Bristol based lighting, visuals and rigging specialist Fineline supplied lighting and rigging equipment and expertise in a series of creative solutions for the world premiere of ‘Walking The Chains’, an ambitious circus / theatre production staged in the historic Passenger Shed at Bristol Temple Meads Station.

Celebrating 150 Years of Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s iconic Clifton suspension bridge, its spirit and impact as a landmark of Victorian engineering from conception to completion, the narrative also recalled how the bridge integrated into the community and industrial history of the region. The show was a collaboration between Bristol’s Show of Strength Theatre Company and circus / physical theatre performance company, Circomedia.

The show’s designer James Helps contacted Fineline on the recommendation of several others – to provide the solutions needed to stage the show - and its essential requirement to replicate the bridge in a theatrical setting - in this unique site specific location.

“We were all very pleased to be involved” comments Fineline’s Rob Sangwell, “Apart from the obvious respect for Brunel and his many great civil engineering projects, it

was great to be involved in a local production that was imaginative, different and required plenty of brainwork to create elegant solutions”.

A major challenge was the fragile timber beam work in the roof of the building, which has never been used in such a context before, and had a weight loading of just 150 Kgs per point. The Passenger Shed was designed by Brunel as part of his ‘Old Station’ prior to the construction of Temple Meads Station itself. It contained two long platforms with rail tracks in the centre and was where passengers embarked the carriages that were pulled to the locomotives.

The show was played in traverse, a configuration perfectly suited to the narrative as well as the layout of the building, with two sets of bleacher seating stands installed either side of the long since removed railway tracks. The sides of the room also represented the gorge, and the centre space the River Avon which the bridge spans.

Rob Sangwell and Reuben Pinkney pooled their vast knowledge and considerable enthusiasm for the project to design a large ground support rigging system that provided both lighting, set and audio positions, and also a combined flown / ground supported truss grid for the aerial performance elements of the show.

The six legged 15 x 25 metre ground support was built from 52cm Supertruss and tailored to the space to provide most of the equipment positions. The aerial performance grid – complete with Circomedia’s pulleys, flaying harnesses, winches, rope trapezes, etc. - was dead hung from the roof timbers after being lifted into position using 9 x CM ProStar motors, all positioned to spread the load. The Supertruss aerial grid was additionally supported by two ground based towers taking most of the weight.

The ground support gave 7 metres of headroom, with the flying rig at 8 metres, out of a maximum headroom of 9 metres to the top of the apex roof.

The floor underneath what had originally been the rail tracks, was braced with a bespoke timber structure which allowed a self-elevating tightrope system to be installed by Circomedia, which was one of the props used for stunts and actors crossing the bridge.

Lighting designer Mark Dymock has worked with ‘Walking The Chains’ director Robin Belfield on a number of occasions, but this was the first time he had encountered Fineline, an experience he describes as “Excellent” in all respects.

His main creative goal was to make the vast space of the Passenger Shed come alive and wrap the audience up in the action.

Rather than throwing lots of kit at it to cover the space, it was more a case of choosing precisely the right kit and making each fixture work extremely hard.

Fineline supplied 12 x Robe Pointe multi-purpose fixtures which were the core of the lighting rig and positioned all around the ground support structure. They met the ‘powerful and flexible’ criteria, and were utilised for effects like recreating the chains of the bridge with their beams, plus washes and breakup effects.

He also specified 12 x Robe LED Wash 600s, four of which were rigged per side on the long edges of the ground support with four along the centre beam. These were used for general washes and for specials during some of the aerial sections.

The action flipped back and forth in time between the 1860s and the present, a storytelling vehicle which was reinforced with colour shifts, another reason Mark selected LED Washes as they are great for all the subtle hues as well as all the bold saturates.

The moving light count was completed with four Robe ROBIN 600E Spots positioned half way up on four of the ground support legs, and used to capture the aerialists in action and a range of other effects.

The moving lights did most of the work and were augmented by a selection of well-placed generics – ETC Source Fours, PARs and floods.

Fineline’s Stuart England crunched the numbers to work out the vast cable runs needed to distribute the lighting cabling around the venue and co-ordinated rigging the lighting on site.

Production designer James Helps sums up “Working with Fineline was amazing and brought invaluable skills, knowledge and imagination – and more extremely pleasant people - to the table. Their commitment to the production was really impressive and in fact, far more than expected as their whole team embraced the vibe and adventure of the show”.

Fineline supplied a good old skool lighting rig – together with rigging and transport - for two local Van Morrison shows at Cardiff St David’s Hall and Bristol Colston Hall, working with LD Andy Chard.

The rig was all generics – the first such rig for many years – featuring lots of PARs, ETC Source Fours, Thomas 4-cell cyc battens and ground rows, all of which looked very appropriate – together with Rob Watson to look after and tech everything.

The lights were rigged on three straight trusses and an Avolites Pearl Expert for control. Fineline has worked with Van Morrison on-and-off for around 15 years!

Downtown Bristol was buzzing with great music and vibes at the weekend for the third‘Love Saves the Day’ Festival, a multi-stage event in Castle Park right in the heart of the city. Headliners included Annie Mac, SBTRKT, Jamie xx, Eats Everything and many more.

