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Blackout at the G20 Summit
As a result of their long and successful working relationship, Blackout was invited by production company WRG to take on the drapes and rigging aspects of the G20 Summit held at London's ExCel Exhibition Centre.
Ken Nock, Blackout's project manager, was responsible for co-ordinating the entire infrastructure of the exercise. This meant the accurate interpretation of WRG's brief, plotting the entire rigging and draping and the meticulous planning of all the equipment.
Ken Nock said: "We had to be absolutely faultless in co-ordinating which trucks were going where. A total of eleven trucks were required to transport everything to ExCel. Each truck had a specific destination area, it's contents colour-coded and manifest in detail for security purposes. Trucks arrived, were unloaded by local crew, and we were able to get cherry pickers active in the air within ten minutes of our arrival. The rigging of the event was crucial to all the other disciplines involved in the project - including lighting and sound - we had to work quickly and efficiently. And we had to get it right first time."
The components for the project included 500 chain hoists, 3,200 metres of truss, 16,500 sq metres of black wool serge drape and almost 5,000 sq metres of white voile. Amongst many flown set pieces Blackout also flew a 130' long solid passageway ceiling built by Stage One in one single lift.
This exercise was made all the more challenging by the coming and going of the same equipment being used on other jobs right up until the final truck was loaded. Blackout's 23-strong crew took just two days to deliver and successfully install the main bulk of equipment for the G20 summit.
Ken Nock was immensely proud of the Blackout team effort. "Everyone rose to the challenge, gave everything they'd got and pulled together as one," he said.
Blackout received nothing but praise for their part in this prestigious, high-profile project. As Ken said: "It was a privilege to be working with the ‘crème de la crème' of productions teams, everyone working on this job had a clearly-defined responsibility.
21st May 2009
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