Temp theatre - decking as bench seating

[top-cat]

To be fair, 5x 20 minute performances, even with breaks, is still just shy of 2 hours... it will likely be over 2 hours for anyone who doesn't get up.

 

You really well have a room of restless, fidgety punters by the end. The foam will have long since lost it's effect and peoples' backs will be getting bored of it. I'd describe myself as young and fit and I think I'd be fidgeting all over the shop... but my mother I'm quite sure would have long since gone home.

 

For the warry feel, perhaps you could suggest cladding the tiered seating with some wood; using white painted stencils for the row and seat numbers; and adding some fake concertina wire and the odd military artefact. Getting people into the feel of the pieces shouldn't have to involve subjecting to equivalent levels of discomfort... that's a bit far even by theatrical terms.

[marktownend]

There's been mention of hessian - would draping the chairs in hessian be an option? I'm not talking individual seat covers as that would take far too much effort, but maybe you could run a length of hessian over each row with a few basic cuts and joins in the neccessary places.

 

Obviously this still wouldn't save you any space but you'd at least have comfort and be somewhere towards it looking war-like.

[ImagineerTom]

I'd have concerns about use of hessian to cover anything. If it's being used as furniture then it has to comply with the fire regs about flammability, self extinguishing, smoke production & everything else that fabric used in furniture has to comply with. Bit of a grey area (there's no precise definition of what a theatre seat is and precisely which codes it should comply with) but at the very least hessian is surprisingly flammable and would need some serious flamebaring before it went in to use.

[TomHoward]

We're also not certain about the possibility of staining from the hessian as we're not totally certain if its colourfast - don't want to leave marks on someone's white dress either.

 

Thanks for the suggestions of the middle ground between comfort & appearance - but to be honest if we can't get it looking sharp we'll just use our seating and be done with it. With the tension wire fencing it could still look period so there's a good possibility we'll fall back on that but we're just exploring options.

 

I've just had another thought - we have a dining hall with about 180 rather horrible dated green canteen chairs. We could probably do a trade for a week with our nice ones..

[Junior8]

Roger, think marquee chair pads. A mere couple of tabs of ordinary velcro is enough for a season of hard usage.

 

I would still question the value-for-money-and-effort involved in this project but, thankfully, I don't have to build it or make it safe. If I had to I would hire a bunch of seat pads from my local marquee firm and just dot down some velcro to fix them in place. Why buy anything with one-off usage?

 

What I was really thnking about was the risk of them being disturbed by foot traffic from the tier above. It's merely my inate pessimism I expect!

[laseranger]

We're also not certain about the possibility of staining from the hessian as we're not totally certain if its colourfast - don't want to leave marks on someone's white dress either.

 

Thanks for the suggestions of the middle ground between comfort & appearance - but to be honest if we can't get it looking sharp we'll just use our seating and be done with it. With the tension wire fencing it could still look period so there's a good possibility we'll fall back on that but we're just exploring options.

 

I've just had another thought - we have a dining hall with about 180 rather horrible dated green canteen chairs. We could probably do a trade for a week with our nice ones..

 

Ok

 

Another thought could you borrow, hire wooden folding chairs (marquee contractors) not perhaps 1914 but certainly closer to the period and then dress the staging as suggested earlier thereby enhancing the period feel.

 

I would certainly have no hesitation in warning the director that seating with no backs will result in complaints as I am confident it will!

[Dawb]

There are a few vintage folding chairs available on this web site.

 

Folding wooden chairs for sale

 

 

Ben

www.secondhand-sound-and-lighting-equipment.co.uk

01904 785933

[TomHoward]

Here's a quick practical question,

 

The custom corners are 3x2" timber, and 18mm sheet. We've done these before using 3x2 and 18mm MDF, but the only difference this time is we're landing the leg of the next deck on the filled in corner piece, rather than taking the leg though the piece and all the way down - as lining up the holes etc tends to take too long.

 

http://s28.postimg.org/c043vjlwd/corner1.jpg

How the corner infill fits - the widest span at the back is around 900mm - the span under where the next legs land is around 630mm

 

http://s28.postimg.org/5xwh51xgd/corner.jpg

3x2 bracing underneath - inc a span under the legs

 

I've spec'd 18mm ply rather than MDF, but is this over-engineered as it has the 3x2 under the join anyway? It adds a little bit of cost - not a huge amount all over - but every little helps

[Dave m]

"3x2 bracing under the legs"

Do you mean one piece of 2x3 mounted vertically to continue the line of the pair of legs from the units above?

That would mean that 25% of the weight of two sets of rostra will be concentrated on that area? Assuming that the steel deck is 4 legged,

[w/robe]

"3x2 bracing under the legs"

Do you mean one piece of 2x3 mounted vertically to continue the line of the pair of legs from the units above?

That would mean that 25% of the weight of two sets of rostra will be concentrated on that area? Assuming that the steel deck is 4 legged,

It is more than that because the rostra is 3 levels so, if I am understanding correctly, the bottom infills effectively have the upper 2 levels sitting on them.

Could you just make the infills shorter so the legs of the upper levels go behind them and sit on the floor?

[ImagineerTom]

just no.

 

If you just had one deck on top of another you might get away with it but since you're creating a multi-terraced deck on legs (a tiny area = massive point load) you've got all sorts of cumulative loads and the worst sort of failure cascade if even a fairly minor problem occurs.

 

You're building 25% reduction of safety margins in to your structure (on top of all the other noted complications) and utilising "home made" components in key structural roles, designed/spec'd by someone who clearly doesn't meet the basic level of compitance/knowledge needed to design them. Would you be happy to justify this in front of a judge / H&S prosecution?

[TomHoward]

Not 3x2 as a leg, 3x2 as a cross between the other two decks so the leg load from above is spread. I'm not certain it's quite as extreme as you picture as the load is pretty much over the back leg of the row below, which would be a full height leg.

We've done short infills before but it doesn't work in practice as the straight line between sides leaves big gaps. We could holesaw 2-inch holes in the corners to pass the top leg onto the floor below as an alternative but I was hoping to get away without it as it's another thing to introduce error into at build stage as all corners etc need to be pre-made due to the get-in time

 

Thinking about it actually, if we did go through the corners all the way to the floor with the legs, so they weren't holding the weight of the subsequent deck, just the one individual walking across, then mdf would certainly be enough and that'd save us the couple of hundred quid as well, so we'll do that.

[Dave m]

So the narrow strips represent 3x2?

Are they bolted through the steel deck and then the ply screwed into the triangular hole? Otherwise the units might spread apart

You could just cut straight slots to allow the staff through to the floor as the missing piece will be behind the tubes.

Personally I would be ok with one level of deck resting on another but three?

[TomHoward]

Yes it's bolted through the bolt-holes, and the sheet is glued & screwed. We're not daft enough to just place them on top fortunately.

We'll holesaw as we need to keep it neat really. I don't see it being too much load on hardwood ply & 3x2 as with the bracing & spans involved it doesn't seem a whole lot worse than a leg in the middle of a steeldeck piece - but with the concern and the fact it lets us get away with mdf we'll go thorough to the floor

[MarkPAman]

And more because a 4 legged stage block does not automatically distribute 25% on each leg. If people are sitting on this, most of the weight will be on the front two legs.