INTERNATIONAL NEWS
MUMBAI VIBRATIONS Global Citizen Makes Indian Début Rolling Stones Rock Cuba Billy Joel: London & Frankfurt Driving New Ideas for Daimler Ik Hou Van Holland Lollapalooza Berlin WINTER 2017
Golden Televizier Ring Awards U2 Surprise at Dreamfest Creating the Muntpaleis Christmas in Port-Barcarès Revisiting Hallyday’s Tour 66 W W W. S TAG E C O. C O M
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A Constant Eye On The Future INTERNATIONAL NEWS
IN THIS ISSUE WINTER 2017
3 • MEDITERRANEAN FESTIVITIES Christmas in Port-Barcarès 4 • EXOTIC ENCOUNTERS From the Stones in Cuba to Global Citizen’s Indian début 8 • MUNTPALEIS Creating An Alternative Venue 10 • EDC ORLANDO 11 • DRIVING NEW IDEAS FOR DAIMLER 12 • BILLY JOEL IN CONCERT The Piano Man’s Wembley Stadium Début 16 • IK HOU VAN HOLLAND 18 • GOLDEN TELEVIZIER RING AWARDS 19 • LOLLAPALOOZA IN BERLIN 20 • JOHNNY HALLYDAY Revisiting the French Elvis’ Tour 66 22 • U2 SURPRISE AT DREAMFEST
Cover image © Johan Van Espen
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A successful company is always looking at the road ahead and devising new ways to improve that forward journey. Stageco has remained the leader in its field and maintaining that position requires vision. Nearly a year ago, we hosted a three-day focus meeting between managers from all our international offices, to discuss the opportunities that will influence Stageco’s business over the next five years. One idea concerned designing a large temporary venue that has the ability to tour as well as being a semi-resident fixture at individual events. The ‘circus tent’ format at festivals has had a very long life and knowing several promoters who are keen to find an alternative formula has encouraged us to investigate possibilities. It’s something we have been discussing amongst ourselves for years but it is finally becoming a reality and should make its first appearance at a major European festival next summer. We hope to reveal more about this exciting venture in our next newsletter. We have just come to the end of one of Stageco’s busiest years, in which we’ve taken on an incredibly wide range of projects, not only in touring. Already, 2017 is shaping up to be equally as busy for us, and that is just based on what we know so far, with Guns N’Roses and Coldplay continuing their world tours, and work with other artists – and our regular festivals – that we cannot disclose yet. The last 12 months witnessed one notable change within the Stageco group. After many years, Werner Herbst retired from his position as general director (or Geschaftsfuhrer) of Stageco Deutschland. His successor is Dirk Lauenstein, a man who also has served with the company for a long time. We all wish him good fortune in his new role. It only leaves me to wish our clients, friends and associates worldwide a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy and productive New Year. Hedwig De Meyer, Stageco President
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The Electric Daisy Carnival’s flagship event in Las Vegas continues to evolve with the expertise of Stageco US.
Mediterranean Festivities On November 26th, the village square in the southern France commune of Port-Barcarès opened its enchanting Christmas Market to the public, and revealed its winter ‘sideshow’ activities which include ice skating and a toboggan run. To help the festivities go with a swing, Stageco France built a large, 850m² platform at a height of 3m to accommodate a warm chalet retreat and give visitors an exceptional view of the Mediterranean. Eric Coureges led the crew of three Stageco supervisors and an average of eight scaffolders for three days of building work that will be broken down over a day and a half after the season finishes on January 8th. Due to the field location being on two different levels, Stageco France sent two trucks full of
scaffolding with which to build a solid structure. Other jobs onsite included creating pods for the sky station. Thierry Nataf, Stageco France’s project manager, who worked with R&D manager Dirk Van De Goor, commented: “As well as taking the weight of the decoration, the chalet and container for the restaurant’s cold room into consideration, we reinforced the structure in some places so that it stood up to wind pressure. “We were hired by S-Group on behalf of organiser Alexandre Coulet, the same client who books us to work on the Electrobeach Music Festival in Les Barcarès in July with a 4-Tower roof. It was the first edition for us this year and it’s growing all the time. I hope we’ll be back for both projects in 2017.”
