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A Serious Date for Proms In The Park Glasgow
The Scottish Symphony Orchestra took to the stage at Glasgow Green as part of the BBC’s Last Night Of the Proms live broadcast around the UK.
Serious Stages supplied a 30 metre four-bay Space Roof to the event. It was the largest of five different stages around the county hosting regional events coinciding with the action taking place in the Proms’ traditional venue, London’s Royal Albert Hall.
Following previous staging problems, the BBC’s remit was for an aesthetic and weather resistant stage and given the fact that the space roof is among the most wind and weather resistant stages currently available, it made the perfect choice.
Serious’s team of 30 riggers was crew chiefed by Steve ‘Vic’ McConnell and Jeremy Mosdell with project manager Kenny Falconer of First Stage on hand to provide local expertise. They erected the structure in rapid time, starting the build on Sunday evening and handing the stage over by 5pm on Wednesday, in time for the BBC’s load-in and rehearsals to commence. Another of the reasons that Serious won the contract - the first year they have supplied the event – was because they were the only company that believed they could meet these extremely tight deadlines.
The Space Roof was 20 metres deep and offered an 11 metre trim height for lighting. Serious also supplied two 12 metre wide by 15 metre high goalpost towers for PA hangs (supplied by Edinburgh-based The Warehouse) and video screens (supplied by CT Screenco). This all weighed 3 tonnes – well under the 12 tonne capacity of the towers, and was also rigged by the Serious crew.
Onstage, they supplied orchestral risers and rigged a series of flown scenic pieces. Four of Serious’s new off stage areas were utilised for monitor and dimmer positions as well as storage. At front-of-house, they built two structures – a spot tower and camera platform, both 4 metres high. The lighting and audio FOH positions were situated on the lower decks of these towers.
Serious’s brief additionally involved the provision and building of a 16 metre long by 2.4 metre wide camera track in the pit, plus three sets of stage access and a loading ramp.
Serious chief engineer Dragan Kuzmanov was on site to ensure that Glasgow City Council Building Control were fully satisfied with the wind and weight loading of the structure.
“The biggest challenge” explains Falconer, “was the tight timescale and the truly abysmal weather conditions on the Tuesday, which really hampered progress. However, some great teamwork resulted in everyone pulling out all the stops and working tirelessly to ensure the deadlines were met.”
Serious also supplied the Welsh Proms event in Swansea with an 18 metre, three-bay Orbit system.
26th September 2006
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