Prepping for Shows – Just Hanging Around

I say just hanging around, but in reality we are really hard at work. Another pre-show prep item is prepping the arena for guests. First, we pull in beachers from outside behind the arena three sections. There is no easy or fun way of doing this. We rely on staff and volunteers showing up to carry large, heavy bleachers into the building. If we get enough people this task can happen pretty quick.

Next task is hanging curtains which helps transform our ice into a stage. We a bring scissor lift across the ice an hang curtains behind the permanent bleachers off ice. At the zamboni side of the arena, we have poles near the ceiling where we hang black stage curtains. Last year I moved away from using the built in strings and tried using zip ties to hang curtains. Putting them up I found it was less stressful than tying the strings. The curtains are heavy cloth which means because of the size of them they are physically heavy which puts a lot of stress on your arms, wrists and hands as you hold the curtain up to the bar and tie hundreds of strings that hold up the curtain. So zip ties were a small win for installation. The magic really happened during tear down after the show. Instead of un-tying strings that hold up the curtain, I quickly moved down the line and cut zip ties. Ever since we have used zip ties and it has really improved the process.

This is a view of the curtains from the up on the lift.