The introduction of temporary flooring for stadium pitch protection marked a significant addition to the services offered by Mojo Barriers’ UK office summer 2017, along with over 10km of front of stage barriers and crowd safety products installed to festivals, tours, one off stadium concerts and sporting events.
With the summer about to start Mojo Barriers became the exclusive supplier of Terraplas in the UK, with Director Kevin Thorborn taking on the installation of 8,000sqm of Terrafloor at Wembley Stadium, 29th April, for the Joshua v’s Klitschko world title fight. The pedestrian flooring protected the Wembley pitch from the 90,000 capacity crowd, so that the pitch was ready for FA Cup football the following week.
It was the heavier duty Terratrac plus system installed at the Manchester Etihad for the July 3rd Robbie Williams concert, and again two weeks later in the same venue for Take That. Mojo provided 9,500sqm of the heavy duty pitch protection system, which is suitable for the large vehicle movements required for touring load-ins.
Kevin states:
“Terraplas is a world renowned high quality product, being able to supply our clients with stadium pitch protection systems this summer has seen us add a great additional support service and we are looking to expand that service into 2018.”
With the additional temporary flooring inventory Mojo UK has also opened a second storage and logistics hub in Essex.
Festival Crowd Barriers
2017 was one of the busiest ever summers for the UK office with the return of Jim Gaffney and the addition of Kosta Chaparov to the Mojo team, who spearheaded the installation of barriers at festival sites across the UK. Their summers began with a familiar client in a venue not used for a large festival before, with the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend taking place in Hull, closely followed by Download Festival, where it provided 2,000m of barrier across the site.
The next large festival for Mojo was Glastonbury, where 1,400m of stage barriers were installed. Having been a supplier for nearly a quarter of a century Jim’s experience has seen him at the core of developing barrier configurations at the festival. Mojo supplied barrier to the Pyramid and Other stages as well as introducing 15 new Line-up Gates and one Mega Gate in the southeast corner to reduce queuing at that bottleneck.
The first two weekends of July saw Mojo in London for Community and Wireless festivals, which both took place in Finsbury Park. The two events required 350m of stage barrier and 145m of bar barrier. Mojo’s original plan for the events was to divide the site in two with a line of stage barrier and Mega gates. After a discussion with site management, it was agreed that the configuration of the ground prevented this configuration. Instead, a 40m run off was built into the arena from the front barrier line and parallel to the fence line, which gave the security more access to the audience both physically and from an observational point of view.
After May’s terror attack in Manchester Arena, Mojo was called upon to provide barriers to the One Love Manchester gig. The event was planned at very short notice and the Mojo team had to quickly prepare their equipment from their European offices in order to provide the required 400m of barrier. Mojo also supplied 300m of crowd barrier at Radiohead’s Lancashire Cricket Ground concert, which was a replacement for their cancelled Manchester Arena show.
Scotland’s inaugural Trnsmt Festival took place from 7th to 9thof July. Mojo provided 500m of barrier including curved primary and secondary front of stage barriers and, as can often happen, the barrier configuration was varied from the original design once the experienced team looked at how the site was working.
Jim comments:
“Trnsmt’s site manager was John Wilson, who I have built up a strong working relationship with over the years. Once we were onsite we identified that the main stage would be heavily side loaded, and with very busy crowds expected on Saturday night for Kasabian and Catfish and the Bottlemen, we extended the right hand side of the stage barriers. This was in contrast to the original plan, however it helped ease the egress between the acts and kept the crowds safe.”
V Festival, which took place on 19th and 20th of August, used 700m of barrier from Mojo. Kosta was Mojo’s project supervisor for the festival, which this year saw a reconfiguration of the stages. As well as this new layout, the team were also required to design a specific barrier configuration for P!nk’s show, due to the extra thrust added to the stage for her performance, which involved being lowered onto the stage from a crane and then being flown above the audience in a harness.
The end of August saw the Mojo team heading to Reading and Leeds Festivals. At the Leeds site the team provided 900m of barrier, whereas the Reading location required 1,000m. An increased crowd density in the Dance Tent over the last two years led to Jim and his team creating a miniature version of their main stage configuration inside. This worked well, providing the security teams with much greater access to the audience.
Mojo also supplied stage barrier to Boomtown Fair, which grew once again to take 700m of Mojo, Latitude, Creamfields, Proms in the Park, Somerset House’s Summer Series, Parc Eiras, Ramblin Man, Ealing Jazz Festival, Southall Mela and finished the festival season at On Blackheath with a lively set from The Libertines.
Sports Crowd Control Systems
London Stadium hosted the IAAF World Athletics Championships, 4th to 17th August, with capacity crowds enjoying retirement races from Usain Bolt and Mo Farah. Mojo supplied 114m of High Fence deployed outside the stadium perimeter to manage crowd flow.
Mojo High Fence was also used for the Guns’n’Roses, Depeche Mode and Robbie Williams concerts at London Stadium and it continues to be used to segregate crowds at West Ham home games.
Kevin concludes:
“This fantastic year has been a great team effort, from the people on site to the office team, particularly Gordon Forrest and Andrea Iordache for their support and logistical skills.
“We’re looking forward to a busier 2018 as we introduce our new stadium floor protection service and continue to expand our barrier inventory.”
Photo credit: V Festival, Marc de Groot