Theatre Stage & Rigging Renovation

Lee Chap

Member
Hello there!

Long time reader. First post and it's a big one.

I work in a small community theatre, mainly on the lighting side of the house as that's where most of my fairly limited experience is. However, I've been asked to help advise the group on how best to approach the complete replacement of the stage and lighting rigging... Talk about the blind leading the blind. As always, the main constraint will be cost.

We are lucky enough to have builders/mechanics/metal workers/riggers/electricians/etc available to us and we can contract in for some work. However, if we were to ask any of these groups to 'build us a stage', whilst I've no doubt they'll do a good job structurally, there is a lot of theatre specific requirements that they wont be aware of unless we are very specific in what we want. Of course, we want to make the most of this unique opportunity to rebuild the stage, proscenium and overhead rig in a way that'll be flexible and serve us well for many years to come.

So, I'm looking for any advice you could share from two different angles:
  1. Can you recommend a business who could either: a) Build us a theatre! or b) Advise us / produce a plan?
    In many ways this would be my preference for obvious reasons. It would be best to have an experienced company lead us on this. However, we're probably working to a budget of 10k max. I fear consultation fees could reach this alone!

  2. Can you provide any pointers / experience that'll help us to build our own plan?
    As mentioned, our budget is modest (possibly around 10k) but we have a lot of skilled people with the right equipment available to us. We'd need to provide a comprehensive list of requirements and/or design including many specifics.
    My main concerns right now are:
    • deciding how we'd like the stage constructed, to be permanent but flexible & easy to maintain
    • we need a new, supported frame to rig our lighting & scenery bars from - this would have to span fair distances (13m~), hold quite a lot of weight and still not be too intrusive in either floor footprint or as an eyesore!
I'll include basic CAD images of our existing facility to give you some idea what I'm working with.

Please, be gentle with me. I see from other amazing posts (like this) that some of you are already working on much bigger projects, so perhaps there is some wisdom you wouldn't mind sharing.

Thank you in advance,
Lee

Mercury Auditorium_FOH.png
Mercury Auditorium_DS.png
 
Many small groups fear the cost of consultants. Instead they go to anyone willing to offer an opinion for free, or very small costs.

The fiscally smart move is have a consultant advise on the best way to spend your limited funds. I often mention that hiring a consultant will save far more that the fees, if nothing else, in mistakes avoided.
 
I'm going to advance a probably unpopular opinion.

You can't even get out of your parking space for 10 grand.

I would venture to say, just as a jackleg estimate, that a reasonable legit theatre, fully equipped to open the curtain, is going to be several thousand dollars per square foot (though Bill will probably have a closer estimate).

I hate to discourage people, but...
 
I'm with Jay, and I fear the safety exposure you'd have by not designing and building fully to theater building code if "weekend welder" came in to help. You are building a public space and the standard of care required is very high. Maybe the first step is to engage a fundraising expert..
 
Hello there!

Long time reader. First post and it's a big one.

I work in a small community theatre, mainly on the lighting side of the house as that's where most of my fairly limited experience is. However, I've been asked to help advise the group on how best to approach the complete replacement of the stage and lighting rigging... Talk about the blind leading the blind. As always, the main constraint will be cost.

We are lucky enough to have builders/mechanics/metal workers/riggers/electricians/etc available to us and we can contract in for some work. However, if we were to ask any of these groups to 'build us a stage', whilst I've no doubt they'll do a good job structurally, there is a lot of theatre specific requirements that they wont be aware of unless we are very specific in what we want. Of course, we want to make the most of this unique opportunity to rebuild the stage, proscenium and overhead rig in a way that'll be flexible and serve us well for many years to come.

So, I'm looking for any advice you could share from two different angles:
  1. Can you recommend a business who could either: a) Build us a theatre! or b) Advise us / produce a plan?
    In many ways this would be my preference for obvious reasons. It would be best to have an experienced company lead us on this. However, we're probably working to a budget of 10k max. I fear consultation fees could reach this alone!

  2. Can you provide any pointers / experience that'll help us to build our own plan?
    As mentioned, our budget is modest (possibly around 10k) but we have a lot of skilled people with the right equipment available to us. We'd need to provide a comprehensive list of requirements and/or design including many specifics.
    My main concerns right now are:
    • deciding how we'd like the stage constructed, to be permanent but flexible & easy to maintain
    • we need a new, supported frame to rig our lighting & scenery bars from - this would have to span fair distances (13m~), hold quite a lot of weight and still not be too intrusive in either floor footprint or as an eyesore!
I'll include basic CAD images of our existing facility to give you some idea what I'm working with.

