"We've worked with Unusual many times before, and we know they always do a fantastic job," says event director Rachel French. "The show is Channel 4's roundup of the year's highlights in music, TV film, featuring three presenters and 15 live music acts - so it was bound to be big - with stunts and special effects.
"Our designer, lighting designer and CAD artist all work closely with Ruthie Buchanan, Unusual's Earls Court service manager, to make sure everyone knows what's happening and agree where things need to be rigged. Unusual are incredibly easy to work with, and quick to work out solutions to challenges."
The advantage to Unusual being the in-house rigging supplier is that points can be pre-rigged before Done & Dusted arrive for the three-day fit up and with the added bonus that some of the truss and hoists could be pre rigged early, meant there was less for the event production manager, Tony Wheeler, to concern himself with - and more time for the other contractors to work once they arrived.
"As far as I was concerned," continues French, "we only had a couple of challenges - trying to work out if we were best to front or rear project onto the main stage screen; and how best to hang the new LED screen configuration. However, Ruthie's amazing at her job and it was all resolved without any issues.
"We had one special stunt: one of the presenters, Steve Jones, was leaving the show, so Channel 4 wanted to fly him out of the arena. Unusual's project manager Steve Porter helped organise the act, which involved a combination of motorised winches and a long line of truss. The client thought it was amazing, and the stunt looked great on camera. The kids in the audience went mad."
As well as the 91 points that Unusual fixed to the ceiling, they also supplied and rigged 84 hoists and over 340m of trussing. Head rigger was Paul Rhodes.
(Jim Evans)
