As the worldwide Police tour enters its Far Eastern, Australian and South American legs, Stageco is demonstrating the full extent of its international reach. Stageco Belgium and Stageco US are working together to send out seven identical systems simultaneously to complete the tour.

Stageco US has sent systems to Mexico, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago as well as a partial system to Brisbane. Each system is 11-12 trailers of material (13 sea containers).

“We have supplied a huge amount of equipment to this tour,” says Mary Lou Figley, Stageco’s Vice President of US Operations. “Yet we have been able to maintain our high level of service to other clients throughout this extraordinary logistical effort.”

The new dates follow successful tours of Europe and North America earlier this year. “The Police designed their video and rigging around the stage we were supplying because they needed a system with identical sets which was equally reliable anywhere in the world,” says Tom Bilsen, Stageco’s operations manager.

The band used an adapted version of Stageco’s Classic 4 Tower Roof, with an additional tower to take the weight of the extra video.

Genesis chose a state-of-the-art stage for their world tour this year, designed by Mark Fisher and Jeremy Lloyd. As one of the most visually spectacular artistes of their era, they opted for a sculpturally ornate structure built of truss and bristling with lighting technology.

Stageco was the clear choice when it came to manufacturing this construction. Genesis are one of the company’s oldest clients and Stageco cut its teeth in international touring in the mid 1980s when the band used one of their stages for their Mama tour.

“In those days they just used scaffolding with a standard festival roof,” recalls Dirk de Decker, Stageco’s project manager. “But this is a bespoke stage designed entirely around the lights and video.

About 60 percent of this stage is custom built as we had to translate the Studio Fisher drawings into a portable structure. There is a very special structure curved in two planes and the screen fits into that seamlessly.

Discovery Channel was so impressed by Stageco’s work that it has filmed the US company during the build for Genesis’s concert at the Giants’ Stadium, New Jersey, for its ‘Really Big Things’ show.

Stageco has won hearts and minds in the United Kingdom this year, having supplied stages to the country’s highest profile tours, the biggest one-off concerts and many of its major summer festivals.

It has been an extraordinary 12 months for the European company, which supplied the stages for the first five concerts at the new Wembley Stadium; George Michael, Muse, Concert for Diana, Live Earth and Metallica.

A particularly interesting challenge during this series was the need to reverse the Stageco Super Roof between The Concert for Diana and Live Earth, the next weekend. “Two teams worked 24 hour shifts to enable the whole roof to be dropped and turned round,” says Dirk de Decker.

On the UK’s festival circuit, Stageco was contracted to supply Main and other stages to the two Hyde Park, London, festivals (O2 Wireless and Hyde Park Calling), Download and the Isle of Wight, as well as both V Festivals (in Chelmsford, Essex, and Staffordshire), and T in the Park.

In Hyde Park Stageco helped solve sightline problems by siting the front of house mixing desk and lighting positions in two small structures stage left and stage right, rather than in the traditional central position. At the two UK V Festivals and the US V Festival, staged in Baltimore, the company supplied its Classic 4-Tower Roof system, offering a 25 x 20 metre performance area to bands such as Basement Jaxx, Kasabian and The Killers (UK) and The Smashing Pumpkins (USA).

The Download festival in June presented some key build challenges, with the mainstage sited on a significant slope in two directions.

Isle of Wight was another logistical challenge, not least because headliners the Rolling Stones had a range of special requirements. “We used our Super Roof instead of the normal Boogdak,” says project manager, Bert Kustermans. “We had a show in Bucharest on 31 May and had to be ready for production load in at Isle of Wight on 6 June, taking into account one day load out in Bucharest and three days load in for the UK event. The distance between the two sites is 2,678 km.”

The Rolling Stones’ needs were comfortably accommodated with work on the stage floor carried out under the watchful eye of three of the band’s supervisors the night before the festival opened.

Concerts to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Malaysian independence attracted about 100,000 people in December and Stageco provided the stage at the heart of the event. This was the largest event of its type ever to take place in the territory, so Malaysian promoter Live & Loud drew on Stageco’s international expertise to help achieve state-of-the-art production values.

The project demonstrates how Stageco can help medium-sized promotion businesses anywhere in the world grow to meet the standards demanded by international artistes. Western artists included Whitney Houston, Shaggy and James Morrison, while Chinese and Malaysian acts headed up one of the main festival days.

