FROM ICEBERGS TO FESTIVAL HEAT...
As 2010 summer Stageco News flies around the world, we once again find ourselves in the middle of an incredibly busy calendar of outdoor festivals, concerts and events. Hopefully you are among those reaping the rewards of a relatively buoyant market sector and Stageco is supporting your event with superior engineering and logistics.

It still baffles me that such a large concentration of events is crammed into such a small time-scale. Surely it would benefit everyone to spread the touring calendar. Having said that, a few of these stories showcase the diversity of structures we are supplying, with increasing numbers going to sporting, corporate and government run events.

Stageco's engineering capabilities continue to push boundaries and as new technologies and trends enter the live events forum we look forward to partnering the creators and organizers of the next generation of live events with structures, stages and buildings.

We all wish Bono a speedier recovery than the world's economy and look forward to being back on the road with the fantastic U2 360° World Tour later this summer.

Stageco ensured robust engineering for the organizers at the Autumn/Winter Chanel fashion show. Their structure supported a stunning set used to reveal the new collection, with 240 tonnes of real ice imported from the northern reaches of Sweden, directly to Paris' Grand Palais.

Chanel hired 35 ice sculptors who, over the course of six days, carved the frozen snow-ice into a dramatic icescape, reaching 8.5 meters at its highest point.

To prevent the ice from melting, the entire set was housed in a hermetically sealed, white box truss in subzero temperatures. Stageco was commissioned to build a 28m high grid, housing the white box truss, lighting and sound equipment, as well as the 12m wide and 50m long runway.

The runway element of the set was especially challenging as the floor had to be carefully engineered, incorporating a reinforced sub-structure to support the 240 tonnes of ice, as well as the traffic of forklifts and cherry pickers during the production build.

International staging company Stageco engineered a spectacular skyscraper stage, helping Muse and their design team wow fans on the 2010 European Tour.

The band appeared to be playing in the basement of an imposing building, with screens for windows and viewed by the audience from one corner.

Stageco project director Dirk de Decker and creative designer Es Devlin consulted with Muse production manager Chris Vaughan, and Malcolm Birkett, technical designer for the tour to create the unique stage designs to support the artistic concept of the show.

The design incorporates 32m free-span frontage, resulting in an open structure with excellent sight-lines from all angles. To build such a large span safely the two separate sections were supported until the stage was complete for loading with technical production, and the support material was then used to make delay towers.

Koen Peeters, CAD design states;
"This is the first time I have worked with Chris Vaughn and Malcolm Birkett and it has been a real joy; they are calm, down to earth people, doing a great job creating a spectacular show."

This June heavy metal festival goers saw double as Stageco provided the Donington rock festival Download and Hellfest in Clisson with a twin stage configuration.

Appearing for the first time at Download, the double stage format was inspired by the line-up, with Friday night headliners AC/DC wanting to give fans their full (huge) touring production, marking their third appearance at the UK's premier rock festival. The sheer scale of the set made the double stage an ideal solution and it meant the fans enjoyed a weekend to remember.

The Download double stage was project managed by Stageco's Dirk De Decker, while Stageco president Hedwig De Meyer coordinated the AC/DC stage for its entire tour.

Hellfest enjoyed the return of the double stage for the third consecutive year running, with Stageco France ensuring the build ran smoothly. Constructing main stage one first, so it was ready for production meant that the biggest challenge Stageco had to overcome was ensuring the two stages were level.

Wim Dewolf, CAD design adds;
"Leveling the base-out was important as both stages were joined with a central truss connection between the inner PA-wings, making it a 74m wide stage. Normally we start at the highest point and continue downwards, at Hellfest we had to work the opposite way but successfully overcame the 1.8m difference in ground level."

As the 2010 world cup kicked off, fans congregated at Hyundai’s temporary venues, constructed by Stageco Germany in cities across Europe for the duration of the tournament.

The Hyundai Fan Parks, hosted in three cities across the UK and Portugal showed world cup games on huge 30m² high-definition screens to crowds of thousands. Stageco project manager Markus Seefelder oversaw the building of the giant Layher scaffolding structure which supports the screens.

