ELP help to stage ‘Upstaged’ for BBC Three

Millennium Square in Bristol, part of the City’s multi million pound harbour side rejuvenation project, is home to a new BBC entertainment event called ‘Upstaged’ between February and March 2008

Conceived by production company Endemol and presented by Scott Mills. It's open to anyone across the country who thinks they're worth watching. In short, it's like having your own studio where you can broadcast what you want to the nation live on the internet.

A fully interactive, live, online and TV broadcast event

Every week day Contenders go head-to-head on two specially built glass stages in the middle of Millennium Square. Here, they try to entertain the nation for up to 8 hours. Their acts are shown via live web steam on the Upstaged website and featured in a BBC3 highlights show.
After scrutinising their performance, the public will vote for their favourite act and the winner will stay on. The champion will perform again the next day with a new challenger brought forward to try and ‘upstage’ them. Contenders can be alone or in groups, professional or amateur, entertainer or intellectual, the best of the best or the best of the worst.

There are two stages, each housed in a 'glass' box, where the acts will perform. The stages themselves make up an 100ft structure weighing in at a massive 25 tonnes. One stage is orange and the other decked out in purple, with each act in charge of their stage 'set'. They are designed for complete interaction between the online community, live audience and on-stage acts. There are digital clocks inside the boxes so the acts know how long they've been on, and plasma screens to display messages or requests from the Upstaged community, for a fully interactive event.

Modern, quirky structures but not out of place in Millennium Square

The unique glass box studios conceived by set designer Julian Fullalove and structurally interpreted by ELP’s managing director Ronan Willson, look very futuristic. Yet they also feel like they belong amongst the other innovative buildings around Millennium Square. “This was something that struck me when I went on the ‘recce’" comments Ronan.

“The area is home to @-Bristol science expo and the innovative Explore building, and it is all linked to the waterfront by a series of public squares which feature original water and light installations, sculptures, a planetarium and public artworks." Julian’s brief was to create a ‘modernist’ building inspired by the Barcelona Pavilion which has proved perfect for the location.

Wind, rain, freezing temperatures and very expensive pavements

ELP test built the stage structure at their massive hanger facility in Alconbury and were able to resolve any technical difficulties before arriving on site. But something Ronan and the ELP crew could not have foreseen was the terrible weather conditions for almost the entire two weeks of the build. “they were some of the coldest, wettest and windiest days of the year” comments Ronan.

It seems as though nothing was straightforward about the build. For example, the flagstones in Millennium square cost £400 per square metre so the crew had to be immensely careful. Endemol production staff were obviously keen not to upset the local council. “Everything had to be transported very carefully” comments Ronan. “For example, our telehandlers had to be fitted with plastic tyre covers to avoid marking the stones and our ramps and other equipment all had to be padded.”

Another consideration was that there was an underground car park beneath the square which meant that there was a maximum loading capacity of 1000kg per sq m. So instead of the usual dozen or so base plate legs which would normally support a stage structure of this size and weight, the ELP team had to fit over one hundred extra legs to distribute the load to within acceptable limits.

“I think the Endemol production team appreciated our extra efforts” concludes Ronan.

Two performance stages lit entirely with Fluorescents and LEDs

It was at the test build production meeting that ELP’s John Singer showed Lighting Director Nick Collier a range of brand new ChromaFloods that ELP have recently bought. Nick was concerned that key-lighting people in the glass boxes was going to prove problematic “but the new generation of Pulsar ChromaFlood 200 TC did the job very well” said Nick. “They produce mixed colour within the LED unit, eliminating multicoloured point sources and multicoloured shadows. Also you get full remote DMX control of RGB levels to allow endless colour mixing.”

This last point was particularly important to the LD because each of the contestants could bring in what they liked to dress their stage. Nick continues “They can have it exactly how they want it. We had no idea what was going inside the boxes from day to day”

Some of the more professional artists requested specific colour changes and the LD would oblige. But mostly the amateur performers would just concentrate on their acts and leave tempo and colour changes to the LD and board operator.

Low heat emissions and low maintenance

Another useful feature of LED lighting for this specific application was their low head emissions. “The acts are on for six hours straight so the glass box studios would simply get to hot if any other type of predominant lighting were used.” Remarks the LD.

With the acts ‘turns’ lasting so long it was a good thing that the LED fixtures are incredibly low maintenance. The equipment list included assorted Pixel Pars, Chroma Banks and Chroma Strips. Even though these LEDs pulled very little power, an ELP twin set generator was on hand to provide power for the whole site including production offices, edit suites and live broadcast feed.

Nick Collier was full of praise for the ELP crew, not only for the way they coped in adversity on the painstaking build but also the way they were able to find bespoke solutions to specific structural and electrical issues on site. For example, ELP built some bespoke dimmable fluorescent boxes to an exact specification for the LD. Also ELP designed and built air conditioning vents under the stage floor to stop condensation on the glass walls and to regulate the temperature for the comfort of the acts during their six hour stint.

“That’s the thing with ELP.” Concludes Nick Collier “You can get all this production knowledge, technical expertise and range of equipment all from a single source”