At Newmarket, the Serious team designed a flat roofed stage tailored neatly to fit in between the two main grandstands. It was the first season Serious has worked at this venue and with Liz Hobbs, and the aim was to reduce the stage height from previous years, making it a more comfortable viewing angle, to maximise the available space, and to dovetail the flat roof of the temporary stage neatly in with the grandstands either side if it.
The project was managed for serious by Dragan Kuzmanov. The 40 ft wide by 48 ft deep stage and aluminium roof structure were built on 4 steel tower legs, with the roof sloping away to the rear, to ensure any water drained away safely from the performance area.
The PA and front lighting bars were cantilevered at 10 ft out from the front of the roof, and along the stage left side, an access tunnel was designed in to the plan, right through to the back, for access when the stage was not in use and to get into the pit when it was in use.
The load-bearing capacity was two tonnes per cross stage truss, the 13 trusses giving a total distributed weight loading of 26 tonnes in total - enough to take most medium to large productions. The roof itself weighed 3 tonnes.
(Jim Evans)
