Rock n Roll Royals

The Royal Docks is often used as a location for the set–up work for various PR events due to the non-tidal waters with good road access and areas of hard-standings with the benefit of being a little bit out of the public gaze (apart from me!!).

The end result – Liam Gallagher and band on a boat on the Thames in London

It remains to be seen how the redevelopment plans for the area will affect this facility but in the meantime I hope the interesting projects keep coming to the area.

So, back to Rock and Roll.

The latest project being undertaken by the Livett’s Group involved the creation of a floating stage for a music performance along with a full TV outside broadcast facility. To facilitate this the Livett’s team deployed their large P2 pontoon with tug Felix providing the motive power and luxury charter vessel Edwardian was used as a floating ‘green room’.

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  Felix + P2 rigging the stage

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  Edwardian acting as logistics base

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  Felix + P2 rigging

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  Edwardian, Felix & P2 – event set up

In addition camera boat Equity and fast launch Lima Lima 1 were used to ferry personnel and to act as camera boats during the filming of the event.

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  Equity

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  Lima Lima 1

Whilst the Royal Docks is often used for the preparation activity it is less often that the “star” of the show is seen in the area but on this occasion Liam Gallagher and his band used the location as a staging point for getting afloat.

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As darkness fell the barge and accompanying boats started making their way up the Thames and were joined by a helicopter that was used to get some additional shots of the various Thames landmarks as the band and stage made their way towards Tower Bridge.

All very ‘Rock & Roll’!

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I wonder what we will see next at Gallions Point as a followup to having Liam Gallagher down by the river Thames?

#BeTheFastest

It has been a while since the last PR promo event set-up job took place in the Royal Docks but the latest one has been something really big.

As part of the promotion of their #BeTheFastest campaign Virgin Media decided that they wanted to do a video presentation on the river Thames and so asked Livett’s Group to help make it happen.

They wanted a really big screen and so a 100m long pontoon was constructed in the KGV Lock and then a LCD display screen was built on top of that along with generators and supporting equipment.

The build took 3 days and involved tonnes of equipment and large teams of people from a number of event management companies – the KGV lock providing an ideal place for such activity.

Livett’s provided both of their new pusher-tugs, Felix and Christian, to tow the display and workboat Alfie as safety boat.

With any such activity it is always a good idea to test that everything works and so on evening before the big reveal the tugs took the display to the KGV Dock and ran a test – this involved lots of light and a low flying helicopter and so attracted quite a bit of attention!

A short clip of part of the test can be seen by clicking here.

Once the test was completed the screen was moved back to the lock ready for its trip up river.

Due to the nature of the placement of the screen the message can only really be seen from above – presumably the reason why the event is taking place on the Thames near the London Eye.

Update: The two tugs and the pontoon have now headed off down the Thames.

This video shows them leaving the KGV lock.