Cirque du Soleil's senior production manager for arena shows Pierre Guillotte explains, "Conversations first started with Stageco in August 2011, with the system first being used mid-February; an impressive turnaround. When looking to extend the reach of our tours we looked at the suitability of many arena venues, some have capacity but there are a significant number of buildings that cannot accommodate us. Our research and scouting has taken us into emerging markets from Eastern Europe to the Far East, where people are starving for entertainment. They have buildings with plenty of height, but no engineering / rigging capacity to hang a 40 tonne show, the Arena Lift means we can now access these new markets. It's a great product."
Arena Lift is based around four hydraulic lifting units that form the anchors at the corners of the ground support towers. It has been designed with user-friendly touring features. Four Stageco crew can load in and raise a 25m square mother grid in 12 hours, compact for efficient packing to give cost-effective transport and make loading in through small venue entrances possible.
Stageco's project director Dirk De Decker says: "Our research & development department has flipped the approach to installing a ground support system, with the new hydraulic lift building the towers from the ground up and pushing the structure up as each 1m section is added from the ground. There is capacity for the production to be rigged to the mother grid at ground level and then raised. Clearly a great advantage with regards to safety and reducing manpower levels."
(Jim Evans)
