Cleaning fake blood off stage

[dmoorcroft]

Many productions use fake blood - and so does the one I'm currently working on - lots of it!

 

It's made by the SM with a mixture of syrup, food colouring and flour. It leaves a very sticky residue which gets walked all over stage.

 

After 3 hot mops the stage is still sticky! Any tips on how best to reduce this?

[Brian]

Any tips on how best to reduce this?

Yes, don't use homemade blood or if you do, use one that's designed to clean up easier (or make the person who mixed it clean it up). Recipes often contain soap or detergent to make them easier to clean. Anything containing flour or other starches is a recipe (!) for disaster - you've effectively made a glue.

[GridGirl]

As Brian said, add detergent to the mix. I did a show where we had blood everywhere (all over white costumes) and a few good squirts of Sard or something similar meant it washed out well. It didn't noticeably affect the consistency of the mixture. Also when you say hot mops, is there detergent in the water, or just the usual clean hot water? I reckon Sugar Soap would probably shift stage blood, it shifts pretty much everything else I've tried it on...

[WiLL]

Sticky like grease or tacky like glue? Greasey means use a detergent or grease cutter added to the hot water, tacky means try treating the area with a solvent first like white spirit before you mop.

[Showbitz]

Firstly take care using detergent in the recipe as it will make the stage very slippery and that is the last thing you want in the show - If the mixture is sticky then that is probably preferable.

 

I would recommend attacking the mess as soon as you can with wet-wipes to get the worst of the mess up then go over the whole lot with white spirit on a rag before a very hot mop.

 

Give it a go - that works best for me on both a painted stage floor and dance floor alike.