London, UK based drapes and soft good specialist Cover It Up has been appointed as a ‘preferred supplier’ to the world famous Natural History Museum in South Kensington.
The Museum has a busy programme of events and functions often taking place in the impressive Central Hall, home to ‘Dippy’, the spectacular 26 metre long skeleton of a Diplodocus, who has been one of the Museum’s most treasured exhibits since he was first unveiled to the public in 1905.
As a standard draping package for events staged in this space, the Cover It Up team will install a 160 x 25ft LED full colour changing starcloth along one side of the room, which has to be hung in lightening quick speed in the hour between the doors being shut to the public at 6 p.m. and the event kick off time of 7 – 7.30. This is achieved by 6 Cover It Up crew, who now have the task down to a rapid and fine art.
In addition to this, ‘specials’ are often needed for assorted ancillary rooms depending on the event layout and concept, involving draping with different materials like velvet and trevira, pulled from Cover It Up’s extensive stock. A recent example was a ‘creepy crawly’ room that was dressed in dark blue velvet cloth.
Cover It Up were also on hand when the new Darwin Centre opened, which involved hanging various baffles and black serge drapes to close down the space and ensure that people could be contained in different areas – again all this was achieved in a hectic one hour time slot.
They also created custom white Bolton drapes to conceal all the trussing and motors used for flying the sound and lighting equipment. With aerial artists performing as part of the show, there was one central motor control point on the floor, which also had to be neatly encased with white draping.
Recently Cover It Up rigged the LED starcloth – used as the backdrop to the lounge area – for a society birthday party staged in the Central Hall, and installed sets of heavy red velvet drapes across the recessed arched areas that edge the room. These were used for a combination of smaller private lounges and utility areas to help facilitate the catering operation. They also dressed the entrance corridor in black velvet cloth.
Cover It Up’s Rhys Sion comments, “It’s a great honour for the company to be chosen as a preferred supplier by such a prestigious London landmark venue. We are really enjoying the challenges and variety of the work there.”
Leave a Reply