Festival of Flight
On 14 August, Blenheim Palace opened its gates for Europe's largest and most spectacular 1940s revival of flight, music, dance, fashion, mock battles, living history and period theatre.
This day commemorated the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II and was attended by over twenty thousand visitors.
ELP’s production team, headed up by Toby Dare, were called in by show organisers Flight Festivals to design and build a range of temporary structures. These were to span the extensive grounds at Blenheim and included:
• Screen support structure for a 60 square metre video screen. With a lifting capacity of over 6 tonnes the structure was made from Super Mega Truss.
• Bespoke bandstand structure and stage deck with custom made roof canopy.
• 2 x PA delay support masts. These 12 metre structures were constructed with a profile of only 30cm so not to obstruct audience views.
• Control tower and PA platform which was used as a commentary position, look out post and aircraft control centre.
As Project manager Toby Dare explains the ELP team were able to deploy these structures quickly and safely.
“We test built and refined all the structures in our warehouse hanger at Alconbury and were able to set up very quickly once we arrived on site. The PA towers only took a couple hours each to erect and because we have an extensive range of stock rigging and trussing components the custom built bandstand connected together beautifully. It looked fantastic and much more appropriate than your standard rock festival stage. Its just the job for any outdoor classical music performance!”
….He continues “Across all structures we made use of the unique Layher Scaffolding System. We used Layher scaff levelling jacks to stabilise the bandstand and to provide a fail safe clamping mechanism for the PA towers. The big video screen had a footprint made from Layher scaff which housed iron shot ballast ”
All the on site power was also provided by ELP using four of their mobile generator units. These fed power to the PA systems, video screen, hospitality tents, catering and OB units in the production compound. The main focus of the day was centred around a three hour air display combining aerobatics and rare military fly pasts.
As project manager Toby Dare explains this presented some interesting power distribution challenges.
“Most of the grounds at Blenheim allowed free crowd access as many of the days ‘performances’ happened in the air. The production areas merged with the crowd. Rather than have a centralised distribution hub we decided to divide the site up into four smaller sets. Our mobile generators easily coped with the undulating terrain. We even have a 4x4 vehicle which can virtually access anywhere, so positioning was not a problem. Our Super Silent unit looked after the bandstand area and our fail safe twin sets looks after critical areas such as the flight control tower and video screen.”
He concludes. “At Blenheim, in addition to all the power and structures, we also supplied the organisers with mobile production offices. Our portable production units mean that we can give clients an instant base from which to start co-ordinating on site activities. A real bonus when you are working to tight deadlines.”
The Festival of Flight crew were
Project Manager/Crew Chief – Toby Dare
Riggers – Richard Estridge and Bill Maclin
Scaffolder – Boris Fletcher
Generator Operator – James Beckett
Rigging Electrician – Mark ‘Scratch’ Hitchcock
