Rigging / Staging

Serapid forms UK company

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Serapid, the leading supplier of push-pull and lifting chains and Quick Die Change machinery, has announced the formation of Serapid Limited in the UK. The new company has been established to provide an improved level of sales and service to the UK and Scandinavian markets, which to date have not received the level of attention they deserve, say the company.

Mr. Said Lounis, owner of the Serapid Group, says: "The UK and Scandinavian markets are of strategic importance to the Group, and the formation of Serapid Limited is in response to the needs to provide a higher level of support to these markets for the purpose of achieving the level of sales that should be expected from these countries with their advanced industrial bases."

The company is jointly owned and will be run by Iain Forbester, who joins the company from the stage engineering industry, and who has

Stage Electrics stage for Nelson Mandela

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - On 3 February 2005 Nelson Mandela spoke to a mass rally of an estimated 20,000 people in London's Trafalgar Square. The primary aim of the Make Poverty History Campaign is to get the debts of developing countries cancelled. Also featuring at the event was Sir Bob Geldof and Channel 4 presenter June Sarpong while Jamelia provided entertainment with a live set.

Stage Electrics supplied staging for the rally including a custom-designed platform to fit on the square's main staircase and two dedicated press platforms to support a press presence of 350. PA equipment was also supplied by Stage Electrics, taking advantage of EAW's KF730 and SB730 wide angle dispersion to provide wide coverage throughout the square combined with a JF260 acting as centre fill for the press pit at the front of the stage.

Sound was operated by Chris Coxhead from a Soundcraft Series Five console with

Mervyn Thomas joins Total Solutions

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Total Solutions announced the appointment of Mervyn Thomas as the group's business development director. Thomas, formally general manager at James Thomas Engineering, sees this new role as a natural progression in his career.

"I see Total Solutions leading the way forward with its well known suite of industry standard truss brand names," says Thomas, "and I welcome this new and exciting challenge". Amongst the general activities associated with his appointment, Thomas will be responsible for developing and managing the ongoing manufacturing license agreement program which began last year when African Trussing were the first to start producing the Total Fabrications product range in South Africa.

Group MD Chris Cronin says: "I have known Mervyn for many years and have always considered him a good friend. It is a huge privilege to finally be working

Higher profile for ChainMaster in North America

Details: 14 March 2016

USA - Show Distribution Group Inc of Canada, ChainMaster's exclusive distributors in the USA, Mexico and Canada, has moved to larger premises so as to be able to extend still further its range of activities. The new 2,000sqm facility in Quebec offers considerably more space for the Service department plus greater storage capacity to meet increasing demand.

Show Distribution has more than 300 rigging lifts, 100 VarioLifts and 25 VarioTrolleys at its disposal at all times; this is material that Show Distribution has purchased and uses to support customers in the hire business who, in 2004, accompanied tours by Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Shania Twain and Tim Graw with lifting gear and controllers from ChainMaster. Show Distribution also furnished chain hoist systems from ChainMaster for live shows and marketing events staged by Everlast Productions of Florida and

Tomcat's Class of 2005

Details: 14 March 2016

USA - Tomcat celebrated 13 years of in depth industry training courses with another successful Hoist and Rigging Workshop in Midland, Texas. Top-notch instructors and 62 industry professional participants from all over the United States, and even Mexico attended the workshop as well as the all new Advanced Workshop.

Don Dimitroff of Columbus McKinnon, as well as TOMCAT's own Dave Sowa, coached participants through the Lodestar electric chain hoist. Rocky Paulson of Stage Rigging, a Freeman Company and Morgan Neff of Mine Safety Appliances stressed safety in rigging techniques and fall protection equipment while Keith Bohn, Tomcat design manager, and Will Todd, Tomcat project manager, offered a course in truss theory and design. Not only did participants receive four days of power-packed, informative classes, but also four nights of fun filled entertainment, including the traditi

Hawthorn Theatrical comes of age

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Hawthorn Theatrical hosted their 18th birthday in style when they transformed their Leicester premises into a party venue. Around 300 invited clients and Hawthorn's staff moved between the main bar (complete with table football and giant Jenga), a nightclub with live band stage, karaoke room, second live band room, and a chill-out room as they partied the night away to the early hours.

After 18 years providing technical and creative solutions for events of all shapes and sizes, Hawthorne's general manager Simon Wood, working with MD Martin Hawthorne, applied their experience to produce a stunning party. This included supplying everything from their own décor, lighting, screens, sound and power, having considered all of the health and safety issues.

