Project Print Management delivered a giant scaffolding wrap for the BST Concerts in Hyde Park this summer. The company - asked to tender for the print installation onto a shipping container structure 7.7m high x 46m long and 2.6m deep - was approached at the beginning of May 2022 with the work needing to be completed by 17 June, giving it just six weeks to deliver the very ambitious project.
The concept was to have a structure replicating the Flatiron Building in New York and within the structure eight bars would be built to server drinks. Its structure would also be sited in the middle of the festival making it one of the centre pieces within the festival. So, it needed to have a very premium finish on it.
The Flatiron Building was one of the tallest buildings in New York when it was completed in 1902. 20 floors high with its vertical Renaissance palazzo and Beaux-Arts styling and it is known as one of the world’s most iconic skyscrapers.
One of the hardest parts of an event scaffolding wrap is the structure itself. If the structure is not installed well, designed right or safe it’s a non-starter. Health and safety is the most important part of any festival (indeed everything we do) so the structure needs to be engineered with loads and wind loadings calculated. All the structures at the festival need be signed off by Westminster Council health and safety engineer.
The shipping containers as a deliverable structure was not viable and was decided a scaffolding structure would be better. Layher Scaffolding was the quickest solution to erect and design as time was rapidly running out.
The size of the event scaffolding wrap had now ballooned to 10 meters high x 78 meters long and 4 meters deep totalling 860 meter2. Over double what we had originally been asked to tender.
Working with the scaffold engineer we required a projecting by 300mm scaffold sub-frame to be fixed to the structure to hang and wrap our mesh banner print around. This frame would allow us to tension the wrap whilst hiding the bungee shock cord.
As the frame is projecting 300mm this will allow the banner to move a little without fouling on the main scaffolding structure.
It was now end of May with just 3 weeks left to the 17 June deadline. We requoted with the new sizes, but it came with caveats as the deadline was not possible. We had also learned the two other companies tendering for the project had bowed out due to the scaffold wraps complexity, size, and limited timescale.
The pressure was now on for Project Print Management to deliver this auditions scaffold wrap. Having discussed the challenges and limited time with our print and installation partners (and a little begging!) we could complete the Flatiron Event Scaffolding Wrap by 22nd June. Giving just one day before the festival officially opens.
As the client wanted the best and most realistic finish as possible it was decided to produce the 10-meter x 78 meter banner facade in one piece and the two returns were in single sections. This gave us banner 810 meters2 (the banner is bigger to wrap around the frames). At approximately 375 grams per meter2 this gave us a banner weight of 304 kg!
Additionally, there were eight areas inside the structure where the bars are to be situated. These areas also needed to be wrapped in a print to finish the structure design off.
We digitally printed onto a FR (fire retardant) mesh material and use the Vutec UV 5 meter wide digital printer.
The installation was carried out by our qualified and very experienced installation partners and our own internal fitting team. A total of 16 installers using both access pickers and rope access hoisted the 304 kg print into position and wrapped onto the scaffolding structure using bungee cord. The whole of the installation was completed in just two days albeit 10pm a night on day two!