Photography: Stageco France
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Exotic Encounters
Photography © Promotone BV, Aptopix, Eagle Rock & Stageco
From Cuba with The Rolling Stones to Mumbai’s Global Citizen India Festival
Every now and again, Stageco is called upon to apply its expertise off the beaten track in some of the world’s more unusual locations. In 2016, the company was fortunate to have two such opportunities, each with their own particular set of technical demands. The first came early in the year when The Rolling Stones – with whom Stageco has worked since the band’s Voodoo Lounge tour in 1994 – gave a free open-air concert in Cuba. Later, in the autumn, Stageco was proud to be a major contributor to the first ever Global Citizen Festival to be held in India.
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For decades, rock’n’roll music was banned in Cuba. It was, therefore, an historic moment when The Rolling Stones came to the island nation to perform live to an estimated 1.2 million people at Havana’s Ciudad Deportiva Stadium on March 25th 2016. The largest concert ever staged in Cuba, the show was the final date of their América Latina Olé Tour 2016, which began in Santiago on February 3rd. Although the concert was announced only a few weeks in advance, behind the scenes it had been planned since October 2015 and Stageco was on stand-by until final confirmation surfaced the following February.
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“For a number of practical reasons, we shipped our staging from Belgium and I was dealing directly with [Rolling Stones production manager] Dale ‘Opie’ Skjerseth until the beginning of the year when I handed it over to Bert Kustermans,” says Stageco president Hedwig De Meyer. “Exporting our containers of equipment to Cuba was a time-consuming process but it actually went a lot more smoothly than I expected, most likely because of the importance of the project. “The unknown was our biggest challenge, just as it was for our fellow production vendors. Cuba had not previously witnessed a concert on this scale and as there was no infrastructure we were warned in advance that if we needed something, we should take it with us. That included all the crew to build the stage because of the absence of professional local manpower. “As we were not confident of the quality of local plant and machinery such as forklifts, we decided to arrive earlier than we normally would to build the steel system and ended up staying on-site for almost a month, also assisting the production load-in and load-out.” Captured on the cover of ‘Havana Moon’ (opposite), the newly-released official film of the concert, the stage itself featured the 4-Tower roof that had toured with the Stones in
America during 2015 and in Australasia the previous year. In total, the stage measured 50 metres wide, 24 metres deep and 20 metres high, with a custom-made header and wings. Led by Patrick Vonckx, Stageco’s exceptionally diverse crew of 22 erected an additional complement of delay and video towers to ensure good coverage for the huge crowd. “You couldn’t approach this like any large show,” De Meyer comments. “The crew did a splendid job of finishing the build well ahead of the original schedule, before the date of the concert was moved back by a week to avoid clashing with President Obama’s historic visit to the country. “The Cuban trip was one that I’m sure our guys – and indeed the Stones themselves – will remember for many, many years to come.” Cont’d >>>
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6 Joining forces: Stageco’s crew line up with the local team from Buhariwala Logistics.
