SEPTEMBER | SECTOR FOCUS
“There have been some
very wet and windy
festival sites. This has
emphasised the need
for robust stages and
site structures with full
engineering calculations”
and built staging and rigging
for major music, sporting
and cultural events in the UK
and Europe for more than
40 years. Mobile Promotions
were industry pioneers in the
use of mobile trailers, road
shows and brand activations.
Beautiful Minds created a new
breed of event staffing and
brand ambassador agency and
BluePeg have reimagined brand
partnerships for music and
festivals.
STAGE CRAFT
Serious Stages’ director Max
Corfield updates Access about its
blockbuster summer
This summer has been superbly
busy. There have been a couple
of notable instances where
we have supported clients’
personalisation of our products
to suit their events and give
their audiences a better
experience, which is something
we have been increasingly
focused on in recent years.
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At Download Festival we
introduced a new fabricated
four storey front-of-house
steel structure incorporating a
curved large LED screen support
beam on the back wall. This was
designed and manufactured
at our Wells headquarters in
response to a request from Live
Nation to make a feature out
of the front of house technical
mixing position.
The structure has improved
strength to increase wind
and weight capacity over the
traditional scaff based tower
system, so it can accommodate
VIP viewing platforms on the
top two floors, along with the
weight of a giant curved LED
screen that creates a very
immersive viewing experience
to the audience further way
from the main stage.
For Glastonbury Festival
we produced a double header
banner structure ‘framing’ the
Park Stage, which was one of our
Supanova stages. This creating
a creatively dressed extended
stage frontage in response to
the designers wishes to give the
Park Area its own distinctive
look.
This summer has presented
us with some weather-related
logistical challenges – along
with the rest of the outdoor
sector. There have been some
very wet and windy festival
sites. This has emphasised the
need for robust stages and site
structures with full engineering
calculations designed to
withstand inclement weather
and be safe in these conditions.
Serious has built a great
reputation on delivering systems
that withstand the UK weather.
From a crewing and logistical
perspective, it has been testing
time for our crews out on the
road and our logistics team in
the office, who have been stars at
the core of our delivering a busy
summer of shows. They have
had to be very flexible to match
our clients’ requirements around
changeable build schedules
and that becomes significant
with cancellations such as
Boardmasters, which have a
significant impact on people and
equipment movement. We’ve
been doing this for 35 years and
while we are confident in our
ability, it still keeps us on our
toes and relies of a great group of
people behind the scenes.