The Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre is a busy venue with a wide variety of performances; many of which are just a few days long or even for one night only. This poses logistical issues for the production staff who must often do the 'get-in', rehearsals, performance and 'get-out' in a single day.
The major refurbishment carried out at the venue over the last few years presented an opportunity to add to the infrastructure to make this process easier and quicker, and to add to the flexibility of the venue. Stage Technologies worked with theatre consultants Carr & Angier, the South Bank Centre management and architects Allies and Morrison to develop the scheme that has now been implemented.
The many moving elements are controlled by five Solo handheld controllers. Stage Technologies' small portable controllers offer an interface that is easy for the stage crew to learn and enables them to operate the system from the most suitable location, by connecting to one of the many control points located around the venue. The controllers also offer all the benefits of Stage Technologies' Chameleon software, such as variable speed moves and synchronised groups.
During the refurbishment the auditorium ceiling and all the services above it were completely stripped out all asbestos was removed, creating a new working space over the stage area. The floor of this attic is formed of precast concrete planks with many openings to allow suspension and electrical cables to be lowered. Suspended above this technical floor is a network of secondary steel which supports the winches that move the equipment suspended below.
Four large movable, lighting bridges were installed in the Hall; three of which can also be traversed up and down stage. Concert lighting bars are attached to the three traversing bridges. These can be lowered to stage floor lever for crew to position platform lighting, to maintain a safe working height.Further over-stage suspensions are provided by three hoists for loudspeaker clusters, which can be moved up and down stage to set the optimum position. There are also three flying bars provided just in front of the refurbished organ for suspension of drapes or lighting equipment. All the flown items are wired with a mixture of lighting circuits, audio and data circuits for maximum production flexibility.
Three large acoustic reflectors, specified by Kirkegaard Associates, were also installed. These can be raised and lowered, and changed in angle from near horizontal to near vertical to change the acoustic properties of the hall. In addition to the three reflectors there are 32 roller banners, three concertina banners and 10 tapestries that can all be deployed to change the acoustical properties of the auditorium. These variable acoustic elements were provided by J&C Joel.
Delstar Engineering supplied 11 lifts to form the stage platform. These allow the stage layout to be reconfigured in many ways to suit the nature of the performance taking place.
(Jim Evans)
