Clean the mud of your Wellies. Forget about the dumped tent. And stop trying to remember who was playing on Friday night through a beer fuelled haze.  As another Festival Season came to a close with the excellent Bestival on the Isle of Wight only a stone’s throw from Sarum HQ in Salisbury, maybe the real festival star who can always be relied upon to give a career best and is rarely the worse for wear was the high tech hydraulic sound stage which is a standard fixture nowadays.

It wasn’t always so. How things have changed.

The legendary Woodstock Festival might have had Jimi Hendrix, but hydraulics were certainly lacking!

The legendary Woodstock Festival might have had Jimi Hendrix, but hydraulics were certainly lacking!

Whether you are on tour or setting up a festival, life is far easier if you can reverse in your stage rig and simply press a button. The stage, gantry, weather cover and piano riser are all interleave and extend into their designed positions thanks to clever mechanical design and hydraulics. What an amazing innovation. Rather than sweat, toil and wrestle to erect an entire stage, the hydraulic rig is quick and simple, leaving the crew to concentrate on setting up a knockout show instead of messing about with the inevitable problems of rigging a different site for each gig they set up.

The two big players in the hydraulic sound stage arena are Tait Towers and Brilliant Stages. Bigger, slicker, lighter, and more complex; the sky is simply the limit for gigs and the hydraulic stages making them possible.

Are there any memorable gigs where stars used hydraulic gizmos to achieve something spectacular?  The star lift, by which the big name rises up out of the stage, sounds a bit tame in today’s world. The Romans had that in the Colosseum 2000 years ago, so Sarum Hydraulics needs a bit more spectacle!

Perhaps a toaster lift? These amazing gadgets propel the star and dancers upwards by up to a metre. Far more dramatic than the roman star, but exciting enough to grace the stages of the 21st century mogul.

In an industry that can design staggering sets using all this proven gear, what stands out as pushing hydraulics one step further beyond “everyday”?

Even back in 1974, David Bowie performed on a long hydraulic boom over the heads of the first few rows of the audience. It made a big impression then and even today, those old concerts of his still stand up as masterly performances.

Going back to 2009 we read that Take That’s “Circus” Tour went all out on its hydraulic kit.  Brilliant Stages designed a 12 metre wide stage with petal segments on top, which were actuated hydraulically to reveal an 8 metre long mechanical elephant. Great design, wonderful spectacle but the old folks at Sarum still grumble into their beer about Led Zeppelin gigs from 1974.

Bang up to date, Sarum weren’t at Taylor Swift’s last tour, but the Guardian seemed mighty enthusiastic with the show’s hydraulic surfing gizmo. To quote from the paper “during a series of solo songs, she’s raised into the centre of the arena bowl on a hydraulic neon seesaw, floating in an impromptu star field of audience-issued glowing bracelets like some sort of sun god.” Wow, sounds like our sort of hydraulics.

Hydraulic Stages are increasingly popular with stars like Taylor Swift

Hydraulic Stages are increasingly popular with stars like Taylor Swift

Where does it go? We suppose that lighter hydraulics, maybe higher pressures and more rigid structures optimised by 3D modelling and using composites will give artists bigger stages, with a new blockbuster around the corner. Easier and more sophisticated control of lots of hydraulic cylinders and actuators probably gives set designers a free rein bring their ideas to life.

If live gigs have now taken over as the mega business that now seems to drive the music business, then “the product” is everything. The figures are staggering. A world tour by the likes of U2 will run over a year or more, play 100 gigs, is seen by 7 million punters and gross over 700 million US dollars. No wonder artists will now make a big thing of signing up with someone like Live Nation. If punters want drama and spectacle in their live shows, then hydraulics will play its part to make it the gig to remember.

 

If well engineered and reliable products are the order of the day, Sarum Hydraulics is singing from the same score.  The gig starts at www.sarum-hydraulics.co.uk  Warming up now and start time to suit you.