Triple E's managing director David Edelstein awarded the TDRIVE prize to two Guildhall students, Seb Matthews, and Sam Gosling, who rigged one of Triple E's popular motorised Unitrack systems the fastest. The ABTT competition was held as part of Triple E's 30th birthday celebrations, and attracted a lot of interest. Other participants included the Brit School, Imperial College, and Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts, Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and teams from Flint Hire and Supply and Northern Light.
Guildhall's Seb and Sam completed the rigging challenge in 11 minutes 50 seconds - a full one minute 10 seconds faster than the nearest challenger.
The TDRIVE is now in use at Guildhall's Silk Street Theatre, and Milton Court, to complement the school's existing Triple E Unitrack systems.
"Congratulations to Seb and Sam, and Guildhall, for winning one of Triple E's robust, reliable, user-friendly and powerful plug and play TRDIVE motors - the students utterly deserved to win following their speedy work at the rigging challenge," says Edelstein. "We're thrilled to be able to offer this prize to help emerging, young backstage enthusiasts in their work, equipping the next generation of theatre technicians with the best kit on the market!"
The TDRIVE is designed for use with Triple E's Unitrack and Unibeam products, and can be used with straight and curved systems. TDRIVE incorporates the control electronics in the motor housing assembly, meaning that all power and control cables simply plug into the motor housing with no onsite wiring required.
Sam Gosling comments, "We took on the Triple E ABTT challenge by chance after seeing other teams giving it a go, and I'm so glad we did! We have a lot of Triple E equipment in Guildhall, and use it all the time. It's just so practical, bespoke and usable in different situations. We've been working to fully automate our theatres but there were still elements of manual tracking, so now with the TDRIVE our buildings will be fully automated which is really exciting. It felt great to win - and it's a testament to Guildhall teaching."
Seb Matthews continues, "We transfer a lot of our equipment between both the Silk Street Theatre and Milton Court. The TDRIVE's compact size and plug and play ability makes it a perfect piece of equipment to use at both venues."
Ben Sumner director of technical theatre at Guildhall adds, "The TDRIVE is a great addition to our theatres," says Sumner. "We can start integrating the tracked movement with what we can already do with the flying movement, which will allow us to create much more interesting effects. We will certainly be using the TDRIVE in both venues. I've been using Triple E products all my life. For me, their products really are the gold standard. It is a trusted brand."
David Edelstein is now opening the Triple E Time Trial Rigging Challenge as an annual event at the ABTT Theatre Show aimed predominantly at schools and colleges.
"Triple E has a long history of supporting the industry, and this is another fun way of us doing just that," says Edelstein. "We look forward to seeing you at ABTT Theatre Show next year at Alexandra Palace."
(Jim Evans)
