ELP create groundbreaking theatre grid

ELP, regarded as pioneers in structural design applications within Film, Television and live concert circles, have recently installed a temporary theatre grid into The Royal Festival Hall which will significantly improve rigging efficiency for touring theatre productions.

Over the Christams and New Year period, Russia's Stanislavski Ballet company ran productions of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake at The Royal Festival Hall.

Although the Festival Hall is normally a concert Platform, (i.e. no Proscenium arch or flying grid) it has, for several years now, taken in traditional theatre productions such as Ballets Pantomimes and Opera's. Typically rigging contractors are brought in to transform the hall into a working proscenium arch theatre, with a flying grid and track system for moving scenery and lighting during performances.

ELP were approached to take on this challenging project by Head of Production Andy Scorgie, and Production Manager Ken Francey. Having looked at the way other companies tackled the project in the past, ELP's design team, of MD Ronan Willson, AutoCAD wizard Tim Williamson, and Project manager Toby Dare, came up with a unique approach which eliminated most of the problems encountered by previous systems.

Advantages to the ELP theatre grid system:

* Creates a shallower profile
* Has unrestricted potential for fixing positions
* Offers a continuous slide mechanism
* Provides a great alternative to a fly tower
* Quick to install and easy to de rig.
* Highly flexible and adaptable to venue or style of production

A supertruss structure, interlaced with a series of aluminium 'I' beams, increased the height the grid could fly to by a valuable 6 inches. "The 'I' beams provide almost infinite variability of bar configuration. "We didn't have all of the weight information we needed from Moscow, so we had to design a cover all system which could cope with anything" Informed project manager Toby Dare.

The venue is a grade 1 listed building and therefore special working considerations had to be observed. No permanent fixings to the building could be made, so all the counterweight lines and cleat rail fixings had to be weighted down via a specially designed fly rail. ELP made use of their compact iron ore ballast units to provide weight without wasting valuable space.

The 24m wide, by 12m deep grid supported nearly half a Kilometre of Tab track bought for the occasion. A unique quick hanging coupler system was designed to make the hanging and adjustment of the system as easy and possible. In addition to the 24 tab track lines, 11 hemp line lifting bars were also installed. Three of these became motor assist bars when the full weight of the Ballets set pieces became known. The lighting bars were all on fixed pipes, but ELP provided access equipment, and PPE systems to ensure access to all fixtures.

Part of ELP's brief was also to provide all the black drape and Tabs, needed to create the all Important Proscenium arch. They also supplied all the Black Legs and Borders, and a raft of masking drape, to ensure the magic of theatre wasn't betrayed by glimpses of fly rails, or truss.

Installation was lead by Project Manager Toby Dare, with a team of 5 riggers. Because of other concerts scheduled in the Hall, the system was hung over three night shifts, before a one-day fix of the Russian Company's set. During the initial rigging time the crew hung all the bars for both productions (Swan Lake & The Nutcracker), to ensure the turn around between the two productions was as quick and smooth as possible.

The benefit of having your own rehearsal space

"Things were made considerably easier for the build team, as we had a pre-production period in studio space at Millennium Studios, Elstree. We built and labelled the grid before we went to the Royal Festival Hall, having these in house facilities makes life on site a lot more efficient." Remarks Toby Dare.

After they had been working on the Rigging project for a couple of weeks, ELP were also approached to dry hire lighting, and effects. Production Manager John Singer took over this side of the job and provided all dimmers, cable source 4 Profiles, Pars, colour ram scrollers, moving lights, follow spots and snow effect projectors. In addition to Lighting ELP also supplied 8 Snow machines to help create the appropriate setting.

In conclusion Toby Dare, ELP's Project Manager, said, "Although we are not as well known for our work on theatre productions, I think we have proved that a fresh approach can work wonders. Our engineering and design experience, coupled with the flexibility of our crew, have made this job run very smoothly.
This new grid design will really benefit touring theatre productions as we can now offer theatre the same amount of flexibility as Rock n' Roll or TV.
…Dare concludes "I am sure that venues with a similar set up to The Royal Festival Hall will want to talk to us. Being able to provide a complex rigging service, as well as a complete lighting package, puts us in a very unique position in the market place.