Please, be gentle with me. I see from other amazing posts (like this) that some of you are already working on much bigger projects, so perhaps there is some wisdom you wouldn't mind sharing.

Thank you in advance,
Lee

View attachment 19398 View attachment 19399
@Lee Chap Having people, no matter how experienced, who'll donate services is one thing; are they donating materials as well?
If not, how will you / your group pay for all of the materials and equipment necessary.
I know I'm going to regret opening this can of worms:
How many patrons are you hoping to accommodate?
Cost of seats.
Washroom facilities.
Meeting, or exceeding, Fire Marshal's rules for maximum occupancy.
Fire exits for performers and patrons.
Emergency lighting sufficient for exiting SAFELY in the event of a power failure.
Parking for performers, staff and patrons.
Signage to guide patrons while on your property / in your facility.
Heating, cooling and exchange of sufficient quantities or air to replenish oxygen and extract stale, oxygen depleted air.
Having all of the above air handling occur sufficiently quietly to not interfere with audibility of spoken words.
Acoustic construction and treatment to keep extraneous sounds out, your performances in, with enough reflective surfaces to make your space suitably reverberant without too many strong echoes and / or standing waves.
Cost of providing safe and adequate power at your UK voltages.
Cost of fire sprinklers and flame retardant / minimal off-gassing construction and finishing materials.

Without including any labor costs, investigate the costs of the above and include construction permit / inspection fees then toss in insurance coverage. Include costs of bars, liquor, and associated licensing / dispensing equipment and fees if you're so inclined.

I've loosened the lid of the 'worm container', I suspect others will post with additional cautionary worm tales.
@MNicolai @RickR @RickBoychuk @BillConnerFASTC ( who hates Control Booth's 'Bat Calls'), @TimMc @almorton Care to chase a few escaping worms??

The early bird may get the worm; how big is your appetite for worm tales and / or tails???
Posting from one of the colonies north of little Donnie's walls.
Toodleoo!
Ron Hebbard
 
Last edited:
As everyone has said, that's a very tight budget, even just to refurbish the stage, let alone the grid as well. We're just about to spend roughly that on replacing the house lights with new LED fittings and controllers.

What kind of community theatre are you? Is it a shared space (sort of akin to a village hall or community centre) or do you have your own premises (a "little theatre"). Have you thought of applying for lottery funding? Our theatre, when it was converted from a school, got lottery funding if I recall correctly. The build was started in 1977 and it needed rather more than £10,000 to be spent even then.

If you want to just concentrate on the stage, you'll probably want to specify power and data outlets in dips, and that will need to be integrated with your power distribution and data distribution systems. Do you want a revolve? We have a computerised powered revolve, and it is a God send, but it adds to the build costs. Ours was designed and built by Unusual Rigging.

You'll almost certainly need to get a structural engineer involved to do load calculations, if for nothing else than the grid. Are you wanting to use hoists - suddenly you're in the world of LOLER certification - or just static bars. They will need to be certified for deflection and maximum load.

Using your own workers should be fine, as long as there is someone overseeing the work who is competent to sign it off as compliant.

It is worth talking to the right consultants - the trick of course is finding them. For a more UK centric view of the business, it might be worth reposting this on the Blue Room - www.blue-room.org.uk - where you may find people who can make personal recommendations of UK based companies.

Not trying to put you off, just pointing up, as others have, that it's a huge can of worms, even if you are able to restrict yourself to just the stage and grid.
 
Last edited:
I missed the 10k. I'll assume pounds so in the US $12,500 range.

The sub contract for a very modest size stage floor on a recent project - just the pieces above the slab - US$ 40,000. A main curtain to divide a room - US $20,000. One motorized lighting bar - in the US $20,000-35,000 range. Now, maybe 20-50% of that is labor.

Can you help reconcile your budget and goal?

I find psf costs difficult but I can tell you that an entire pac wind added to a high school in us with maybe 500 to 1000 seats ranges from $5 or 6m up to $15m. The lower end being pre-engineered metal buildings with dead hung stage, the upper end steel frame and light gage steel OR precast with a 50' stage, manual counterweight with motorized electrics and shell. Probably in the $400-600 psf range.
 
I would venture to say, just as a jackleg estimate, that a reasonable legit theatre, fully equipped to open the curtain, is going to be several thousand dollars per square foot (though Bill will probably have a closer estimate).

