CASE STUDY: Footloose the Musical with Taieri Musical Society
Venue: Coronation Hall, Mosgiel, Dunedin
Gravity Services Provided:
Lighting
Sound
Truss & Rigging
LED Screen
Gravity Events were proud to work with Taieri Musical on another production; Footloose. Big production elements were a must to fit the “high energy 80’s” vision set out by Director Ben Thomas, complicated by the challenging nature of working venues such as the Mosgiel Coronation Hall and it’s limited rigging options.
Gravity supplied a range of equipment to the mostly volunteer team at Taieri Musical to enable this. Before anything could be rigged in the air, an ambitious ground support truss structure was needed to be assembled. This allowed the team to rig moving-head lights, and scenic elements off the truss structure, which wouldn’t have been possible using existing infrastructure in the venue. Gravity supplied a large quantity of Chauvet TRUSST, which provided an excellent solution of being lightweight, low profile, and strong enough to support the rig.
Once the ground support was built, the clock was on. With only two days to load in, volunteers at Taieri Musical got to work building a range of production elements of the show. A key part of this was Gravity’s Absen LED screen which was used as a backdrop to the show, being able to transition between scenes without needing move huge set pieces, or fly in backdrops; both options not being possible in a small venue such as the Coronation Hall. Beyond his work directing the show, Ben Thomas also showed off his design skills, making custom designed visual content for every scene of the show.
The lighting design for this show was led by Taieri Musical’s. Gravity provided dozens of lighting fittings for this show, many of which bright LED lights to give the show a saturated “80’s look,” along with many moving head lights to give flexibility in positions from scene to scene, and to create movement effects in high energy musical numbers. Of special mention here are Gravity’s brand new Maverick Force S Profiles, a moving head profile fixture with 2 gobo wheels, framing shutters, 5 facet rotation prism and CMY colour mixing weighing in at only 24KGs, this fixture is a versatile light that can achieve multiple jobs within any rig.
Gravity provided all the sound equipment. Like any musical theatre production, having dozens of headset microphones on cast requires careful management. Footloose presented some additional challenges, including a band that would move onto stage at various times during the performance. Gravity worked closely with the backstage team at Taieri, along with Musical Director to ensure that the technical elements of this move would run smoothly, and that stage volume was managed to ensure the band wouldn’t overpower the cast when on stage. Gravity utilizes equipment from multiple top brands such as Allen & Heath, Sennheiser, RF Venue and Adamson to achieve a flawless sound design, connecting the audience and performers seamlessly.
LED dance isn’t a piece of equipment that we often hire to theatrical productions, however it’s use in Footloose was an effective transition from the “Burger Blast” countertop, to transitioning into a light up catwalk which had a few of the leads dancing on for “I need a hero.” This dance floor was built onto a 800mm high rolling riser, enabling cast and crew move easily, but importantly brake it when used with people on top.
