electric motors and hoists. The Litecad for final packaging and a new collection of riggers' technical clothing were also launched.

British Harlequin

Details: 14 March 2016

New from British Harlequin is the wheeled roll storage cart, which provides safe storage and easy handling of flooring. The cart holds up to 10 rolls of Harlequin Studio Flooring and has already been supplied to several European venues.

Manfrotto

Details: 14 March 2016

According to Monica Rigono, boosting the profile of the Manfrotto brand was a key objective on the Lino Manfrotto & Co stand, aided by the latest 196 and 396 series of articulated lighting support arms. A range of new Litec product was also on display, including new ranges of host controllers' and accessories, plus a new range of technical clothing: "It's designed from scratch, manufactured in Italy and is not merchandise!" said Litec.

Milos Structural Systems

Details: 14 March 2016

Milos Structural Systems was showing its new image and logo along with its 120-page catalogue detailing the company's huge product range. A new addition to its xStage systems is a lightweight, low profile stage.

Tomcat

Details: 14 March 2016

Swing-wing trussing has been with us for a while, but Tomcat has taken the concept further, combining load strength of over 3000kg UDL on a 12m span. Designed primarily to carry a variety of moving lights, fix points are also available for conventional lamps. Brilliant Stages shared the stand and had refined its Dek product to a lighter variant called Dekex. A weld-less extruded aluminium deck frame houses all the usual convenient fittings; an 8ft x 4ft section weighs just 40kg, yet on six legs supports 560kg per sq.m. One for the educational market.

Stage Technologies

Details: 14 March 2016

Stage Technologies showed its rental kit for the first time aimed at small-scale, short-term rentals. The company has been busy with projects including a recent fixed installation in the Aberdeen Music Hall, where it was required to provide an infrastructure to protect the building for refurbishment purposes.

City Theatrical

Details: 14 March 2016

City Theatrical, exclusively distributor of A.C.T Enterprises Inc, was showing its new device to hang moving lights from. The simple, inexpensive and versatile piece of hardware allows moving lights to be hung on the truss where the designer intends and not where the truss dictates. The newest members of the WDS family - the wireless Rx2 DMX receiver and OEM wireless DMX receiver - were also attracting attention.

SET

Details: 14 March 2016

Advanced Rigging Motion Pro is the latest product from German company SET (Scenic Event Technology). Designed typically to control any motion control equipment, chain hoists, electric fly bars, wire winches, the most attractive feature of this Windows-based software is the communications system for relaying data and commands to the various devices - namely Ethernet via Cat 5 cable, which greatly affects costs. The system complies with the latest German safety regulations DIN 56921 and 56925 as well as DIN-V-19250.

Serapid

Details: 14 March 2016

A specialist manufacturer, Serapid produce chain-driven devices for vertical lift and horizontal motion of stages and dollies. A rigid product - inasmuch as when lined up vertically the chain links rigidise into structural support towers - the Serapid chain drive is available in five lift sizes providing motion for loads up to 10 tons, lifting 7m vertical.

Lift-Turn-Move (LTM)

Details: 14 March 2016

LTM, the new company formed by John Jones and Dave King - previously of PCM - was launched with a champagne breakfast on the Sunday morning. Jones reported that he thought PLASA was the ideal environment for the launch, with the whole industry before them, and that they enjoyed a very busy show.

Gala Systems Inc

Details: 14 March 2016

Hubert Dubeau from Gala Systems said the company was on a fact-finding mission to discover what clients need from them. New Spiralift technology is in development, with plans for an October launch.

Eurotruss

Details: 14 March 2016

Exhibiting at PLASA for the first time in five years was Eurotruss, manufacturer of aluminium trussing. Technical director Henk Tiekstra said the company was looking for a UK distributor and had realized what an important show PLASA was for reaching established clients and potential customers.

Rose Brand

Details: 14 March 2016

American company Rose Brand, a supplier of fabric and custom-sewn goods, was at PLASA for the first time. Josh Jacobstein said the company was hoping to give visitors to PLASA a taste of products they might not be familiar with and reactions from visitors were extremely favourable. Triple E was sharing the stand and showing its interactive quotation software for Triple E track systems.

Steeldeck Sales

Details: 14 March 2016

Steeldeck Sales had a busy show with a steady stream of potential customers. The company was showcasing work it has undertaken and also showing its refinements on the knob used to lock components together - making assembly easier.

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