For the first year, lighting and visuals rental specialist Fineline – also based in Bristol - was asked to supply lighting equipment, LED screens / media server control, rigging and a visual production design for the Main Stage … which seriously upped its production values from 2013 in line with the profile of the festival which sold out its 12,000 capacity on both days.

Fineline’s MD Rob Sangwell commented, “We were delighted to be asked on-board by festival organisers, Team Love, as we are really committed to partnering on locally based shows and events. We presented two design options for the stage from which they chose the more expensive, which really underlines how much they value good presentation.
“Apart from that, there is an incredibly vibrant live music and event scene happening in Bristol right now, so it’s great to be part of that too”.

Presenting an integrated lighting and video package was right at the essence of the imaginative production design created by Fineline’s Wingnut which was customised to fit the stage - a compact 12 metre Super Nova Light from Serious- utilising virtually every centimetre of available space!

“The idea was to make an equally big impression for both audience and artists,” he explains.

He incorporated all the regular festival lighting requirements – like flexibility and ensuring that the design enhanced the stage in the daylight hours as well as after dark.

The visual design incorporated 20 panels of Lighthouse R7 LED screen which was configured as five columns - three flown upstage and two ground-staked downstage either side.

Apart from replaying funky and interesting video content, these were also used for dramatic full-on lighting effects like strobing.

An Avolites AI media server was used for all the visual control, set up and programmed by Fineline’s Stu England who also co-ordinated, formatted and ran all the guest content - some of which was submitted in advance, and some appeared literally minutes before the act was about to take to the stage – which kept him on his toes!

Four double truss pods were sub-hung from the stage superstructure to give the lighting positions. These were both raked and fanned to optimise the shape of the stage roof and maximise the available height.

An additional guest lighting truss was installed upstage but in front of the video truss holding the three LED columns, and sub-hung below the video truss was another lighting truss that could be moved in and out for the longer and more complex changeovers.

This truss effectively provided capacity for a floor specials package … but just not actually on the floor to save stage space!

Right at the back there was also a drapes truss, with another truss at the front for key lights, blinders and to help with cable management for the four double-width trusses.

The moving lights consisted of 12 x Robe Pointes, 12 x Robe LED Wash 600s, 6 x Robe 600E Spots, 10 x Martin Atomic strobes and 16 x blinders – a mix of 2, 4 and 8-cell, together with several bars of 4 and 6 PARs. The stage roof was basically rammed with lights!

Using the very versatile multi-purpose Robe Pointes vastly increased the options for everyone as well.

On the control side, Fineline supplied an Avolites Tiger Touch 2 and a Tiger Touch Pro with a Titan Mobile wing, and the AI server and media content was all triggered from the desks.

The Fineline crew were joined by apprentice Josh King and all worked extremely hard to get everything rigged, ready and programmed in the short get-in period.

Tom Paine from Team Love comments, “It was a great experience working with Fineline. They brought their vast experience to the table and did a really fantastic job with a great looking stage that helped us step everything up a few levels”.

The event was another great success bringing a bumper weekend of urban love to Bristol and establishing it firmly on the summer festival map!

Fineline Love Crew, Left to right Rob Sangwell, Stu England, Wingnut,Rachael Moule, Josh King

Bristol based lighting and visuals rental specialists Fineline supplied lighting, LED screen, rigging and crew to the 2014 Eden Sessions, a diverse series of music performances staged at the Eden Project in Cornwall, UK, one of the most atmospheric and magical settings in the country.

For the second year, Fineline worked closely with Andy Cotton of TAO Productions, who production managed the events and co-ordinated all technical aspects. The Sessions ran over 5 weeks and featured a star-studded line up including Skrillex, Dizzee Rascal, Katy B, Ellie Goulding, Elbow, The Pixies and others.

Fineline’s Rob Sangwell explains that they designed a highly flexible and practical ‘house’ lighting rig, designed so all the touring bands could come in ‘underneath’ with their respective touring packages. Lighting for each gig – although based around the fixtures available in the house rig – also emulated the artist’s touring lighting schemes as far as possible.

The stage at Eden is beneath an elegant, distinctive crescent shaped tensile roof, and so all rigging has to be integrated with this. A hybrid design has been evolved to facilitate the 17 metre wide by 14 metre deep super-truss mother grid that is part ground-supported and part-flown. This in turn provides all the required lighting and video rigging positions.

“It took a bit of working out initially,” explains Sangwell, “But now the concept exists it is proving an ideal and very adaptable solution”.

Once the mother grid was inplace, they sub-hung their three x 15 metre lighting and one 15 metre wide video trusses below, plus a drapes truss at the back, with allowances made for accommodating additional artist ‘specials’.

For lighting, the house rig lighting comprised 18 x Robe 600E Spots, 18 x Robe LED Wash 600s and 12 x Robe Pointe multi-purpose luminaires, together with a healthy splattering of 2, 4 and 8-lite blinders, 16 x Martin Atomic strobes and 16 x ETC Source Four Profiles at the front for essential key lighting.

