Posted on: 21st October 2005, United Kingdom E-mail this page to a friend

Slingco has installed the largest CABLEnet tensioned wire grid system in the world to date at the newly refurbished Bournemouth International Centre.

The 2500 square metre installation covering the entire roof space of the BIC's main Windsor Hall was part of an £22 million refurbishment project for the building, undertaken by Warings Contractors Limited from Portsmouth for Bournemouth Borough Council in partnership with the South West Regional Development Agency.

It expands the seated capacity of the Windsor Hall to circa 4,200 and the seated/standing capacity to 6500, making the BIC a truly world class multipurpose venue suitable for all types of productions – from conference to arena sized stage shows.

The CABLEnet installation pips Slingco's previous world record, held by the IFEMA venue in Madrid, by approximately 100 square metres!

Slingco also achieved the rare feat of finishing their element of this enormous project ahead of time in just 7 weeks - and on budget.

The CABLEnet consumed some 36 miles of steel cabling and 75 tonnes of new steel. It's an elegant and highly practical solution that enables BIC technical and maintenance staff to have safe high level access across the entire roof of the venue's main Windsor Hall. The house lighting rig is stored in the roof void unobtrusively and can be used wherever needed across the space. No shadows are cast by the grid when lights are shone through it into the space below.

The tensioned wire grid was originally specified by Theatreplan. The earliest plans for the refurb included only partial wire grid coverage of both the Windsor Hall and the adjacent smaller Solent Hall.

At the second stage of the tender process, Warings realised that there would be no other way to safely access not just the production lighting and sound rigs housed in the roof, but a whole host of services like AC, heating, sprinklers, house lighting, etc.

Warings and Slingco's Nick Dykins then revised the design to include covering the entire Windsor Hall roof with a wire grid for safe access to the whole area.

Apart from the safety aspect, another advantage that CABLEnet brings to the BIC is an increased roof ceiling height of 12 metres, for their own and visiting productions. This was previously restricted due to a false ceiling. The venue now has a hugely fast, flexible and dynamic rigging capability.

There are two dual-purpose trap doors in the CABLEnet that enable the easy hoisting of equipment up into the grid – via a series of rolling beams. They also open up to give clear follow spot beam paths to stage. Their positioning near the edge of the stage gives an exceptionally neat profile for follow-spotting, avoiding excess off-target light spillage

Slingco's Nick Dykins comments, "The scale of the installation and the accelerated lead-time was a massive challenge. To finish before deadline and on budget is a testament to Slingco's design, production and installation teams and to the support of Warings, theatre consultants Theatreplan and structural engineers GGP – an all round great team effort"

It was the first experience Warings have had of working with Slingco, and it's proved extremely positive. "Slingco are professional, organised and the design process was well managed and painless" Warings have said of the Rochdale based company.