Technical Design for Touring Productions
Thoughts about the technical design process for touring productions.
Temporary structures
Temporary structures are used extensively in touring productions and may include staging systems, roof systems and scenery.
All structures are designed to be installed and removed within a very compressed time scale (often within days or a week).
This is due to the high associated costs of venue hire, skilled crew, plant and the necessity to transport the production to the next venue.
A production will have high fixed costs with financial income only provided when the venue is actually open to the public or invited guests.
Examples of fixed costs include lighting, sound, rigging & video rental. There will always be pressure to compress the ‘downtime’ of the production in order to ensure maximum profits or brand exposure.
Component connection methods
All components should be designed to aid a fast installation and removal process.
- Stage scaffold systems
Two well known brands within the entertainment industry are Layher and RMD Kwikform and their derivatives.
They both feature quick connections which allows for fast assembly time. - Deck connectors
Stage decks are commonly joined with Coffin Locks or Roto Locks.
Decks are locked together by inserting a hex tool through a small hole in the top surface and then rotating 90 degrees.
Deck systems can be built quickly with only the use of very simple tools and no nuts & bolts.
This photo shows a rolling riser built for the Rolling Stones 2002 tour. You can see the slots for Coffin Locks on the vertical face of the Stage Decks.
Transport & Packaging
The key factor to address is how the equipment will travel and pack into trucks, containers and air freight pallets.
Systems must be designed to fit into trucks with a ‘tight’ pack to avoid wasted space.
The following photo shows three set dollies packed into a container. Note the use of high capacity castors and pairs of channels welded to the bottom to allow forklifts safe and quick access.
Dollies
Dollies are prefabricated steel framed containers which are designed to protect the equipment during transport, and allow the equipment to be easily moved by hand or forklift when on the site.
This photo shows a dolly which contained a section of track ‘I’ beam with cable tripes and cable rollers preloaded. The whole ‘I’ beam and cables were lifted vertically from the dolly when positioned on stage by chain hoists.
This allowed a complex and vulnerable part of the system to be travelled safely.
Flight Cases
Flight cases are commonly used to protect equipment during transit and can contain expensive electronics like drive racks, amplifiers and dimmer racks.
The flight cases are fitted with swivel wheels and removable front and rear lids.
The following photo shows a row of automation drive racks protected by flight cases.
Steel
‘Steel’ refers in touring to the basic tower and staging systems which form the foundation for each production. These elements can take many days to build due to their scale and therefore follow a different itenary to the main production.
So the ‘Steel’ element may build a low flat stage 500mm high and then add in a roof tower system to ensure when the main production arrives there is a level stage and some protection from rain.
Steel leap frogging
The time taken to build and remove the ‘Steel’ means that large tours will use three sets of the same equipment. Assume that the three systems of identical ‘Steel’ are called Red, Yellow and Blue.
In one city the Red ‘Steel’ system is being used on a show day, in another city the Yellow system is being erected, and in a third city the Blue system is being taken down before being transported onto the next city.
This system is expensive due to the obvious increases in crew, transport and equipment, but allows a large touring production to perform in many citys.
The following photo shows three ‘Steel’ trucks from a U2 tour in 2002, loaded with tower truss, stage decks and base tower systems.
Tags: dollie, flight case, kwikform, layher, stage, technical design