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2005 Rental & Staging Systems Award
For the second year in a row, Alford Media Services was recognized as having provided the Best Overall Staging for a Corporate or Association Event, Large Venue (Technology budget greater than $50K < $200K). The award was presented in Las Vegas at the Rental and Staging Systems Award Banquet in conjunction with infoComm. Steve Alford, Tom Alford, Tom Stimson, Bill Brady, Wade Diebold, Tom Watkins and Charlie Ferguson were there to accept the award on behalf of all Alford Media.
Next, Randy Robert applied his expertise to supporting the JBL Vertec speaker system from its own ground supported truss system. As you can see from the photos, we had a big image combined with big audio in a room with relatively low ceilings. The end result was a stunning success! The rig was built on site ahead of schedule—much to the amazement of those who watched.
Our clients were thrilled with how it all turned out and we were excited to have accepted and met the challenge presented to us. "The staging and scenic elements were complimented with a large, wide-screen format projection surface allowing the use of blended panoramic images to highlight and describe sales and market territory, customer base and overall Dr Pepper landscape". Bob Brinker Vice President, Operations Events & Meetings Group (EMG) “Given our situation in a venue without rigging points above the set/screen we were faced with a situation of how to support a 76’ screen and truss and 98’ of scenery. Creative rigging & engineering by Alford solved the screen dilemma. That solution allowed us to attach the scenic header to the screen truss. The header was then ground supported, left and right of the screen, by masking flats that also carried the corporate logo. A center hub was tied into the header and an arch was supported by cylinders and tied into the masking flats that flanked the screen. Let us know if you would like us to enter your next show in future contests. We appreciate the award winning work that we do together! |
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See our June Email Postcard "BACK-2-BACK" announcing our 2005 Award Read about the two Rental & Staging Systems Awards we won in 2004 |
When Bob Brinker and Vickie Fricke with EMG came to us to stage a widescreen event for Dr Pepper Bottling at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, we had no idea that we’d have to invent special truss and rigging to get the job done. The concept seemed simple enough. Do a knockout, widescreen production for over 1,000 people with stunning audio to support the fantastic visuals using the latest staging technologies. Like many shows, the room was not quite large enough for everything that was planned to fit into it. Many versions of the audience and scenic plan were revised until there was one that seemed to meet
everyone’s needs. It was when we discovered that we were going to be supporting our 18' x 77' Stewart Aeroview 100 screen from the ground that things got interesting. The necessary room layout would not put us under any of the available rigging points. We also learned that we were going to have to find a way to raise our JBL VerTec speaker system without using overhead rigging points. Faced with these challenges, we put our heads together to find a realistic and safe way to hang the big screen and audio rig. 
Terry St. Peters, the head of our Rigging Department, got to work on designing and building a ground support truss system that could not just safely hold up the screen, but also provide the right amount of tension to keep it taught and straight, and to safely support the eighty-foot span. Our engineers designed an ingenious cable and pulley system that used the truss structure to support its own span and also keep the screen even around all four edges. 
A one hundred and fifty foot cable was run from the bottom of each supporting leg, out around two horizontal tension arms, over two vertical support towers and down to pickup the weight at the middle of the truss span. This required some custom fabrication that our shop guys were eager to knock out. In one of the attached photos you can see Shawn Lunsford welding load-rated pulleys to steel plates that were then attached to the top of each truss leg and arm. As you can see in the photo above, 
Terry and his crew built a full-scale prototype of one truss leg in our warehouse to take measurements for the cable and pulley system. The final step was to have structural engineers approve the load calculations and sign off on the plan.
