One of Europe’s biggest and best-loved metal gatherings, Hellfest got even bigger this year as its ninth edition attracted nearly 150,000 fans over three days in June. Positioned side by side, the two 18m x 14m Boogdak stages in the crowded main arena upheld a trend that is becoming popular in the metal world. The Belgian festival Graspop festival and Wacken Open-Air in Germany – both key Stageco accounts – have also chosen twinned main stages in an effort to speed up changeovers between bands, accommodate more acts and keep the core audience focused in one place and focused. This year, Hellfest’s Main Stage 1 was reinforced with a tower for extra rigging and the Micro Arch with ramps at the rear. The fact that we now use the Micro Arch as a loading dock speaks volumes about Hellfest's growth. Each of the headline acts had specific requirements that meant the crew had to work overnight from 1.00am for about eight hours in order to reconfigure the stage. Aerosmith wanted a catwalk out into the audience with a B stage at the end that accommodated extra lighting and pyrotechnics. In a similar vein, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath both requested major structural changes that were catered for. Two years ago, Stageco built some major decoration features of the festival that still remain, including a large structure named ‘The Cathedral’ and the infrastructure around the ‘B’ entrance, commonly used as an access point by production trucks including the 15 steel-loaded vehicles from Stageco, which arrived on-site two weeks ahead of the festival. Stageco also supplied two delay towers and built the front of house control platform which included an extra rear tower with a ‘birdcage’. At the end of Hellfest, a portion of Stageco’s steel headed east to the Stade de France in Paris where veteran French rockers Indochine played two sell-out nights on their Black City Tour.
Stageco France