Photography © Johan Van Espen
MUMBAI VIBRATIONS Nine thousand miles from Havana, Global Citizen introduced its festival to India for the first time in the MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai on November 19th, with Stageco extending its support at this ‘exotic’ location in the wake of the festival’s successful 2016 New York edition (see opposite). Headlined by Stageco client Coldplay, Global Citizen India was co-produced by DPS and its Indian partner, communication and entertainment company Wizcraft, which previously produced Michael Jackson’s India debut in 1996. The project was managed for Stageco by the company’s director of international projects, Dirk De Decker. He said: “For us, the ball started rolling around the middle of August with the first conversations, so there wasn’t a huge amount of time in which to plan forward. John Corr at Sound Moves shipped our equipment out to Mumbai on September 20th and we were on-site by November 3rd to begin the build.” A 25m wide x 15m high 4-Tower festival stage with PA wings, Stageco’s structure was the bedrock for an above average amount of scenic elements created by Wizcraft, who took
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responsibility for the overall technical production. Stageco’s brief also included four towers in the field to accommodate lighting, delays and video, and two mix risers. Headed by crew chief Johan ‘Bellekes’ Van Espen, Stageco dispatched a crew of 15 to work on the build alongside Wizcraft’s own choice of local crew and plant supplier, Buhariwala Logistics, and supplied a regular festival roof that De Decker claimed was, “the most appropriate and most flexible solution to adapt to a design that was still being progressed when our materials were in transit.” A previous visitor to India, Bellekes said: “I really love the country. The MMRDA site was unusual in that it was an open space in the middle of the banking district – it was certainly very unlike the kind of stadium scenario I am used to. The first impression, as always when you first arrive, was that the heat was so intense. Doing a job in searing temperatures of around 36°C every day really took it out of us. “My usual crew is a very international mix, however, not all of them were available for this project but there were many Stageco guys who wanted to come onboard including people who are crew chiefs in their own right like Tinus [Martin Beckers], Kevin De Meyer and Antonio Duarte da Cruz. “Many of us had never worked together directly in this way, despite being with the company a long time so it was a lot of fun. In fact, this was a dream team and the interaction was fantastic.” STAGECO INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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impressive. They reduced the weight on the downstage truss to include it. “There wasn’t a single member of our crew who doesn’t want to go back to India, even taking into account the language barrier. We have all been around the world on countless tours, but I know that I speak for all of us when I say that every day spent in Mumbai was a very special experience.” MOVEMENT Organised by Global Poverty Project, executed every year by DPS (Diversified Production Services), the New Jersey company founded by Dan Parese, the festival is part of a continued movement to end extreme poverty. By contributing to charity acts on the website, including watching videos and signing petitions, fans can get free tickets to the festival. In addition, the organisers are striving to make the event ‘global’ by live-streaming events in public locations. Coldplay’s frontman Chris Martin, who was in the country as part of the Global Citizen India Initiative 2016, ended the band’s hour-long headline performance by singing ‘Vande Mataram’ with A.R. Rahman. The concert also saw Western stars Jay-Z, Demi Lovato and The Vamps rub shoulders on stage with a who’s who of Indian sport and entertainment.
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COMMUNICATION De Decker commented on the cultural differences he observed during the planning stage: “The style of communication in India is quite unlike what we are used to in Europe and America, and this is something you have to learn. However, one of the great things about involving Stageco in a project like this is that we have such a wide experience of working in some of the most unusual and exotic locations, with people from all over the world. That’s really invaluable.” Bellekes added: “Working in India, it normally follows that if you want something done, you have to do it yourself otherwise it doesn’t happen. That said, the guys from Buhariwala really knew their stuff and were not only extremely helpful, they were also good to be around. I worked on the Michael Jackson show that Wizcraft produced, so I was already aware of the quality of what they do. “Our main contact there was Mikin Shah, Wizcraft’s general manager of operations, and we also worked alongside Vinay, the event’s technical director, and Kris D’Souza, the main man on the ground, all of whom handled themselves with extreme professionalism.” Off-site by November 24th, Stageco’s crew had plenty of time to reflect on the event as they travelled home. “I thought the show looked amazing and it demonstrated the painstaking attention to detail that Indian people apply to set design because much of what they did was very intricate,” said Bellekes. “Things like the backlit header were very
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Photography © David Lanosga
Held on the Great Lawn in New York City’s Central Park on September 24, the first Global Citizen festival of 2016 was an end-of-summer highlight for the Big Apple, and marked Stageco US’s fifth year with the event as the provider of the main stage and supporting video/audio delay towers. Stageco US sent a very international team of 12 Germans and eight Americans to head up a 24-hour build schedule for the installation of 12 trailers of material into the iconic venue. They built a Boogdak XL stage that included an auxiliary tower upstage centre for added strength and a custom header designed specifically for the event. The stage measured 48m wide x 34m deep with an overall height of 21.5 m and an available trim height of 13.1 metres. The deck consisted of a 24m wide x 20m deep performance area with an embedded turntable. An additional VIP area at stage right was 16m x 10m. The day team, led by David Lanosga, and the night team led by Frank Boehme, worked a relentless build schedule with different elements of production to make the show a reality.