For Live & Loud’s Head of Technical Production, Ryz Martein Yacob, the decision to use a Stageco structure was key to establishing the festival as a major date in the international touring calendar.

“Before the start of the concerts we invited the Malaysian Minister of Tourism to tour the stage,” says Ryz. “He was impressed by the spectacle of the structure and understood how it is helping to gain coverage for the event on national and international television.”

When the Norwegian ferry operator Color Line launched its new cruise ship, Color Magic, Stageco Belgium was there to help. In one of the most impressive corporate celebrations of the year, Color Line opted to throw a concert for the public, plus VIP guests, headlined by Norway’s very own 1980s pop success story, A-ha.

The band played on an adapted barge, moored in the German port of Kiel and there were significant production challenges for Project Manager Lex ter Heurne. The main concern was that the stage would act like a sail, with the risk that the combined structure and vessel might sway seriously in high winds.

“Our engineers calculated that we could afford to allow the barge to tilt by four degrees in windy conditions,” says Dirk De Decker. “We were able to provide a structure that would only tilt by three degrees in the highest winds.

“We built the whole structure while the barge was moored against the waterfront. Once it was completed, it was towed 90 degrees into position and anchored by the team from the shipping company.”

“Stageco were brilliant,” says Lex. “Nobody else would be able to carry out a project like that so effectively.”

The nationwide tour by Germany’s biggest home grown star, Herbert Grönemeyer, has spearheaded a busy year for Stageco Germany. This, combined with a very busy festival circuit in Germany and Austria, made 2007 another busy year.

“June was remarkably busy this year,” says Werner. “We worked on 60 projects that month, while the rest of the summer saw a continuous stream of events, with between 30 to 40 projects per month.”

For Herbert Grönemeyer, Stageco Germany provided a solution which allowed the roof to carry 35 tonnes of equipment, including a large, 24 tonnes, video screen. Grönemeyer previously worked with Stageco about six years ago and returned to the company this year for his biggest tour yet, in stadiums.

“We were the only staging company able to give him the support he asked for,” says Werner. “We had three sets, each using seven trailers, plus one three trailer set for advance work.“

Among the many festivals this summer, Stageco has supplied Love Parade, The Wacken Festival (billed as the biggest heavy metal festival in the world with an audience of 100,000) and the Coca Cola Soundwave event.

The company has also achieved continued success in the corporate market, working in Spain with VW for the high profile launch of its new Tiguan compact SUV. The spectacular event, throughout September and October, saw Stageco cover a monastery with a 40 x 40 metre roof.

“In all, 2007 has been one of our most successful years,” says Werner.

The international snowboarding championship Nokia Air & Style called on the services of Stageco Germany for the 12th year running when it staged the annual event at the Olympic Stadium, Munich, this December.

An enormous snowboarding ramp measuring 14 metres high and 29 metres long was the centrepiece of the competition, which attracted an audience of 28,000 people. The project was a collaboration between Air & Style and the facility management team at the stadium, SK-Marketing, while Stageco Germany was commissioned to build the central structure.

“We had to install special scaffolding constructions for the FSX area and FSX jumps,” says Stageco Germany’s Christoph Schulz. “These areas were particularly challenging but we were able to overcome potential problems by working in close and permanent contact with the client, who held daily meetings with Stageco crew chiefs on site.”

With approximately 500 tonnes of steel to unload from 22 trailers, the build required the sort of logistical precision that Stageco is renowned for internationally.

Stageco’s US arm is gearing up for a busy 2008 with a wealth of new contracts in the offing, while long term clients look set to renew their business, with some major tours set to hit the road.

The launch of Stageco’s Nashville office in February 2007 has made a strong contribution to the growth of the North American operation, offering the ability to move materials from either Las Vegas or the Tennessee base, passing reduced transport costs onto clients. “We expect to see things grow as we move into the New Year,” says Mary Lou Figley.

Stageco starts 2008 with new contracts from Superbowl XLII, Wrestlemania XXIV, the Dick’s Sporting Goods Stadium/Real Salt Lake Stadium.