In addition to the Fan Parks, a two story Hyundai Fan Stadium, complete with a showroom for cars on the lower level, was created by Stageco in Berlin. The upper level of the Fan Stadium contained a seating area, above which a giant Hyundai football was rigged.

Stageco's project manager Michael Kelm's, biggest challenge was to get the whole Fan Stadium moved from Olympic Square to 17th of June Street in just three days. The custom made steel mini stadium was dismantled in just one day and assembled in two, allowing for the quick move across the city to host the expectant German fans.

Stageco International created a spectacular stage for French rockers Indochine when they performed a one off stadium show as part of a wider arena tour.

Stade de France hosted the sell out new wave rock concert by Indochine, on 26th June 2010. The band created a huge visual experience, accessible to fans in all areas of the stadium through the use of five 9 x 13m video screens spanning the 75m width and taking up the entire width of the Stade de France. With a structure height of 21.5m every fan got a good view.

Stageco began discussions on the design in January, headed up by project manager Dirk De Decker. Dirk worked with Michel Marseguerra, production manager of Indochine, to create a larger than life platform for the band, whilst minimizing costs and waste.

Stageco Netherlands built a total of 50 structures, with the theme of 'No Time to Waste' in just 11 days for the popular dance festival Defqon.1 in the Netherlands.

The main outdoor stage was configured as a giant clock with each of the basic constructions of the huge 12 numbers built by Stageco. A giant tower was then put into place, and a Stageco slewing ring was attached, enabling the big and small hands of the clock to rotate throughout the event.

Organized by Q-dance, the beach festival located on Almere beach sold out in just 30 minutes. One week later a second festival Dirty Dutch vs The World was organized by ID&T in the same location. This gave Stageco just four days to transform Defqon.1 into Dirty Dutch.

Stageco provided ground support structures as well as DJ stages, VIP platforms, PA towers, delay towers and video support systems, for the ten different party areas. The crew worked extra hard due to the sand, which made it a lot harder to move the equipment.

Stageco engineered a giant 150 ton arched stage for the recent Bon Jovi Circle Tour, which visited eight cities through America and Canada during May and July.

In keeping with the specified budget, Stageco used standard curved systems similar to those from the Pink Floyd arch and Rolling Stones Bridges to Babylon. The stage was designed by ArtFag creating a customized feel.

The CAD design of the project took just six weeks, with both the Stageco US and Belgian offices pooling resources resulting in the implementation of free standing PA and video portal systems either side of the huge arched stage. The giant arch had to be reinforced with a forth curved structure in order to support the 10 tonnes of video wall, in addition to the all lighting and sound equipment, weighing in total 55 tonnes.

Stageco US organized the complicated logistics of getting everything to the locations on a tight time scale. Due to the enormity of the tour a 10 strong Stageco crew along with 12 trucks worked around the clock to ensure smooth transitions between each show.

A record breaking 35,681 spectators attended the Koning Boudewijn Stadium, on the 8th of July. Stageco built the 1,300m² floor construction for the tennis court where Kim Clijsters and Serena Williams played game, watched by the world’s largest tennis audience.

The event was supported by several prominent Belgian companies, including Stageco and was the finale at the opening week of celebrations marking the Belgian Chairmanship of the European Union.

Stageco provided an elegantly arched stage for 15 of Belgian's top artists, who performed during the ceremony and after the game; they also constructed enormous video screen supports, both in the grandstand and on the ground to hold 56m² of screens.

Stageco created 'Le Grand Départ' for the Tour De France in the heart of Rotterdam, building large temporary structures in the city centre created a few extra challenges for Stageco.

Stageco successfully executed numerous location visits and marked on a map level differences, pavements, lampposts, trees, poles etc. All 3D CAD Stageco drawings were then integrated onto the location overview in order to avoid any inconveniences during the build.

The crew worked 24 hour split shifts, to complete the build in just two days, with the city very much still open to all traffic throughout the time. The three pedestrian bridges, measuring 70m in total, were erected over night with 50 ton cranes, during which time the road was closed and only emergency services could get through.

Overall Stageco brought in eight trailers of material, weighing 140,000kg and built 70m of staircases, six video chairs, six structures for PA, a loading dock construction, and a platform extending the hospitality area.