Photography © Mark Cunningham
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Twinned Metal At Hellfest
One of Europe’s largest metal gatherings, Hellfest got even bigger this year when its ninth edition attracted nearly 150,000 fans in June. Held in the French town of Clisson, near Nantes, the festival was graced by the likes of Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, Deep Purple, Status Quo, Soundgarden and Trivium, all of whom performed on Stageco’s twinned main stages. Positioned side by side, the two 18m x 14m Boogdak stages in the main arena upheld the ‘twin’ trend that is becoming popular in the metal world as it speeds up changeovers between bands, accommodates more acts and keeps the core audience focused in one place. Production manager Pascal ‘Wally’ Magaud (below right) has been involved in Hellfest since its origins as Fury Fest. “It grew quickly to the point where, in 2008, we decided to hire Stageco to provide their Micro Arch stage which has been so successful on many small festivals and events.” said Magaud. This year, Hellfest’s Main Stage 1 was reinforced with a tower for extra rigging and the Micro Arch with ramps at the rear. “The fact that we now use the Micro Arch as a loading dock speaks volumes about our growth,” Magaud observed. “The way things are progressing, we may be using the main stage as the loading dock!” He added: “More and more bands are bringing their own production, and that increases the challenge for Stageco, who need to reconfigure the stage each day.” This called for some late night shifts on the part of Stageco’s crew chief Kevin De AUTUMN 2014
Meyer, Jean-Pierre ‘JP’ Van Loo and their four colleagues, Rik Van Elzen, Tom-Erik Roysnes, Wouter Ott and Dieudonné Denys-Doyi, a.k.a. ‘Dédé’. De Meyer explained: “Each of the headline acts had specific requirements that meant we had to work overnight from 1.00am for about eight hours in order to reconfigure the stage. Aerosmith wanted a catwalk out into the audience with a B stage at the end that accommodated extra lighting and pyrotechnics, and so we had to build additional scaffolding. In a similar vein, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath both requested major structural changes that we catered for.” Stageco also supplied two delay towers and built the front of house control platform which included an extra rear tower with a ‘birdcage’. At the end of Hellfest, a portion of Stageco’s steel headed east to the Stade de France in Paris where veteran French rockers Indochine played two sell-out nights on their Black City Tour. More metal action overleaf...
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