Martin Hawthorn, founder commented: "It seemed an ideal opportunity to thank our customers and 60 full-time staff for

Hind returns to consulting engineering

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - After three years working in California for Total Structures Inc, Peter Hind has returned to the UK to join consulting structural and civil engineers, Anthony Ward Partnership Ltd working from their offices near Winchester in Hampshire. However, his return to consulting engineering will not mean the end of his involvement with the design and use of aluminium structures in the entertainment and associated industries which stretches back over 20 years.

Anthony Ward Partnership Ltd has a reputation for providing innovative design solutions for projects within the building construction industry and now offers a range of structural engineering services relevant to the entertainment industry including concept design, preparation of engineering calculations and drawings, inspections and third party reviews. Hind will also continue his work with ESTA Technical Standards in America

Another Cirque record for Summit Steel

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - With a total of 132 points, Summit Steel's installation of Cirque du Soleil's ambitious Dralion show at London's Royal Albert Hall has broken the record for the most number of rigging points ever installed into the venue. The previous record was also set by Summit Steel - for installation of the same show last year. What's more, the rigging process also had to be completed in and even shorter time slot of two days less than last year.

Summit continued its working relationship with Cirque du Soleil, with this, the fifth Cirque production they've installed into the RAH for Dralion's fully sold-out five-week residency. Summit's Chris Walker started work on the project in September 2004. Working closely with a team of people including Cirque's rigging project manager Ewen Seagel; Marc-André Leclerc, technical manager for the transfer to the RAH; Adrian Bray, t

Tomcat UK at Wallingford Corn Exchange

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - When the stage fly system of the Wallingford Corn Exchange was condemned by load inspectors, Philip Burton, the venue's new volunteer general manager, turned to Tomcat UK who sent their technical manager, Paul Jordan, to the venue. "The project was a challenging one for us," says Jordan, who was one of the first to survey the system. "The existing system was suspended from small tube members resting on the internals of the building's cast iron portal frames. The pulleys were of unknown origin and ropes were of different constructions. The gallery platform support structure was manufactured from a scaffold-type arrangement which had a timber top and was buried into the side stage walls without any exterior fixings. The existing header beam arrangement consisted of a 2" diameter tube slung between the cast iron portals, which had a timber beam clamped to it

Triple E and J&C Joel at The Sage

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - The Sage Gateshead, the stunning new £70m home for live music in the North of England, is at the heart of the regeneration of Tyneside. Funded by the largest Arts Lottery grant outside London, The Sage Gateshead is the first building for the performing arts to be designed by Foster and Partners and aims to be an inclusive, open-for-everyone music venue. It includes two concert halls, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall for rehearsal and performance and a 25 room Music Education Centre designed to pioneer a fresh approach to musical discovery. Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC) was responsible for the technical design, working with acousticians Arup Acoustics.

Hall One, with a capacity of 1650, is the largest of the two concert halls and uses retractable acoustic curtains, as does Northern Rock Foundation Hall, whereas the unusual design of Hall Two called for acoustic banne

Members of the Leisuretec team with Simon Taylor (centre) of LiteStructures.

Leisuretec distributes LiteStructures

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Leisuretec Distribution has become a distributor for LiteStructures, one of the UK's leading designer and provider of aluminium solutions. The agreement gives Leisuretec access to the full range of LiteStructures products, including brand-leading AstraLite truss and the LiteStage system of staging and complementary products. Nick Spalding, managing director of Leisuretec Distribution, commented: "We are always willing to add brands to the portfolio of products offered by Leisuretec that offer our customer's something new. We believe the LiteStructures range of products provides a solution for the wide range of markets that our customers are in."

Simon Taylor, sales and marketing director at LiteStructures, added: "We wanted to identify a strategic partnership with a key distributor who had strong commercial, technical and relationship qualities, but equally

SoftLED in the UK

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Main Light Industries Inc has appointed Architainment Lighting as the exclusive distributor for the UK and Ireland of its award-winning patent-pending SoftLED product. Architainment was formed in 2003 to distribute the Color Kinetics' range of products to both the entertainment and architectural markets, and as the SoftLED utilizes Color Kinetics' Chromasic Technology, the partnership made total sense, say the company.

