“I think this show proves without a doubt that we excel when working outside the norm, outside of traditional venues,” states Bruce Sirus, founder of Production Plus.  He’s referring to the reveal of two ten ton tractor trucks on the deck of The Midway for the clients of a major truck manufacturer - a show that involved renting a construction crane and taking on the challenges of working on the famous aircraft carrier, now a national monument.

The stage on The Midway, set and ready for action.

“We got a call from Gene Lundgren and Barry Fox at Aquarian LLC,” Bruce replies to the question.  “Their client was hosting a business meeting and celebration in San Diego for the launch of their two new freight tractors.  They thought it would be cool to do the reveal on the deck of the Midway, surrounded by all of the planes on deck and using the ships control tower as a backdrop.”  This was coupled with a 2-day conference at the San Diego Convention Center.  “Gene asked us to design the staging and tech, supply all of the gear and labor, and to project manage the Midway product reveal from top to bottom.”  The actual convention center meetings were a relatively simple affair; Production Plus provided over 1000 feet of drape to separate the meeting area from the rest of the convention center.  Providing 1000 feet of 40’ high drape and some scenic was simple due to our large drape and scenic rental inventory, but it was the challenge of the truck reveal on The Midway that once again pulled the Production Plus creative and execution team together to help create another unusual, one of a kind event.

“There was no easy way to get the trucks up to the deck,” begins Bruce, enumerating the challenges.  Though the Midway has its original elevator for lifting planes onto the flight deck, that elevator was still 20’ above the parking lot.  Also, setup for the event had to be done during the day, while the museum was open. Load in could start at 8am and had to be done by 10 pm to avoid violating San Diego’s noise ordinances.  Furthermore, there were challenges regarding climate.  “Anything we put on the deck of that aircraft carrier had to be extremely secure to avoid being blown away by the high winds coming off the bay," recalls Bruce.   "We also had to contend with the salt in the air for things like kabuki releases and other equipment. So, traditional theatrical solutions like flats, drape, etc., were out of the question."  Production Plus had to find solutions to new problems in order to deliver the kind of show that would do justice to the clients exciting new trucks.

Trucks, cranes, and aircraft carriers are all big and heavy.

The trucks made it up to the deck by crane – a big crane.  Time was tight.  “We had the crane brought to the site at 5am, we built the crane, lifted the trucks, and broke the entire operation down, crane, everything, by 9am when the public arrived,” said Bruce.

After the trucks were on board, the traditional load-in of lighting, audio, video, rolling truss reveal walls / screens, C02 effects, and 30 foot wide kabuki banner reveal began – but this load-in was anything but traditional. The deck of the Midway has no hang points, no walls, no lighting positions. Since the Midway is a national monument, nothing could be altered in the slightest; nothing could be bolted to the deck in any kind of invasive manner.  Also the set up, staging, tech, and strike could not interfere with the experience of the Midway’s visitors. The day of the load in, Production Plus crews had to work around 50 bus loads of students on their end of year field trips. How were all these challenges met?

For Bruce, the answer comes down to Production Plus’ strengths: preparation and experience.  “We’re not an average event company.  We’ve done big events in non-traditional venues before.  For thirty years, really.  And,” he pauses here to emphasize the point, “we do our homework.  For this show, we did everything we could on the front end to make sure that, when we got to show time, there were no surprises.”  He illustrates with an example; “A month before, we did a test lift of the trucks to make sure that everything would go smoothly when the time came.”  All this front-end work paid off: the audience was thrilled and everything worked seamlessly.

The new trucks, revealed.