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Creating An Alternative Venue
Stageco designs a ‘rescue’ package for temporary ‘Muntpaleis’... The Royal Munt opera house in Brussels is one of Belgium’s most prestigious entertainment venues. When it was decided that the building had to undergo a long period of renovation, beginning in May 2015, a plan to provide a temporary structure for its rolling programme of event productions was put in place, using the Tour & Taxis site along the Avenue du Port – an old logistics centre in the heart of the capital – as its location. Last December, during the construction phase, a number of deficiencies were found, including wear and tear, poor storage and maintenance, and so the construction was put on hold. Stageco was asked to come to the rescue and
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design a new technical grid and 1,100-seat grandstand, however, a number of issues had to be taken into account, as Bert Kustermans, Stageco’s project manager, explained: “As season tickets and individual event tickets had already been on sale for some time, we had to maintain the seating plan of the original grandstand. This was a difficult task to follow as the new tent structure’s dimensions were different to the old one. “With the new tent structure [the Muntpaleis] being a last-minute solution, there were some problems relating to height clearance, yet the technical grid had to be as high as possible because the scenery for several productions
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was already manufactured. Our solution was to build the grid using Stageco 750 towers and 1400 trusses with 1050 trussing positioned on top [not integrated] of the 1400. The grandstand was created with scaffolding providing sufficient amount of stairs, technical platforms and a general entrance underneath the highest part of the stand.” INFORMATION Starting work on the project last January, Stageco’s design and construction had to be completed within a short time frame. “Many people were involved in the process, including the Munt’s technical advisor, and we worked directly with a team averaging around 15,” stated Kustermans. “A number of changes were made during and after construction, based on new information concerning permits and HVAC, etc.”
The temporary structure opened to the public in March 2016 and has so far hosted productions of ‘Macbeth’, ‘Sweeney Todd’ and ‘Béatrice & Bénédict’. As the renovation of the opera house is running behind schedule, the new structure will continue to be in service well into the first half of 2017, with Stageco providing full technical back-up and assisting the client with any changes to the technical grid or stage floor, and and when required by production designers. Kustermans commented: “The scheduled productions were all designed with the opera house in mind, therefore we have to come up with a lot of technical solutions and alterations to the structure to make everything work as intended. Forthcoming productions at the Muntpaleis include ‘Capriccio’, ‘Le Coq D’or’, ‘Madame Butterfly’, ‘Foxie’ and Verdi’s ’Aida’.
Photography © PTM (Principle Tour Management)
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Floridian Magic In The Air début earlier in the year. Nevertheless, it spanned an impressive 245 feet wide with a height of approximately 80 feet, and was brought to life with 400 huge video tiles. The company’s crew of 11 (nine Americans and two Europeans, led by Farley Gross) also built the neonGARDEN stage – effectively Stage 3 – which was a 150 foot circus-style tent that relied on another trailer load of Stageco gear for its construction. Early in 2017, Stageco US will be taking on its next project for Insomniac: EDC Mexico in Mexico City on February 25-26.
