Bart Dieben, of Dutch theatre lifting specialist Dieben tt, which was also present on the job site, says “when it comes to theatre, Holland has its own approach.”
He adds: “Where in the rest of the world a spectacle is performed for several months in the same theatre, in the Netherlands it is common that the show is performed only once or over a few days and then moves to another town.”
This means that not only the actors have to travel a lot, but also the complete set is carried from one place to another. Several trucks are used to bring all the necessary equipment – such as curtains, backgrounds, lights, sound systems, and all the other things that make every show unique.
In April, the first two people moved to the city of Helsingborg to prepare the invasion for the rest of the crew that would arrive the following week. Since then, a group of six to eight people has worked 50 hours each week on the project.
Each winch on site has a special plastic drum with a diameter of a little over 1m and on each drum five wire ropes are spooled and connected to the ladder truss or flybar that hangs over the stage area.
The 12km non-rotating steel wire rope of 6mm connect the 60 winches and flybars and are carried by over 300 sheaves and pulleys specially designed to be as quiet as possible. With a safe working load that varies from 250 to 800kg per flybar, theoretically it would be possible to raise and lower a truck to the top of the stage tower.
The total project will be finished in September 2007 and an estimated 6,000 hours of labour in designing and developing, assembling and building on site will result in a machine that brings speed into the art of hoisting.