There were also around 72 PARcans on the rig for general washes and stage cover, as well as for support acts, etc.

The house control was Avolites dimming and ChamSys SnakeSys R8 ArtNet nodes and Avo DMX buffers for data, with an Avo Tiger Touch as the house desk. All the visiting LDs brought in their own grandMA2 consoles, all of which were integrated into the ArtNet control network.

For video, Fineline supplied 48 panels of Lighthouse R7 LED screen, which was reconfigured for different acts, with the ‘standard’ house configuration being one 16:9 upstage block of screen.

For Elbow – designed by Cate Carter – they needed more screen, so 44 square metres was installed for this show, set up as a 14.5 metres wide and 3 metres high surface at the back to dovetailed with their touring video package.

The LED screen was hooked into the touring media servers / control systems in each case again integrated via Fineline’s ArtNet data system. This aspect of the project and all associated geekery was co-ordinated for Fineline by Stuart England.

Cate Carter also created the lighting and visual design for Ellie Goulding, which was out with Robin Haddow as Lighting Director. Says Sangwell, “We all enjoyed working with Cate again, who we’ve known for some time as she comes from the area. She’s always been a talented designer and it’s great to see her career rocketing to where it is now… especially with her local connections”.

Fineline’s other crew were Wingnut, Tim Williams and Sam Kenyon all on lighting, Martin Jacobs looking after the video and riggers Steve Armstrong, Peran Odgers and Ruben Pinkney.

They also lit three of the famous Eden Biomes for the shows, which made a beautiful and eye-catching backdrop to the whole scene, adding a fantastic visual flourish to the excellent vibes and music.

“It was fabulous to be part of the TAO Productions team again and working on an event that’s a bit different from a standard music festival. Everything was well organised and based on high production values which is always good. We were lucky with the weather, Eden is a genuinely amazing place to work … and we all love it” concludes Sangwell.

Bristol based lighting and visuals rental specialist Fineline supplied lighting, LED side screens complete with new bespoke supporting structures and an IMAG camera package for Warwick Castle’s 1100th Anniversary Summer Proms Spectacular - a music, fireworks and pyro extravaganza to celebrate the founding of the Castle.

The Medieval castle standing today was developed from an original built by William the Conqueror in 1068.

The two day Summer Proms event saw 8500 people enjoy Paul Weller rocking the house on the Friday night supported by White Room and The Gramotones, and a programme of popular classics performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) on the Saturday, conducted by Jae Alexander … plus special guests.


Fineline’s Rob Sangwell comments, “We have been involved in this event for many years and it was a great pleasure to be doing it again this year. Each year we aim to bring a fresh and different approach to the visuals”.

Fineline’s production lighting design also incorporated Paul Weller’s own touring lighting scheme which was created by Dan Hill and they augmented the house lighting rig with their own floor specials package.

The starting point for the ‘house’ rig was the Serious Structures 16 metre Supernova stage from which Fineline’s crew, led by Wingnut, sub-hung their trusses. The design offered the flexibility of being able to morph from rock pop to classical pop.

Rigged to Fineline’s trusses were Robe LED Wash 600s, Robe 100 LED Beams and Robe ROBIN 600E Spots for moving lights. These were joined by MTC-B2 LED Battens and a selection of generics – PARs, Source Four profiles and blinders.

The front and rear trusses were connected with multiple trusses running upstage / downstage and the whole trussing structure was raked to match Paul Weller’s raked side trusses – which were part of their incoming floor package.

For control, Fineline supplied an Avolites Pearl Expert plus Avo ART dimming, and joining Wingnut on the lighting crew were Tim Williams and Rachael Moule.

Rob Sangwell co-ordinated the installation of the two side-stage IMAG screens which were made up of Lighthouse R7, each measuring 6 metres wide by 4 metres high. He worked with crew members Stuart England, Martin Jacobs and Will Dale.

The screens were supported by two of Fineline’s new bespoke support structures, which in this case were 9 metres wide by 9 high. These are a completely new product designed by Fineline using James Thomas 52 cm SuperTower trussing stabilised by ground anchors.

Using ground anchors dispenses with the need of unsightly concrete or water ballast tanks – not only are they hugely more aesthetically pleasing, but they are also quicker and easier to install as well as to transport to and from site.

The metre long steel ground anchors are inserted into the ground and when in position leave only an eyelet left showing to which the screen support structures are securely strapped down. No tele-handler is required.

Sangwell is very pleased with the results of this first outing for the support structures, “We would have needed 12 tonnes of ballast to make the supports stable otherwise – which would take a serious amount of handling and lots of extra time”.

Fineline also supplied an 8 channel OB truck and a three camera PPU package for the IMAG relay to screens comprising three Sony D50 cameras, one positioned at FOH with a long lens, one in the pit and one hand-held onstage plus a remote pan / tilt head rigged down stage right. All four were fed into a Blackmagic ATEM 4K Production Studio and cut by Brian Corner.

The Warwick Castle spectacular is one of many summer event projects for Fineline which has already included supplying lighting to five arenas at Glastonbury Festival, the Eden Sessions and the main stage at Love Saves The Day festival in downtown Bristol.