The 395′ wide structure for the Boy Scouts Jamboree

The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) celebrated their 100th anniversary during their National Scout Jamboree in Fort AP Hill, VA in late July. Event Tech was tasked with providing all the structures for the three shows presented over the course of one week. The main event was Saturday, July 31st, where over 80,000 people were in attendance for the anniversary celebration that was also broadcast to scout troups across the country and streamed live on the web.

The event was a huge undertaking that took over two years to plan. Event Tech provided photo-realistic renderings of the final structures to showcase how the nearly foot ball field sized structure would look once in place. The task was to create a main stage for musical performances by Honor Society and Switchfoot, while allowing for seating of 300 boy scouts in the background and seamless set changes via passageways throughout the structure .

The main performance stage was 100ft wide with an 80’ tall center tower that housed a custom head-block system to lift a 60’ tall LED wall, weighing in at over 12,000 lbs. Additionally, the center structure had a rappelling launch pad at 75’ used by a boy scout to descend to the stage as part of the show, and stadium-style seating flanking the center LED wall for choirs, an orchestra, and participant seating.

Two 55’ tall side towers supported 18’x35’ LED screens to magnify the onstage talent for the audience and two additional 65’ tall structures served as audio fly towers. Each tower had decking on top for pyro and flame cauldrons which helped create one of the largest fireworks display on a military installation anywhere in the world. All of the elements were connected by a 20’ high cable bridge system, to allow for cable management and vehicle traffic below, making the structure 395’ wide in its entirety.

With such a large audience and structure, it could have proven to be a lighting challenge to say the least; Event Tech’s new Lighting Truss Towers offered the perfect positions to light the massive structure while not blocking audience sightlines.

Event Tech’s new Lighting Truss Towers. Low profile, high height, and high load capacity without obstructing the audience view.

Utilizing the new modular ballast system, the towers provided a low profile, high height, and high load capacity lighting position. At over 48’ tall and up to a 20,000 pound load capacity per system, the Lighting Tower System will prove to be one of the most resourceful products in Event Tech’s inventory.

In the end, over 17,000 structural components had to be assembled over the course of 7 days to create the main stage and associated structures. Event Tech sent a total of 18 tractor trailers to the site for the staging and structures.

About Event Tech:
Headquartered in Baltimore, Md., Event Tech is a 29-year-old full production and service rental company that seamlessly integrates all technical elements of production for any event, nationwide. Founded in the early ‘80s while President Eric Maynard was still in college, Event Tech quickly grew and began offering lighting, staging and more. Today Event Tech offers full production services and rentals for events across the U.S. For more information about Event Tech, please call 866-950-8343 or visit www.eventtech.com.