The Painful Process of Figuring out how to get the Band Stand to work/altering (Destroying Mine and Danielle's) Models (PART 1)

One of the hardest parts to this Production process was trying to figure out how to get the Band Stand/Stage in the right position on stage so that the audience could see them, they could see the play unfold so they made there visual cues and so they didn't take up to much stage space or got in the way of the Actors and scenes.

In my original design I hadn't included a band stand/stage in my model because it wasn't made 100% clear to me that the band was needed to be visible. When I found out of this change that needed to be made I instantly went to Danielle who had included a concept for the band stand/stage that was visual to the audience. Her design was based on the concept of the band stand/stage being on a raised platform approx 2 meters high, set would then come from under the raised platform to form certain scenes while the band play above the cast.

I liked this idea from the minute she started describing the concept to us all so the minute I had to rethink a band stand/stage I started thinking about a new design using the concepts she had created, also something that was key was making sure that it was possible in terms of implementing this final concept onto the stage for the show. At this point we had a total of 12 Musicians to cater a space of including:

• 3 Vocalists
• 3 Guitars
• 3 Keyboards (Including the Musical Directors)
• 1 Bassist
• a full Drum Kit
• and then finally a Reeds player (Saxophone and Flute) who needed a bit more space than the others.

Because of this we had to provide a large amount of space but also try and save as much space as possible, we as a group worked out that we would need 8 Steel-deck sections (8m x 4m) and this would give us the most amount of space possible without having to cut band members.

We came to this of using 8 Steel-deck sections conclusion by testing out the spacing within the model box of the Woughton Theatre that was made for this show so we had the ability to test out spacing and concept that we thought of and have a visual representation of what we wanted to do.

In the end I tried about 4 big set designs for the Band Stand/Stage, 2 of the 4 Designs were very similar with just a few changes but then the other 2 were very different. Unfortunately in the end the design that was picked was the most boring/easiest of the 4 but this was due to the others being possible but to expensive to construct for the production that we were putting on.

The first 3 design/concepts that were drawn up, built to scale all worked on the concept of having the band on a raised platform above the cast with set/cast coming from under it, of course this would raise health and safety but we contacted Impact Productions who were hiring us the Lighting, Staging and some Sound Equipment about their policy and if it was possible. The response was a YES it is possible they would just need bracing and supports so we included this when we were figuring out designs.