Gavin Weatherall, managing director and founder of the Rigging Partnership - the company responsible for turning initial artistic concepts into a workable production reality explains a bit about the initial brief for Westlife: "Having worked on the band’s World of Our Own tour, I fully expected them to want to include some rather challenging effects. They knew that they wanted to perform on a stage that could enable them to fly over the length and breadth of the venue above their fans, and it was my job to make this happen for them."
The Rigging Partnership turned to automation specialist Stage Technologies, who had recently worked on Janet Jackson’s ‘All for You’, Peter Gabriel’s current ‘Growing Up’ and Westlife’s 2002 tour ‘World of Our Own’ tours, which had 20 250kg Big Tow winches controlling the effects. Their 2003 solution included installing a 1000kg patented BigTow winch to lift the main platform and the boys above the audience, and a BigTow and two tracking motors to move the flying stage out nearly 200ft (61m) over the venue in a traversing action. Consultant and design engineer Mike Barnet worked with Weatherall to develop an anti-swing device to ensure the stage stayed steady enough for the band to perform. Operator Graham Coffey was responsible for controlling these complex manoeuvres using Stage Technologies’ Acrobat console; the production rigger for the effect was Jerry Hough.
Weatherall commented: "The back-up and support received from Stage Technologies onsite is second to none and the technology in terms of software and winches allows for the creation of effects that quite simply even their nearest rivals do not match."
(Lee Baldock)
