Manufacturing
Issue No. 21 - February/March 2005
Pro-Stage grandstand products
New Stages
All the world’s a stage, it’s said: if so, that’s an awfully big potential market for Adelaide theatrical equipment manufacturer, Pro-Stage.
An actor since his teens, founder Kelvin Harman has always been in the entertainment business, taking responsibility as a tour manager for his various companies. He migrated from Victoria to SA and Magpie Theatre Company some years ago.
Touring regional SA with Magpie was a constant struggle.
"We kept finding that the stages weren’t adequate – they were squeaky, the wrong height, or just plain unsafe," Kelvin says.
And as an actor, he knew what was needed to make a staging system effective – a real help when selling the premium-priced system to a cash-strapped artistic community.
Kelvin developed a system of stage rigging that allowed his theatrical acts to take a stage with them on tour. Venue operators noticed that Kelvin’s temporary setup was "a hell of a lot better" than their permanent ones – and Kelvin made his first sale.
Continuing sales led to an inevitable comparison with the world standard, US and German staging systems.
"At first I was impressed with the imported systems, but on closer inspection we started noticing noise issues, weight problems (which affects portability) and slow erection times," Kelvin says. "We realised we could do better."
Pro-Stage matured as a manufacturing concern during a two-year collaboration with local industrial design firm Designmakers. As prototypes were developed, they were sold.
"We were in a position of having to sell each prototype to raise money for the next one," Kelvin says.
Pro-Stage has a factory at Cavan where all assembly and welding takes place, with only a few components imported. Branching out into lighting truss manufacture was an important move a while ago.
Under the brand name Matrix, Pro-Stage markets an interlocking system that carries lighting above the rock conce...
