LSi: 1985-2015 - 30 Years as the Industry’s favourite magazine!

December 2015 entertainment, presentation, installation

www.lsionline.co.uk

Stages

PLUS: L-Acoustics: The X Factor • Philips Entertainment’s Partner ConferenceNorth by Northwest, Melbourne • Profile: MDG Fog • Spectre Premiere, RAH . . . and more!

Also Inside:

Imagine Dragons The full show production report

Brit Row at 40Evolving markets & future training

Sinatra, Man & MusicStufish puts Frank back on stage

Review: LDI 2015The round-up from Las Vegas

John Napier’sexhibition in

pictures

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Theatre has always tended to build what itneeds, when it needs it. Sets, in particular, arebespoke, one-off creations, made specificallyfor a show, destined for the skip when theshow’s over. As technology came to scenery -to help make it move, rotate or perform othertheatrical magic, that technology was alsocustom-engineered each time, the samesolutions often re-invented over and over again.

To Mark Ager and John Hastie, the founders ofa small upstart company called StageTechnologies, this seemed wasteful. WithAcrobat (a classic for another day) they’dalready shown the value of creating anautomation desk that, just like a lighting desk,was show-agnostic. It seemed that the sameshould be true at the mechanical end.Specifically, why not create a standard winchthat could be used in a wide variety ofapplications?

They found an ally in mechanical engineer MikeBarnett, the realiser of the scenic spectacularsof John Napier and a first candidate for‘backstage legend’ should we ever start thatcolumn. In aiming for a winch that could beused anywhere in a theatre, Barnett wasadamant that one dimension must be as smallas possible so it could be squeezed into tightspaces, rather than the roughly cubic volumemost existing winches occupied.

This led to a long, narrow design, and as part ofthat a drum that tracked as it rotated, ensuringthe cable always left the drum at the same point- so a ‘zero fleet’ winch. At 200mm wide thewinch roughly matched the spacing of manycounterweight systems, letting it fit in whenused as a counterweight assist to move flownscenery. But 200mm was also the height ofmany temporary show decks being installed forproductions; the winch, mounted on its side inthe floor could be used to drive tracked scenery.And despite its compact dimensions, it couldhandle 125kg at up to 1.5m/s.

Of course, an idea is not enough. You need a prototype. And, if you’re a young company, asStage Technologies was back in 1994, you alsoneed a client willing to take a chance on you. Thatclient was Cameron Mackintosh, who had a newproduction of Oliver! heading for the Palladiumand requiring automation for both flown andtracked scenery. A demonstration was set up thatsaw the prototype moving a trolley filled with solid3” steel bars across a factory floor. Despite a minor mishap involving one section of the steelfalling onto John Hastie’s big toe, and so a quicktrip to A&E, the production manager wasconvinced, an order was signed, and ten wincheswere built and supplied to the show.

Perhaps the foot incident inspired the product’sname: more likely it was function instantly

summarised, but either way it was perfect:BigTow. The design, and later updates of it tocreate a range encompassing 60kg to 2.5tonnepayloads at speeds from 300mm/s to 12m/s,have found many applications beyond justmoving scenery (the first 3D performer flying,the aerial ballet at the Millennium Dome) inenvironments from short-term shows topermanently installed flying systems, intheatres, cruise ships and more.

The ultimate proof of the rightness of thegeneric winch concept: those first 10 are still inuse 21 years later, having served not just Oliver!but many more shows since.

BigTow: > www.stagetech.com/theatre-winches

From the History Vault: Oliver! > //plasa.me/4sz8z

Classic Gear: BigTow WinchRob Halliday takes a nostalgic but instructive look back at the tools that have shaped the industry . . .

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