Here in the United States, new construction is typically $200-300/SF for a school-type cafegymnatorium. A professional theater is more like $450-600/SF. (all numbers here are USD unless noted otherwise). Sounds like the scope of this project is more limited to the stage and rigging of an existing space.

I'm working on a rep theater right now where we're renovating an existing building to add a couple rehearsal halls, some music rooms, a basic recording studio for the marketing team, and a costume construction and storage shop. Not including land procurement, $11M. About 40,000 square feet, so about $275/SF for the renovation, which doesn't include any stage lighting aside from what they set up temporarily plugged into a company switch. Architectural/engineering fees probably on the magnitude of 7-8% of construction cost which covers normal consultants like structural, mechanical, electrical, civil, plumbing, and fire protection, but doesn't include specialty consultant fees like acoustical and theatrical. We've also had legislation recently here in Florida to require DAS systems in all commercial buildings to allow first responders to communicate with their radios inside your building. For a 40,000SF building, that expense alone can be up a $100k investment.

I'm not familiar with codes in the UK, but here in the States adding a stage and hanging curtains in an existing space can have implications for egress, accessibility, fire protection, and fire rated partitions depending on the extent of the project.

I certainly don't want to deter any community theater from operating or expanding, but you should do so sensibly, with a long-term capital improvement plan, and have a good sense of local real estate. A remodel of a different building can be cheaper than a remodel of the building you happen to already occupy. I used to work with a community theater who was leasing their 150-seat space but discovered that their improvements were considered by their landlord to increase the value of the building. At the next lease renewal their rent went up and up again at the subsequent renewal. A couple years later, their rent was untenable. They were forced out off their prime real estate downtown into a strip mall in the suburbs outside of the city and many of their improvements including new HVAC they couldn't take with them.

Overall, @Jay Ashworth's comment is spot on. $10,000 GBP doesn't go very far, which is why it's critical that you spend it wisely and in a manner that avoids unforeseen costs. Chances are to meet your goals you need to find a generous donor and/or start applying for arts grants.
 
Thank you so much for the considered and helpful suggestions / feedback. Really interesting viewpoints.

In trying to keep my initial post short, I fear I left out a couple of important facts that should clear up a few of the concerns... This is a very small, community space seating about 100 people. Actually, this theatre is a facility on an armed forces base, explaining how we have various professionals at our disposal. They'd be working (if we used them) strictly to the required regulations - they'd have it no other way. The building is maintained by others with all the other facilities accounted for. To be clear, the CAD drawings are what we already have and use.

We wont be replacing any lighting equipment - we are talking only about the stage itself and lighting bars. BUT the materials / consultation costs we would have to meet ourselves. We don't really have any further funding options - this is it, hence why we want to spend what is a lot of money when it comes to forces amenities on what we consider to be the most expensive & important things to maintain for the future. We either use it wisely or do nothing until the ageing stage/rigging is considered too old and a risk.

@BillConnerFASTC, thank you for the link to consultants - really useful. I'll look into the UK based contacts. Wow - that's some high costs... Our stage is roughly 13m x 10m. What we have now would have been on a very modest budget already - just wooden frames & a floor. I'm sure we can improve on that.
@RickR , really good points.
@RonHebbard , thankfully almost all of your points are already in place as this is an existing theatre space, although I question the quality of the electricity supply!
@almorton , thank you that's some good points to consider. Hopefully I've cleared up what type of theatre we are. A revolve would most certainly be out of budget. Actually, I'd already been in touch with Unusual Rigging but Alan stopped responding. Did you have a good experience with them? I posted here first as it was apparent there we people working on building projects, but I may indeed follow your suggestion of seeing if other locals can recommend a business/consultant to work with, thanks you!
@MNicolai , Really intersting points... I'm hoping that having cleared up our scale of theatre (small! and simple! :) ) that perhaps we'll be able to do something in budget.
 
Without knowing what can be reused and what has to be built, along with expectations of what things you can do, it's hard to say. But even if you could hold it for $50 sf - kind a very inexpensive utility building - your 19 x 15 m is in the US $80,000 range at least half of which is materials. And this is the very lightest weight and least expensive materials.

And in us, being on a military base would double those costs. I've done several and the additional costs make my head spin.
 
But even if you could hold it for $50 sf - kind a very inexpensive utility building - your 19 x 15 m is in the US $80,000 range at least half of which is materials. And this is the very lightest weight and least expensive materials.

