Maltbury
Staging the sacred and the secular
3rd Sep 2007 - 16:05:58
St Michael and All Angels church in Chiswick is an active community church, which has a busy programme of performances and concerts. In 2005, the church began looking to make better use of a raised area between the nave and the sanctuary where the performances were at that time taking place. They decided to look into options for a portable stage.
Torin Douglas contacted Maltbury on behalf of the church. Maltbury MD Philip Sparkes, Douglas and Father Kevin Morris of St Michael's discussed the church's requirements. The staging would need to operate at different levels, and also be able to cope with the fact that there were already three levels of floor in the area. Additionally, the equipment would need to be easily and compactly stored when not in use. It became clear that Maltbury's Metrodeck system would best meet these demands.
The final package supplied was one of bespoke and standard modules, which provided a good fit with maximum versatility. This allowed the church to create a number of stage variations for virtually any performance occasion, which have already ranged from classical concerts to a children's production of The Wizard of Oz. As Torin Douglas says: The staging has worked very well for St Michael & All Angels, giving us real flexibility for concerts and other productions. We have a raised area in the centre of the church and, by using legs of different lengths, Maltbury enabled us to cover this with a single-level stage.