Photography © Insomniac & Stageco US
Brimming with vitality, magic and music from more than 60 world-renowned acts, the sixth consecutive Electric Daisy Carnival Orlando festival at Tinker Field attracted its biggest crowd to date on November 4th-5th, with a crowd of around 75,000 enthusiastic fans making the event one to remember. Stageco US was back to carry on the good work, supplying 17 trailers of equipment with which to build Stage 1, branded by organisers Insomniac as the kineticTEMPLE. Following EDC’s usual pattern, this was a smaller scale version of the sprawling stage built by Stageco for its Las Vegas
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The Electric Daisy Carnival’s flagship event in Las Vegas continues to evolve with the expertise of Stageco US.
Driving New Ideas A Stageco Deutschland build for Daimler at Hannover motor show Every two years, all the major names in automotive manufacturing and component supplies gather at the IAA International Motor Show for Commercial Vehicles which, in 2016, took place in Hannover from September 22nd-29th 2016 under the motto ‘Driven By Ideas’. The event was originally held in 1991 with the aim of establishing new trends in environmental technology, aerodynamics and safety. On this occasion, Stageco Deutschland was proud to be commissioned by Daimler AG to build an overhead portal over a platform, from which to project images. A major focal point of the event, the portal measured approximately 34m
wide and 12.6m high, with a clearance height of around 11m. Two 6.2 x 2m housings for the projectors were made from Layher ‘Allround’ scaffolding and mounted on the portal. They were enclosed with sheeting on three sides, and faced with custom-made silver grey gauze. The structure weighed roughly 50 tons and was assembled by a five-man crew within three days. Stageco’s brief also included building a number of additional scaffolding structures. The International Motor Show for Commercial Vehicles will return to Hanover from September 27th to October 4th 2018. Photography: Stageco Deutschland
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The Piano Man
Stageco’s last European stadium show of the summer was Billy Joel’s first under the iconic Wembley arch...
Photography © Mark Cunningham
With Stageco onboard to provide staging and other temporary structures, Billy Joel’s September 10th concert – his second of two late summer shows in Europe – marked his début at London’s Wembley Stadium. “I don’t have anything new for you… just the same old sh*t,” joked the piano man as he opened the show, unleashing classic after classic – ‘Just The Way You Are’, ‘My Life’, ‘Uptown Girl’, ‘The Longest Time’, ‘Movin’ Out’ and ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ among many others. To the loyal audience who showered the artist with waves of love and respect from start to finish, it mattered not that Joel’s last new rock album was 1993’s River Of Dreams.
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Inside the spacious production office, Bobby ‘Boomer’ Thrasher cut a commanding presence. The affable production manager is currently midway into his 35th year with Joel. “Billy’s been my man all the way through and it’s wonderful that we have someone who can sell out stadiums like this and keep us all in work,” he said. “I came into the fold around the time of [live album] Songs In The Attic, and I’ve been very fortunate to be part of his career and be available for when he goes out to perform, which isn’t so frequent these days.” Trasher was referring to Joel’s present touring regime which amounts to an average of one show per week, as well as a commitment to play a monthly gig at Madison Square Garden in home city of New York. “It’s an irregular kind of tour that we’ve been doing for the last three years. Billy decided to work at a more casual pace and it’s interesting how that’s panned out. “All the dates in the itinerary are booked to fit around his MSG shows, which are sold-out a year in advance. This is a perfect approach for Billy [67] who likes to give all of himself but allow time to rest his voice, and I have to say that it’s a regime I personally like.” STAGECO INTERNATIONAL NEWS
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Left: Bobby ‘Boomer’ Thrasher and Tom Bilsen. Right: Crew members Hughes Imschoot, Wim Carens, crew chief Hendrik Verdeyen and Maarten Van Kruisdyck, Bottom: The stage by day... and night.