Key challenges posed by these projects include; providing 14 platforms of varying sizes for television, radio and press at the Superbowl, in the upper seats of the 70,000 capacity stadium, where all materials will have to be carried by hand; installation of a custom structure for Wrestlemania which has to be able to withstand Florida’s hurricane winds; and building complex structures for the Dick’s Sporting Goods Arena which will need to comply with permanent building codes.

The growth of the North American operation has seen an influx of new staff at Stageco USA, this year. Nancy Weiland has taken over as the accountant in the US and has become a valuable member of the team.

Brenda Davis came on part time to help take some of the load off of both Mary Lou and office manager Beth Benson, quickly asserted herself, and soon moved into a full time position as admin assistant. Meanwhile, Farley Gross, who has been touring for Stageco US since 1994 and has been a crew chief for the last five years has come on board full time as the shop manager at the new office in Nashville.

The decision by Carcassonne public services to provide two giant sledging slopes and a skating rink in the town centre this Christmas represents a wider increase in winter work for Stageco France.

The structures create a highly visible centrepiece for the city’s festivities, La Magie de Noël, providing seasonal entertainment for the whole community. The pistes were so popular last year that the Marie ordered two ramps this season.

The French branch of Stageco has a history of working with the ancient city, which boasts the largest medieval castle in Europe, providing stages for the summer festival within the walls of the castle itself, so it was a natural choice to supply their specialist engineering to the winter festivities.

For Stageco’s Project Manager Thierry Nataf, the Carcassonne project is an example of how the outdoor events season in France is extending through the winter months. “We already work with Carcassonne during the summer and we are very happy to cement the collaboration this winter,” says Thierry. “It builds confidence between ourselves and the client.”

Idols, the Dutch franchise of the global Pop Idols phenomenon which has equivalents in countries on every continent, turned to Stageco Netherlands when it needed a complex rolling catwalk structure for its recent series.

The dramatic staging effect was used during the part of the show where contestants walk from their performance towards the judges, to hear the verdict on their performance. The catwalk was concealed from the audience until the final moments of the contestants’ performance, when it rolls out towards the judge’s panel.

A laser system ensured that the catwalk was entirely safe, halting the forward motion of the equipment in the unlikely event that an audience or crew member got in the way.

Additionally, Stageco Netherlands provided systems for a moving video wall, eight metres high by four metres wide, which opened up to allow contestants to move through it.

“This is the third time we have worked on the Idols show,” says Eddie Slotboom, Stageco’s Director. “The technical demands of the event get more challenging every time. The automated catwalk is part of a trend towards more complex staging effects and Stageco Netherlands is becoming increasingly specialist in this area.”

The growth in specialist staging and effects, plus the success of the company’s regular client base in the region is driving the growth of Stageco Netherlands.

The company’s base in the east-Netherlands town of Lochem is recruiting at least four new employees, two for the workshops and two for touring work, with a possible fifth position available in the office.

Part of the expansion sees an upgrade of the warehouse and the construction of a new workshop. The Dutch team is also buying two new trucks, compliant with the new Euro 5 environmental regulations.

“We are experiencing 25% more business than last year,” says Eddie. “This expansion will help ensure that we remain the leading staging supplier in the Netherlands, ready to adapt to the changing needs of our clients.”

Stageco’s new presence in Turkey was boosted this summer when it supplied a Boogdak stage to Istanbul’s flagship summer music festival, Rock ‘n Coke. The festival, promoted by Pozitif Music, was the first project to forge close relations between Stageco and the Turkish events management company Grem Group.

Artists at the festival included the Smashing Pumpkins, Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand, and the Turkish superstar Hayko Çepkin who made his stage entry by climbing out of a giant chrysalis.

The Grem Group decided to work with Stageco rather than trying to form its own staging company in Turkey, when the legendary local production manager Firat Kasapoglu recommended the Belgian company.

“Last year we were planning to design a new stage of our own and manufacture it here in Istanbul,” says Gülnur Inkaya of the Grem Group. “Firat suggested we form an alliance with Stageco and benefit from their resources to produce a much higher quality service for the country as a whole.”

Rock ‘n Coke demonstrated that the time is right for Stageco Turkey, as Pozitif Music’s production manager Uluç Dündar puts it, “There’s never been a staging specialist based in Turkey that can handle this scale of event until now. But Stageco always does it right and it has been amazing to work with the new Turkish branch.”