Serious Stages supplied two of their new 25 metre Space Roof structures for the main stages at both Leeds and Reading sites creating a new look for the Mean Fiddler’s flagship Carling Weekend Festival event

The Space Roof is a new product, launched by Serious earlier in the year. It’s first outing was as Glastonbury’s Other Stage, and the 25 metre version is one of the largest complete temporary festival staging systems available in the UK.

The Space Roof is already gaining a reputation for its substantial 8 tonne distributed load bearing capacity, which is hugely flexible and will accommodate all types of production requirements for flying lighting, video,  sets, etc.

The Leeds and Reading Space stages measured 25 metres wide by 26 deep and also featured an elegant four metre cantilever at the front. With the widthways addition of custom video screen supports and 23 metre high Goal Post PA towers – another new Serious product - at both venues, the total structure width measured an impressive 58 metres.

The stages were decked at 2.5 metres high with matt black material. Serious also supplied a 24 metre wide by 2.5 metre thrust stage extension at both venues for Iron Maiden. This was removed once their set closed Friday night in Leeds, and replaced with two 7.2 by 2.4 metre wide camera runs stage left and right, and a 4.8 by 2.4 metre decked area centre stage for the remainder of the weekend. Both stages and PA wings were dressed and scrimmed with special material produced by Imaginators.

In Leeds, the main stage position is at the bottom of a natural amphitheatre style slope, dropping away steeply and dramatically at the rear.This necessitates the scaffolding infrastructure backing the stage to be built up to 25ft high to level it up with the front, which is just 8 ft high.

This levelling task is always the biggest challenge for the Serious crew on the picturesque green field site at Bramham Park, Leeds. The Space Roofs were each stabilised by 80 tonnes of kinterledge driven into the ground using the Platypus anchorage system.

This year the Leeds team was led by Leo Barcala and included up to 16 people, and the Reading Festival crew of 16 was headed by Aleksis Zarins. Serious’s Dragan Kuzmanov dealt with all structural calculations and health and safety issues for both sites.

The stage decks were built first, followed by the ramp and PA wings. The roof was then built separately on the ground and craned into place on top of the decking. This was to ensure the speed and efficiency of the rigging process and to minimise specific working at height indeterminates. The craning element of the build process took 4 days, and the crane was back again to perform the reverse operation on the out.

At the Leeds site, Serious designed and constructed a vast 42 metre long ramp 2.4 metres wide to get equipment up the hill onto the stage. This was built in 4 sections and included a 4.8 metre wide section in the middle for ‘two way’ traffic. The ramp terminated at the loading dock just behind and to the side of the backstage area. Trucks offloaded the gear at the foot of the hill and the long uphill push was undertaken by some extremely fit stage hands!

The three level FOH platforms at Leeds and Reading measured 7.2 by 7.2 metres with decks at 0.5, 3, 5.5 and 6 metres, accommodating sound, lighting and follow spots plus a delay screen hanging position at the rear. This was constructed from scaffolding as was the wheelchair access platform, also supplied by Serious.

Serious Stages’ Steven Corfield comments, “We have a large range of Space structures available, and they have been out on a wide range of projects throughout the summer. They’ve proved highly adaptable for all types of geographical location, and very quick to construct”.