The production of Joel’s concerts continues to evolve around the newest technology even though his presentation has hardly changed for some time. The same can be said of his crew: show/lighting designer Steve Cohen and FOH engineer Brian Ruggles have served 85 years between them, and many others have been mainstays since the mid-’80s. Said Thrasher: “I think that Steve would agree that Billy’s shows aren’t production-led because that’s not necessary when you have his charisma. The audience just want to hear him sing and play. The only gimmick is a rotating grand piano.” SMOOTH OPERATION Six days before the show, Stageco brought in 11 trucks with Hendrik Verdeyen leading a crew of 12. “This has been very good to work on and it’s great to do it for Boomer, who is such a nice guy,” said Verdeyen. “Being as there were only two European shows, we needed plenty of time to prepare at Wembley. We started the stage build on Monday and had three steel construction days followed by a production day and then a Friday rehearsal. It could not have gone smoother.” With Bart Dekelver providing R&D support, as he did on other recent projects including Rihanna’s Anti World Tour, Stageco provided a 4-Tower stage spanning around 60m.
There was a notable exception to its standard configuration, as Verdeyen explained. “Due to the height and scale of the video screen, they needed a higher roof to enable enough clearance. That meant we had to add some extra counterweights and bring in some different gear, but it wasn’t something we couldn’t deal with easily. The clearance between the sub-deck and the main roof is almost 20m.” Trasher’s relationship with Stageco’s operations director Tom Bilsen developed after they first met through Bruce Springsteen, the PM’s other long-term touring client. “Tom has been my main point of contact in Europe for Stageco ever since,” he said. “He gets our systems designed and packaged, and I never have a single issue with any of it. I’ve worked with their stages countless times in the past with other artists and I’ve hired Stageco for Springsteen, but until recently we have mostly been indoors with Billy when we’ve come to Europe. This has been the first time I’ve had to book an outdoor stage for him. “For me, Stageco is the company that really has it all together and I know what I’m getting into when I get them onboard. It’s a very clean and organised system that is always calculated correctly with all the safety features built in. They have the best crew and I get along with them every time without fail, so there’s really no reason why I would want to go with anybody else.”
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Joel’s Wembley set list was filled with some of the most memorable songs of the ’70s and ’80s.
Photography © Mark Cunningham
NEGOTIATION Stageco has provided services many times at Wembley Stadium over the last few years. Crew chief Hendrik Verdeyen claims that although it’s not the easiest stadium venue in Europe to negotiate, it is by far not the most difficult. “The pitch is normally fully covered and you can drive trucks everywhere but this hasn’t been the case for this show because there is a football match [Spurs vs. Monaco] here next week,” he said. “We only had about four meters in front of the stage for our trucks, so we had to adjust our loads and work within the parameters. With support from local crew, we have to remove our front of house riser and delay towers from the pitch by 8.00am tomorrow, and then have everything else out by 8.00pm.” Billy Joel’s Wembley concert was the last European stadium show of the summer for Stageco. What does that mean for Verdeyen in the coming months? “After a small break, I’ll be working on some of the fashion shows in Paris before heading off to Australia with the Coldplay tour. It won’t be long before we start to hear about next year’s big projects. We just keep rolling on!”
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A full week before he played Wembley, Billy Joel performed for 30,000 fans at Frankfurt’s Commerzbank Arena, where Stageco Deutschland met the production brief with an extra high, 19m 5-tower to safely accommodate 46 tonnes of equipment.
Photography © Stageco Deutschland
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New Look For Celeb Show Michael Makkink, Stageco’s project manager for the show since it began in 2008, commented: “Here in Holland, most of my colleagues have a role in every job we do. Being involved in this TV show from the very start, I spent a lot of that development time with its designers and founders, and more recently with the designers of the revamped design. “We have a R&D department at our base in Lochem with four full-time CAD drawing stations. For several reasons, it’s usually difficult to plan a project with only one draughtsman but, for this new show, Bart Goodin did a wonderful job as the key person who came up with all the design drawings.” Recorded in March and October for Saturday broadcasts, the rise in popularity of ‘Ik Hou Van Holland’ led to an annual New Year’s Eve special and was followed by a range of oneoff shows to celebrate World Cup soccer, Queen Beatrix, RTL anniversaries and other milestone events.
