Innovation - Driving Dock Rock Success

To help celebrate the return of The British International Motor Show to London the organisers ILMC (International Motor Industry Events Limited) staged a series of outdoor concerts which ran alongside the main exhibition.

The nine day music festival featured a different act each night and during the day time Motor Theatre shows entertained the crowds with performances including breath-taking stunts and tricks.

The initiative was designed to attract a secondary audience to the Motor Show and the line-up was targeted to appeal to the show's key audience of car buyers. Promoter Harvey Goldsmith was brought in to stage the concerts and bring in names like:

• A-HA
• Van Morrison
• UB40
• Roxy Music
• Simple Minds
• Sugababes
• Katherine Jenkins with The National Symphony Orchestra
• Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra

It was the first time that a major public exhibition has created a series of concerts alongside the main event and early signs are that this innovation (along with a host others) was a great success. Attendance levels grew by over 17% since the last UK motor show.

It was also the first time that ExCeL London has hosted live outdoor concerts and as production manager Robbie Wilson of R&R Logistics explains they really had to start from scratch.

“I was brought in by Harvey Goldsmith to manage the event logistics including health and safety….but before I could even begin with site design and construction we had to totally flatten a derelict wasteland to make it fit for purpose”

“We used over 200 tonnes of concrete and 180 tonnes of motorway grade tarmac to rebuild the space. During the day Motor Theatre productions required the arena for stunts, spins and turns so it had to be able to take a lot of stick…then each evening audiences of between four and five thousand would arrive and we had to turn the site around within two hours”

“Needless to say I had enough on my plate so it was a blessing when I hired in ELP. From a single source I was able to get all the production lighting, rigging, site power management, production facilities and they designed and built a fantastic stage. Their one stop shop approach makes it so much easier to manage a complex project….I don’t think that any other company could supply such a comprehensive service”

Lighting

ELP supplied a varied range of lighting for the series of concerts. Known less these days for their involvement with concert lighting, the company have kept up to date with all the latest Rock n Roll technology as they continually supply this range of equipment into the Television industry. Indeed, they pioneered the cross over of touring systems into TV and outside broadcast.

ELP’s LD for this job, Andy Liddle, produced a flexible design to accommodate nine separate acts. Each act brought their own LD to operate the show with Andy standing by to look after them. He created a conventional rock n roll grid which was versatile enough to give each guest LD enough scope to ‘get creative’.
Andy explains “…With the correct level of preparation and pre planning you can pretty much give everyone what they want. It was really helpful that ELP have such a large stock range to choose from and were happy to keep additional stores down on site so that we could accommodate any additional requirements”

Andy made sure that there were enough variables on the board and he recited the equipment list without pausing for breath….

“…we took 28 six lamp bars, a bunch of Mac 600’s, and Mac 2000’s, over 20 source 4’s, 12 single floor cans, 8 bars of ALC’s, 6 pixel pars, 10 pixel lines, 8 city colours for architectural illumination, but best of all, we had 4 red beacons at the top of the stage structure as we were only 300 meters from the start of London City Airport runway and the stage was right on the flight path!”

Power

ELP’s Dickie Hindz was the head electrician on site and distributed over 1 Meg of power.

He designed and supervised power distribution for both daytime and evening shows and connected up every element of site from the catering through to the arena lighting and emergency exits, from the stage to the production offices and spot tower.

Mobile Facilities

ELP’s Mobile Production Trailers provided two comfortable dressing rooms and a production office for Harvey Goldsmith’s team, as well as another production office for the daytime Motor Theatre show. The smart, spacious, self contained units were driven into position and rapidly deployed on site. Many artists have commented on how much nicer they are than being given a couple of Portacabins, as often happens on festival sites. More importantly in the record breaking summer heat, were the integral air conditioning units.
Particularly innovative was ELP’s front of house spot tower. This mobile self climbing unit arrived on its own purpose built trailer. Driven into position with follow spots pre installed and tested before elevation. This provided obvious logistical advantages and saved a considerable amount of set up time.

Structures and Staging

By far the biggest star of the show (from a production point of view!) was the Dock Rock stage.

Robbie Wilson’s brief from the motor show organisers was to find a brand new, high tech stage that had a quality finish. “They wanted to present a smart corporate image” says Robbie “a lot of stage systems look tatty once you get up close. With a relatively intimate venue we had to be choosey.”

Another consideration in the design brief was to find a flexible system which gave the client maximum working space inside and provided the widest audience viewing area.

ELP MD Ronan Willson responded with an innovative bespoke design solution. Using a combination of standard and custom built equipment such as shiny silver supamega truss and 15 inch towers, he suspended a GP arch to give a smooth open span roof. It looked ultra modern, and provided a huge internal clearspan. Various methods were then employed to increase the loading capacity of the multiple arches.

Project manager Toby Dare comments “As anyone who has worked on outdoor stages knows, many stages have restrictions caused by supporting structures between the performing area, and the all important wings which hide all the technical equipment that make a show come to life. We have been mindful of the needs of the monitor engineer the dimmer man, and the back line technician, all of whom normally need to fight their corner, and squeeze into spaces dictated by scaff bays. Our clear span approach means they all have room to work and the stage manager has space for his rolling risers… Or other scenic elements. There is even enough height to create flying effects if needed.”
The stage provides an impressive 21 metre wide clear span and a trim height of approx 15 metres. Stage depth is impressive too. It can be configured to integrate a proscenium arch therefore giving the system a wide appeal to all sorts of production types from theatre, to classical concert, opera performances and rock shows.

The onsite build was made easier because ELP were able to pre build the stage and lay out the lighting rig in their Hanger on the Alconbury Airfield. This gave them complete control of logistics. They were able to time everything accurately, unload at their own pace and generally be totally in control. They even used their own transport fleet to ship the materials onto the docklands site. 14 ELP Arctic’s delivered all the materials for the build.

Toby Dare was keen to point out that “this is just one of 6 stage design and build projects ELP have running during July alone . We have built staging systems for Sport Relief down in Brighton and London, BBC’s Dancing In The Street live broadcast show from Trafalgar Square, a large corporate event for JP Morgan, and the Walk for Life in Hyde Park. This is an area were we are able to innovate and create structures for a variety of production styles.”