SoftLED is a high quality theatrical drapery with tri-colour LEDs embedded in the material. The LEDs are virtually invisible until energized, so that the effect is as dramatic as possible. Each LED pixel (or node) is individually addressable for intensity and colour. SoftLED drapes are available with their LED nodes spaced in a number of different resolutions: Low resolution is with the LED nodes placed on 30cm centres, medium resolution is on 20cm centres,

Stage Technologies with Award Winners

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Stage Technologies provided the automation systems for three West End productions that picked up awards last Sunday at the Laurence Olivier Awards 2005. The Olivier Awards are the most prestigious awards in London theatre and are presented by the Society of London Theatre. Mary Poppins, The Woman in White and The Producers all picked up major awards, while a further 43 nominees also benefit from using Stage Technologies' automation systems, including Festen and productions at the Royal Opera House, the Barbican and the Sadler's Wells Theatre.

Over the past 10 years, Stage Technologies has made significant investment in research and development in stage engineering to keep the technology moving forward. Combining experience and imagination, they have been able to produce products that remove many limitations and add creative possibilities in live entert

Summit Rigs for Stryker in Prague

Details: 14 March 2016

Czech Republic - Summit Steel has finished an ambitious rigging project in Prague, working for production company Jigzaw, which involved design and build of a substantial rigging infrastructure and supply of equipment and crew, for the European Sales Meeting of Stryker Corporation - one of world's largest multinational medical device companies.

The event took place over three days and across five venues in the city, with Summit working in two locations - the Industrial Trade Fair Palace - a beautiful art nouveau exhibition centre dating from 1891, and the more contemporary Hilton Congress Centre. It was Summit's first event for Jigzaw; production manager Chris Venn asked them onboard after working with Summit on the 'Music on Fire' classical spectacular event at Sandhurst Military Academy in summer 2004.

At the Hilton Congress Centre, Summit's task was relatively straightforw

Wembley Arena Pavilion opens

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Wembley Arena Pavilion opened it doors in February with shows by X Factor and Westlife in the first week. Wembley Ltd contracted The Arena Group to design and build the semi-permanent venue, which has already hosted, and will continue to host some of the world's biggest music stars, until the £32m refurbishment of Wembley Stadium is completed.

The £4m temporary arena has the look and feel of a permanent building. It is insulated for heat and sound, is over 165m long, 70m wide and 17m high, with a seating capacity of 10,000, offers a VIP corporate hospitality area and full backstage production facilities for organizers.

All four divisions of the Arena Group contributed skills and resources to create this unique venue.Arena Structures supplied their TFS structure and supplementary structures to create the venue;Arena Seating supplied and installed the 10,000 seats; Aren

Chainmaster satisfies BGV D8+ standard

Details: 14 March 2016

Germany - A working party from the VPLT (Germany's trade association for professional lighting and sound equipment) and the trade association with liability for industrial safety and insurance in Germany, has just produced the new SR 2.0 safety guidelines for electric chain hoists. ChainMaster, the Eilenburg-based developer and producer of professional chain hoists and chain hoist controllers, is already in a position to meet in full the requirements of this standard: BGV D8+.

BGV D8+ is positioned between the BGV D8 and BGV C1 standards. With respect to load runs, its stipulations are the same as those of BGV D8, except that no work limit switch is required. For BGV D8+ chain hoists with rated load-bearing capacities of 1,000kg upwards, an overload shutdown function is required, whilst for BGV D8, a friction clutch can be used for overload monitoring. For BGV C1 chain hoists, t

Tomcat USA in Orbit with Duran Duran

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Duran Duran's Astronaut World Tour begins this month in the USA. to support the bands latest CD, Astronaut. Working with Upstaging, Tomcat USA designed and manufactured three custom circles in three different diameters: 13.5ft, 25.5ft and 40ft. All three are a vital part of the moving light show for this tour.

Although each circle was made using a fairly common medium duty 20.5" bolted format, the project was particularly challenging because the truss required a custom diagonal pattern to accommodate specific lighting requirements. The tour kicked off in San Juan, Puerto Rico on 8 February with more than 40 other dates through out the US before heading overseas.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

New UK Distributor for Prolyte

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Stage Electrics has been appointed UK total distributor for Prolyte trussing, Stage Dex staging and Prolyft chain hoists as of 1 March 2005. Stage Electrics will be stocking a comprehensive range of Prolyte products in its centralized stores. In fact, the company has already been gearing up for high levels of demand by taking delivery of two large shipments of stock, available for despatch on a next-day service to customers across the country.

