Maltbury
Tea Dances to Stars in Your Eyes
6th Sep 2007 - 11:29:30
You can drive right through St John’s Town of Dalry almost before you have finished saying its name. Yet this picturesque town in south west Scotland now offers a range and quality of live performance which puts much larger places in the shade.
The town’s delightful C19 town hall had fallen way below current health and safety standards and the lack of modern technical facilities was severely limiting the range of events it was hosting.
Spurred on by local resident Mark Stoves, Rural Touring Development Officer for Dumfries and Galloway Arts Association (they like long names round there), a substantial refurbishment plan was put together. The question was whether improving the facilities would really bring the venue new users and new life.
Mark invited Maltbury to advise on the staging and MD Philip Sparkes made a site visit to view the hall and discuss the options. The fixed stage was proving an obstacle to many potential users and Maltbury came up with a Metrodeck package which offered a wide range of stage and tiering layouts for the space.
After only a few months the hall is buzzing with activity once again. As Mark Stoves says "Since purchasing the Metrodeck portable stage, the Town Hall has seen a significant increase in the number and variety of new events and a great deal of positive comments from users and audiences alike. The number of enquiries from other venues and organisations wishing to hire the stage has exceeded expectations."
It is always good to hear about people getting the most from our equipment. Yet even better was to follow. Shortly before Christmas Jenny Harvie, Administrative Assistant at the local Dalry School, saw a performance at the hall and liked the look of the staging. She spoke to Mark Stoves who spoke to Maltbury and within days the school had taken delivery of its own package of Metrodeck in time for its Christmas show.
Since then Dalry School has been putting the Metrodeck to work in a variety of ways. The Christmas show has been followed recently by a packed "Stars in their Eyes" evening. Amongst a range of performances a group of teenage pupils played "Panic! at the Disco" to a full house. We can’t vouch for the quality of the singing but the school is delighted with their new staging.
Says teacher David Brown "The Maltbury staging was used very stylishly in our production of "Stars in your Eyes". We had some pupils singing solo and some as groups; we set the drum kit up on the mobile staging and whisked the drums off and on stage with great efficiency. It looked very professional! Our next production in June is "Joseph" and in rehearsal we have staging in place at three different heights. It adds a real touch of sophistication to the production."