Interesting stage

[Anvilx]

I was bored yesterday so I decided to go down to Waterloo Records, a local record store, and see High on Fire and Priestess. High on Fire was meh, as was expected, but Priestess was good enough for me to buy their LP.
Anyway the show was out in the parking lot where they had a setup up a stage. What struck me was the stage was a large trailer that the roof and top half of the sides were lifted up with pistons. The top half of the sides then folded up to form the roof of the stage, where as the bottom half folded out to form the stage floor.
Has anyone worked with this sort of a setup?What are the pluses and minuses of it? Does it have a name?

 

[sk8rsdad]

Our city has a number of these portable stage units that get used at various events throughout the year. Do a google search for "mobile stage", or "mobile stage trailer" to find a number of suppliers.

 

[MarshallPope]

Our city parks department also has two or three of these. My church borrowed one a few years back for an outdoor rally.

Plusses:
You don't have to do any set-up. The two parks dept guys who brought it pushed a couple of buttons and it was set up in less than 5 minutes.
It has a roof. (obviously.) It started to rain right after the show when we used it.
Ours came with a wheelchair lift. Very helpful for setup.
It comes with it's own lighting.

Minusses:
It comes with it's own lighting. In our case, a few flourescent fixtures on the ceiling.
There are no rigging points. We wanted to hang a banner on the back wall, but our only option would have been duct tape (I was not aware of the wonders of gaff tape yet). We ended up hanging it under the front edge of the stage.
The fold-down half of the stage can be somewhat shaky.

Overall, it worked out well for us, for a free-admission low-budget outdoor show. The next year, we moved the rally inside and hired in professional sound and lighting and additional bands.

 

[ajb]

Stageline makes those sorts of units, in a variety of sizes. My town has a couple of the SL100s (or at least something very similar) that they use for various events. My company did a performance on one, and it seems sturdy and stable, though I can't vouch for usability since it was already set up for us. Looks like the larger units have roof load ratings from 18,000-58,000 lbs. Since the roof raises itself, high rigging consists of hooking on a few chain motors and pressing a button.

 

[MNicolai]

Stageline makes those sorts of units, in a variety of sizes. My town has a couple of the SL100s (or at least something very similar) that they use for various events. My company did a performance on one, and it seems sturdy and stable, though I can't vouch for usability since it was already set up for us. Looks like the larger units have roof load ratings from 18,000-58,000 lbs. Since the roof raises itself, high rigging consists of hooking on a few chain motors and pressing a button.

Stageline has a nice interactive page on their site showing how that works. Click and drag up to see it setup, and click and drag down to store it away.

 

[mstaylor]

I use Srageline many times a year. The 100 has the side swing up for the roof, and the same side folds down for the floor. The advantage is it is quick for a small set-up. Unfortunately it is weak in hydraulics for leveling. Also no rigging points.
The 250 both sides fold down and then the roof raises to give better height. It has rigging points and swing out wings for sound.
The 350 is a little longer and double folds to give you a bigger stage and has better height. This what is used for Good Morning America and The Today Show.
The 450 is huge but actually only uses about 6 guys to set up. It gives a fair amount of rigging ability but you actually have to climb the roof and it is a pain.

 

[Eboy87]

I love the 250. We use one for our end of the year street fest (photos are up on my Flickr page from the past two years). Lovely little unit. We had a 350 for Ok Go in Grant Park. Also nice, especially when we can just leave the par bars in there for the next gig. Took about four of us to disassemble, and that's with one guy losing the cotter pin for the landing gear. Imagine four guys with flashlights combing the grass of Grant Park for a little pin at 1:30 in the morning.

 

[mstaylor]

We keep a 250 on retainer so I am the handle puller. It is a great little stage.