Dominion Theatre 2014

London’s Dominion Theatre underwent a complete refurbishment and restoration programme in summer 2014. This multi million pound project restored the theatre to its original 1920s glory and included the installation of a new flying system, to enable the Dominion to host the heaviest, most of complex shows. The theatre’s owners, Nederlander, asked Unusual Rigging to give the theatre the flexibility to host short runs, touring productions and to continue as home to the Hillsong Pentecostal Church, which uses the theatre as a place of worship every Sunday.

The three month refurbishment programme saw Unusual:

• remove the original 1929 flying system, the fly gallery and the floor-mounted drop pulleys in the grid and replace them with Unusual’s standard system
• adjust the position of the theatre’s original header beams, which carry the ‘header pulleys’, and strengthen them to carry the increased loads imposed by the upgraded system
• re-route the wire suspension ropes for each set of header pulleys overhead to clear the grid floor, and install a substantial amount of new steelwork to the roof to support overhead diversion pulleys in the process
• install a new flying system with 54 cross-stage sets and two ‘up and down’ stage sets – each of which has twice the capacity of the old system – 500kg instead of 225kg
• install a runway beam system, which allows temporary rigging points to be installed over any point of the stage without the need to bring in special steelwork
• install strong, new ‘ladder type’ twin tube fly bars to carry the scenery
• increase the capacity of the loading gallery to store the weights required by the new system. When no scenery is rigged there is in excess of 20 tonnes to be stored.
• fit the theatre with state of the art front loading cradles, improving manual handling practice
• bring load capacity in line with modern scenic construction – heavier metal framed scenery as opposed to canvas and timber flats and painted cloths.
  
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