OK... so, I guess I'm used to working in theatres with a fairly simple wooden stage support structure, then a ply floor topped with a sacrificial hardboard layer. Would we not be able to do similar? So long as we kept to a proven standard of design? Or am I missing something obvious and expensive... I wouldn't be suprised if I am! Thank you again.
 
I'm sorry, are you building a whole new stage - floor, walls, roof, etc - which is how I interprerted your post and drawings, lighting battens and all? Or are you replacing just flooring in an existing stage?
 
OK... so, I guess I'm used to working in theatres with a fairly simple wooden stage support structure, then a ply floor topped with a sacrificial hardboard layer. Would we not be able to do similar? So long as we kept to a proven standard of design? Or am I missing something obvious and expensive... I wouldn't be suprised if I am! Thank you again.
Great question and one that will need to be answered by your UK building standards and military construction authorities.
 
I guess being on a military base does change things a little. It sounds like an interesting project, too.

There are lots of stages in halls up and down the country which are essentially a timber frame topped off with a deck. The right consultant should be able to advise you on designs which are regulation compliant. Of course a void will need sound deadening/control, and fire regulations will apply, but a "hollow" stage also opens up the possibility of trap doors in the surface. Again, something to be discussed with a designer who has done this sort of thing before. Don't forget cabling runs under the stage for both hot and dimmed power and data - more and more important these days.

What do you want to do with your rig - is it to replace fixed scaff with IWBs, or just to add more rigging points and reinforce the existing structure? A structural engineer should be able to advise. Our little theatre has a steel frame up and over the main auditorium and stage which supports the grid. You can't see it, it's "in the roof" but it is substantial and was designed for the job by structural engineers.
 
@Lee Chap , do you have to comply with any laws regarding disabilities? We’re going through the process of planning a renovation, and at the moment can’t afford a consultant. It’s in the cards, but just to get the building up to code with handicap accessibility as well as update the heating and air conditioning, we’re at $1.25 million US. The architect, who I’m not a fan of, pointed out that if we construct a stage we will need a ramp up to the stage as well as redesigned fire exits. Someone on here pointed out to me that we’ll probably be required to install assistive listening for the hard of hearing (which might be me...) so that’s an unexpected expense. We have a lot of weekend warriors who do contract work and are willing to donate their time and experience and materials, one offered to bid parts of the job at cost since we’re non-profit, but my calculations are putting us at a estimate of $2.5 million and that is bare bones, no fly system, no new lights, reusing all the owned equipment and lots of praying. The architect is fighting the need for a consultant, but I still want some outside input.

My advise, look for pitfalls that are going to bite you. If you’re hanging, get a structural engineer to evaluate your roof and tell you what it can hold. It’s nice to fly, it’s not nice if the walls crack and the ceiling comes down. If you’re building over a basement, make sure the floor can support a new stage slab. Everyone here is extra helpful and I appreciate them, so ask a lot.
 
@ACTSTech - why does your architect think you need a ramp onto the stage? Is that for talent or audience?
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires that all public accommodations be accessible to persons with mobility problems requiring the use of a wheel chair or similar conveyance; accessible to person with visual impairments (Braille and "talking" signage), and interpreters for those who use sign language as their first language. So actors in wheel chairs, use of the stage for presentations or awards ceremonies (school graduations, local civic groups, etc). My list is inclusive, not exclusive, so other forms of disability may be accommodated as well.

If the UK has no similar laws, feel free to ignore post content that is USA specific.

@BillConnerFASTC can contribute a lot about ADA compliance from both sides of the proscenium...
 
@ACTSTech - why does your architect think you need a ramp onto the stage? Is that for talent or audience?
We were told that because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) revision of 2010, we MUST provide a way for wheelchair bound people to access the stage if a stage is constructed. I have no objection to making things handicap accessible at all, but it’s a 46-foot long, 6-foot wide monstrosity that eats up a lot of seating area. I’m lobbying for a simple lift as I think the stage will be around 32” high. The ADA also wiped our thoughts of having a small pit orchestra space because it also would need a ramp. I wish I was allowed to share blueprints, but they’re preliminary and protected.
 
@Lee Chap , I apologize for hijacking your thread with my complaints, but don’t overlook some of the things that might be USA specific. Obviously the laws are different, but sight lines, entrances and exits, acoustics and other things are universal.

We may speak in different languages of metric and imperial units, but actors forgetting lines, costume parts, props, and missing marks is universal as well.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back