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Photography: Talpa Media
When Stageco Nederland first worked on the Dutch television show ‘Ik Hou Van Holland’ (I Love Holland) eight years ago, it couldn’t have foreseen just how successful it would become. The RTL4 programme, which tests Dutch celebrities on their knowledge of the country, has since run for 14 seasons and continues to enjoy huge ratings for the station, both at home and elsewhere in Europe. The company retains a strong bond with the producers, Talpa Media, and for every recording of the show, Stageco delivers and builds a number of complex temporary constructions. For season 14, Talpa decided to freshen up the look of the programme with a brand new set design, and Stageco was honoured to be invited to extend its relationship as supplier. Talpa, owned by Endemol founder John de Mol (brother of the show’s presenter Linda de Mol), originally presented Stageco with the challenge of constructing two public grandstands, space for a large orchestra, and a curved, multi-level scaffold set (bearing 60 plastic cows) with as few structural supports as possible, none of them containing any diagonal components. While many of these original aspects remain within the new design, the plastic cows are sadly absent.
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A Golden Night For TV Wereld’ (‘Floortje To The End Of The World’). A radio and TV presenter, producer, travel writer and boutique owner, Dessing (pictured below right with her award) travels to remote areas in the world for the show and meets local people to find out what it is like to live at the ‘end of the world’. Stageco Nederland is the house staging supplier at the Heineken Music Hall and for this special Gala, Luke van Niekerk took on the role of account manager, with Jelle Hassink nominated
as crew chief, as the team used Prolyte StageDex systems to build two 196m² grandstands, the main stage itself and a connecting catwalk. Special StageDex portions were integrated into the presentation area to achieve smooth curves. The categories also featured awards for Best TV Host & Hostess, Best Actor & Actress, Best Youth Program and Best Rising Talent. Recipients included Humberto Tan, Chantal Janzen and Pip Pellens.
Photography: Avro Tros
Organised by television guide Televizier, the annual Golden Televizier Ring Gala is the most important award show for Dutch TV programmes and stars. Presented this year at Amsterdam’s Heineken Music Hall by Jan Smit and Art Rooijakkers, the show was broadcast on NPO 1 and attracted a record 2.42 million viewers. With 64% of the votes, the Golden Televizier Ring award for Best Programme was won by Floortje Dessing’s travel show ‘Floortje Naar Het Einde Van De
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Lollapalooza In The Park After its launch in the grounds of Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport last year, the European edition of the Lollapalooza festival moved to Treptower Park, between Friedrichshain and Kreuzberg, south of central Berlin, for its 2016 follow-up. A place of historical interest, the park hosted the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin in 1896 and is also known for its Soviet War Memorial which commemorates the 80,000 Soviet soldiers who fell in the Battle of Berlin of 1945. It was here in September that, as part of a completely new and sophisticated logistical concept for Lollapalooza, Stageco Deutschland transported 620 tonnes of material on 35 trailers, from which the staging was assembled for the twoday event, starring Radiohead, Kings Of Leon, Major Lazer, New Order and many more leading acts. One of the challenges resulting from the stringent conditions imposed by the local authorities was the need for
extensive barriers and security measures within the park, leading to very long driving and walking distances. Furthermore, the sensitive ground demanded that the construction work be carried out with absolute precision and care. Substantial ground protection measures were installed well in advance of operations and formed the base for all work involving heavy equipment. Towards the end of what is often a stormy festival season, the weather was surprisingly good during the entire construction phase and the festival itself. Up to 100 riggers and technicians at a time were deployed by Stageco to erect a total of four stages along with many other special structures. It emerged that Treptower Park was a one-off location for Lollapalooza Berlin. A new location will be organised for 2017 and Stageco Deutschland looks forward to the coming year’s challenge.