Stage Electrics has also been appointed a Service Point for the Prolyft Performance hoists, so in addition to stocking chain hoists, Stage Electrics will have trained mechanics to service and certify hoists to comply with LOLER regulations.

Adam Blaxill, head of purchasing at Stage Electrics said: "The relationship with Prolyte has been a natural development for Stage Electrics. We have made a large investment in inventory but

The Bolshoi opts for Harlequin floors

Details: 14 March 2016

Russia - An interesting challenge was handed to Harlequin, when Russia's famous Bolshoi ballet called the dance floor supplier to provide a custom designed sprung dance floor. Unusually, the floors were to be installed on a pair of metal ballet wagons, each 15m (49' 3") x 6m (19' 7"), that when not in use were to be stored hanging vertically.

In most theatres and opera houses wagons are trucked on and off stage, but at the Bolshoi the wagons are winched to the back of the stage and hauled up into a vertical position, then dropped into a storage slot at the back of the stage until called for again. Since each of the two wagons was estimated to weigh 1.5 tonnes complete with the basketweave floor construction, Harlequin appointed structural engineers at the early design stage to calculate loads and devise special fixings to ensure the total weight was adequately supporte

New business for Stagecraft

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Stagecraft is celebrating after winning and completing a new live events contract with global pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough. Salisbury based Stagecraft has worked with Schering-Plough on a number of events over the last year and was responsible for the creative and technical management of the Company's National Business Conference in January 2005.

Colin Hurst, Head of training and development at Schering-Plough commented: "Stagecraft won the business after showing a clear understanding of our local business needs and corporate drivers. The company offered us a creative approach to our move forward, showing a clear vision of what and how our meeting would look, feel and sound."

Working with Schering-Plough, Stagecraft was responsible for the production of the conference, which was attended by 600 delegates. The company provided all creative, editorial, t

Setwear: available in Europe

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Workwear manufacturer Setwear has announced the availability of EasyFit 2 - a tough yet flexible glove made from 0.5mm synthetic leather with durable gel foam padding in the palms for extra grip and neoprene reinforcement over the knuckles for flexibility and protection, while Lycra panels between the fingers increase mobility and give extra comfort.

Machine washable and fast drying, these gloves allow you to dial your phone, tie knots and operate equipment without taking them off, say the company. The gloves "built for the needs of the technician working in the live entertainment industry" are now available from stockists in the UK and Europe.

(Lee Baldock)

Stage Electrics moves London base

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Stage Electrics London has complete the move into its new shop, after more than 12 months at its Long Lane premises. "We wanted to give our customers easier access to the facilities at Stage Electrics," says Linda Moore, head of sales and marketing for the company. "We have the added value of parking at the rear of the building where we now have customer access to the shop and hire warehouse."

There have also been some additions to the team at Long Lane. Stephen Bray has joined as sales manager for the branch. Bray has come to Stage Electrics from a background in sound, most recently at Media Tools. Also, James Morris has joined as a customer service representative after working at Vodafone. Bray and his team will shortly be holding a series of open evenings to introduce products and services now available from London.

Pictured left to right are: Ed

8-channel load display from ChainMaster.

Load indicator for BGV-D8-Plus

Details: 14 March 2016

Germany - ChainMaster of Eilenburg, the German manufacturer of chain hoists and chain hoist controllers, has developed a new eight-channel load indicator for chain hoists. The 19"/1U device is of universal application and is especially recommended for use with a BGV-D8 chain-hoist controller, which can be upgraded with the load indicator to BGV-D8-Plus.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

Serious Structures backs the bid

Details: 14 March 2016

UK - Serious Stages was brought in to design and build the bespoke structure that's housing the high profile 'London 2012 Bid Experience' in Trafalgar Square, and also designed and fabricated the adjacent 9m high statue of an athlete. The structure is part of a public awareness raising initiative for the City's bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

The walk-through project, wholly funded by Ballymore Properties, was conceived and led by PR agency Fleishman-Hillard on behalf of Ballymore. Serious was asked onboard by production company Vibe, which is working with RPMC on staging the event. It remains at the high profile Trafalgar Square location for two weeks before moving on to Canary Wharf for a further two weeks. Serious's project manager is Steven Corfield.

The 15m wide, 22m long and 8m high custom-designed building provides 300sq.m of exhibition space a

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