And that about sums up the problem!
We are fortunate, that as part of the church community, we don't have to pay to use the hall for rehearsals and performances, and over time we have managed to build up a reasonable amount of kit. However, making changes to the fabric of the building is a major issue.
The understage does have a lot of bracing (front-to-back and left-to-right, but it is also used by others for storage, so additional bracing is not an option.
Maybe we just go low tech and get the enemble to sing out!