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We relive a day at the Stade de France in 2009 when Stageco delivered one of Johnny Hallyday’s greatest touring highlights
When Johnny Got His Kicks Referring to a favourite song (‘Route 66’) and his age at the time in 2009, Tour 66 was intended to be Johnny Hallyday’s farewell tour, celebrating 50 years since he launched his career. Designed for French, Belgian and Swiss stadiums and arenas — with flexibility built in to cater for each — the tour, one of the French Elvis’s biggest, played 67 dates between May and November ’09, and was one of the artist’s many projects to benefit from the work of Stageco. Working with production director Roger Abriol of Camus Productions and show director Bernard Schmitt was the master of spectacle himself, the late, lamented Mark Fisher, who created the last of his four designs for Hallyday. The Tour 66 set was dominated by an enormous eagle figurehead, with wings outstretched across the performance
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area. Beneath it, two pairs of giant caryatid sculptures were moved into position by robots on tracks that also served as video wall support during the show. “There’s no dialogue like you would have with a band like U2,” said Fisher, who had assistance from Stufish colleague Ray Winkler, Jacqui Pyle and Laura Léonard. “Johnny just wants ideas but even though he’s a rocker he doesn’t want to do the obvious Harley thing. Bernard, Roger and I would meet in Paris to develop sketches, and the Eagle came out of this process as a kind of figurehead statement, as did the big, curving truss for the ‘roofette’. This was my way of dealing with having a large video screen and still provide weather cover without being limited by a conventional roof.” Stageco used its renowned in-house design, engineering and fabrication expertise to create a made-to-measure stage (72m wide at the Stade de France) that could easily be
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Mark Fisher & show director Bernard Schmitt
(pictured, inset) and Patrick Vonckx were responsible for the logistics and stage installation on tour. Said Roger Abriol: “Their tower-based system gave us the flexibility to create different and adventurous designs, offering a huge advantage in economy and strength. “Tour 66 was an opportunity to create something totally different and that’s why we chose to work with Stageco.” As the last seven years have shown, Tour 66 did not turn out to be Hallyday’s farewell tour. Stageco has since been honoured to continue its relationship with the legend on subsequent adventures.
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Photography: Mark Fisher/Stufish & Mark Cunningham
installed, demounted and transported, in spite of its complexity. The company provided three touring stage bases and two upper stage sets, allowing the system to leapfrog venues. The bespoke elements include the elegant band roof, the robot frames and robot lifting structure, tracks for positioning the robots on stage, base frames, and the connectors between the standard Stageco trusses and tower elements supporting the eagle. Dirk De Decker, Stageco’s project manager, was instrumental in the development and fabrication of the stage, while technical supervisors Antonio Duarte da Cruz
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U2 Surprise at Dreamfest Fund-Raiser Espen, the US company worked with the production for a week prior to the show, providing the main stage, a 70 foot tall sign tower and lighting, video and audio structures for the entire audience area. Dreamfest sprawled across the entire Cow Palace (Cloud Palace) parking lots in Daly City, and also included the indoor venue. The main floor of the Cow Palace offered a nightclub setting that was perfect for an after-show party starring will.i.am and MC Hammer. The total fund-raising goal for the event was $10 million. Ticket prices started at $1,000 and ran to a $1 million sponsorship package that included perks such as access to exclusive viewing areas.
Photography © Dreamforce / UCSF / Stageco US
October marked the first time that Stageco US became involved in the celebrated Dreamfest event, a collaboration between San Francisco industry giant Salesforce and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals in California. Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce conference is renowned for its high quality keynote speeches and extravagant parties that are unrivalled in the Bay Area. However, this year’s party finale took things to a new, unprecedented level of excitement with a surprise headline appearance by one of Stageco’s most loyal clients, U2. With 15 equipment trailers and a 12-man supervisory team headed by Stageco veteran Johan ’Bellekes’ Van
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IF YOU CAN IMAGINE IT, WE CAN BUILD IT.
EDITED & DESIGNED BY MARK CUNNINGHAM / LIVECULTURE FOR AND ON BEHALF OF STAGECO STAGING GROUP