Storing Painted Drops - Hampers, Shelves, Bags

[BrockTucker]

My theater is fortunate enough to have about 100 painted drops donated from a scenic shop in NYC many years ago. I've recently taken over as Theater Manger here and am working my way through fixing the old guy's nonsense. The drops are currently stored in the hampers they were transported in and many of them have just been gathered up and thrown in random hampers after use (read not folded just balled up). I'm getting ready to go through the process of getting them out, hanging them, photographing, measuring, and then properly folding and storing them.

I'm considering how I want to store these long-term. In the hampers they take up the floor space of an area approximately 50' x 40' which was meant to be a rehearsal space. I'm thinking I'll build deep shelves along the walls of this area to store them, (2' x 2' x 2' cubbies should work) but I'm worried that maybe the hampers are providing some kind of protection for the drops. I've looked at those vacuum sealed "space saver" bags as an option to protect them.

Does anyone else out there have a large drop inventory and how do you store it?

tldnr: I have a lot of painted drops and want to store them in a way that protects them but does not take up a lot of floor space.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

I worked at a venue that had upwards of 100 drops. All ours were stored in big canvas bags (folded properly!) which had a picture of the drop and a serial number on it - with the number written on the bag several times so you could easily find it.....we kept them in a 20-foot container which just had shelving down either side, stored in numerical order. It was reasonably efficient in terms of floor space used and very easy to find the drop you wanted.

 

[BrockTucker]

Thanks, I'm now looking for a source for canvas drape bags so I can see wether I should try to get our costumer to make them or just buy them. According to an article I found googling canvas drape bag it's a really bad idea to store drops in air tight bags.

 

[Footer]

Whatever you do, do not store them in sealed bags. They can mold very quickly that way. Give any drapery shop a call, the should be able to bang out 100 muslin/canvas bags for you pretty cheaply.

 

[FatherMurphy]

A song-and-dance review group I've worked with the last several years has a number of painted drops. They keep a binder with photos of the drops as an in-office reference, and each drop has a largish tag on it with the number/title. Some of the tags are simple luan rectangles, others that I've put on are plastic ear tags intended for cattle (farm supply stores are located in the area).

We've talked about bagging them for years, but the volunteers haven't gotten around to it. As long as the storage area is relatively clean, bags seem optional for this group, since the drop goes from the storage room to the pipe with little time in between.