We build the room around the back row.
Staging, lighting, sound and screens for launches, conferences, dinners and ceremonies across Adelaide and regional South Australia. One producer plans the room with you. Our crew builds it overnight from the warehouse in Wingfield, runs the day, and has it gone by morning.
Start with the day.
300 at a keynote: two blocks of 14 either side of a centre aisle, 11 rows, a cross-aisle after row 10, and a 3.6 metre screen so the back row, 21 metres away, can read it. 272 of 300 get a clear view over the heads in front; risers under the back rows would clear 28 more.
See it built, from the stageFirst, we walk the room.
Before anything is planned, your producer walks the venue with you. We check where the trucks back in, how much power there is and where it is, the doors and the paths out, how high the roof is and what the venue says it can carry, and the venue's own rules and hours.
The person you plan with is the one on the radio on the day, and the one who signs the room back to the venue in the morning.
Set the guests and the kind of day at the top, and the room builds here, seen from the stage.
Tape goes down before anything comes off the truck.
The producer and the crew chief lay the plan out on the bare floor first: the path round the room, the exits and the clear space in front of them, the aisles, the deck and the line of the screen.
Crew call these spike marks: tape on the floor that shows where each thing goes. Ours are one hard blue that reads on any floor. The exits and the deck edges get glow tape as well, which stores light, so the paths out still show with the house lights down.
This is your plan, from the brief at the top. Drag the stage to another wall; pick a seat and the room beside it shows you that seat's view.
A first plan; the venue's own rules decide.
The deck goes in first, legs and all.
A deck is one 2.4 by 1.2 metre platform; bolted together, they make the stage. The legs go on, the tops drop onto them, the skirt goes round the front, and treads go at both ends, with a ramp whenever anyone needs one.
For a keynote it stands about 600 millimetres high, so the back row sees the speaker's shoulders. For a dinner it sits lower, so the head table can talk to the room.
The crew chief is responsible for it. It is usually the first hour on site.
Built on the floor, then up it goes.
Truss is the aluminium frame that carries the lights, speakers and screen above the room. We bolt it together section by section on the floor, every clamp tightened by hand, and hang the lights while it's at waist height. Then the whole lot is lifted level to its trim height: the height it stays at for the day.
Where it hangs from is the venue's decision: they and their engineer tell us what the roof can take, and we plan around their answer. If the room can't carry what the plan wants, you hear it from your producer the week before, not on the day.
The head rigger is responsible for it.
Light for faces, then for the room.
Light is for faces first, so the back row and a camera can read them: warm for a dinner, clean white for a keynote, and none of it spilling onto the screen. The work lights go down as the stage lights come up.
Then one colour for the room. A gel is a coloured filter in front of a light; one broad wash on the wall behind the stage is usually all a room needs.
One person runs light on the day, from the back of the room.
Sound and screens, sized from the last row.
Speakers hang either side of the deck, aimed at the back row, so the front isn't shouted at and the back still hears every word. In rooms deeper than 24 metres we add delay speakers: speakers further down the room, timed so the sound arrives with the voice from the stage.
The screen goes up last, clear of the stage lights, its bottom edge up to three metres off the floor so the picture shows over the heads in front. The plan above counts the seats that see it clear; where the back rows lose a strip along the bottom, risers lift them. The sound and screens are run by one person, beside the light desk.
Sit anywhere
Pick a seat on the plan, or try one of these, and the room leaves the stage and shows you what that seat sees. Esc, or Back to the stage, brings you out again.
The seats are tinted by how much of the screen they see over the heads in front: blue is a clear view, nine-tenths of it or more.
Set, and waiting.
The chairs and tables come in last, then the lectern and the drape line: black curtain on frames, hiding the road cases and the crew's path behind the stage.
In the last hour before doors, the producer walks from the back row to the lectern and sits in a few seats on the way. The sound is checked at speaking level, water goes on the lectern and every table, and the crew goes out of sight. The work lights go off, the screen comes up, and the room waits.
On the day, one voice on the radio.
The producer calls every change on the radio: when doors open, when the first speaker walks up, when the room turns over for dinner. You never have to find anyone, and if anything changes, you hear it from the producer first.
- You talk to the producer.
- The crew chief runs the floor.
- One person runs sound and screens, one runs light.
Gone by morning
After the last guest, it all comes down in the reverse of how it went up. The floor is swept, the tape comes up, and the venue gets its room back by morning.
Load out.
Load in slow, load out quick. It comes down in the reverse of how it went up: last in, first out.
Floor swept. Only the tape is left.