Concrete Stage Surface/Paint?

[derekleffew]

Originally Posted by Edgineer

...and they recommended their Adagio vinyl dance floor covering. I guess this would fall into the same category with Marley, which our rigging contractor suggested. Does anyone have experience with that sort of covering?

Most of use have lots of experience with vinyl dance flooring, and all of us will probably state that no professional dancer will dance on any surface laid directly on concrete (unless that surface is a portable sprung floor, such as Harlequin Floors - Harlequin Woodspring Basketweave ).

[Van]

Originally Posted by Edgineer

Thanks. We don't do much dance right now. If we do, it is more in the ballet/worship direction, but there has been some modern dance in the past.

I was referred by one of our contractors to Rosebrand (don't know why I didn't think of them earlier), and they recommended their Adagio vinyl dance floor covering. I guess this would fall into the same category with Marley, which our rigging contractor suggested. Does anyone have experience with that sort of covering?

Honestly if you're talking about long term wear and tear, you're much better off with an epoxy coating or a poured urethane coating. Marley is a great thing but unless you install it over a sprung floor it's still useless for dance, especially Ballet. < most ballets won't dance on a floor that isn't sprung, or at the least they will require a temporary floor be laid. Now if you worship includes Nativa American Stomp dance you might be ok....>

Issues with Marley include but are not limited to;
Cannot roll loads on it < no moving Pianos on anf off stage. No Cadillacs full of feeder either.>
Tears, it will tear and stretch if put under enough stress, once it stretches in this manner there is no way to fix it beside cutting out the area and laying in a new piece which creates more seams.

Seams, Seams suck. There are special tapes use to cover seams on Marley and they do their job however, long term they will begin to loosen up and then they leave a nasty icky residue that takes forever to clean up, which you have to do prior to applying more tape.

Expansion. When you lay a marley you have to leave small gaps at the seams to allow for expansion and contraction. Even the heat from stage lights can cause a single piece < run, roll, whatever> to expand up to an 1/8" then when it gets cold again, shrinkage. All this moving around does quiet a number on the tape. and if you don't leave enough room for expansion you get big waves / puckers, moguls along every seam.
leave too much room and you get troughs, dimples and whatever the opposite of moguls is.

Hope that helps.

[Edgineer]

Thanks again everyone. Dance is really a very rare component for us, so it's looking more like our best and most economical bet will be the epoxy/paint route. We can always have a portable floor added over top of that. Just to be thorough, I'm actually re-exploring the carpet option.

[Edgineer]

Almost forgot: my only concern with the epoxy type finishes is lighting reflection/glare control from FOH, especially onto objects and materials that we don't want lit from FOH. Does anyone have such experience? I have never done lighting with such a surface, but we get enough glare onto our upstage surfaces from our current flat black wood surface stage.

[Van]

If you use an epoxy coating you can mix in flattening agents, any contractor who does large scale applications of epoxies should be able to help you out.
You could also aplly several coats of Rosco Clear Acrylic Glaze, in a flat, over a shiny surface. You will have to wait a couple of weeks, until the epoxy is completely cured though.