A weblog about theatrical drapery and stage curtains for Production Managers, Set Designers, Custom Drapery Resellers, and local/school/church Productions
Austrian drapes tend to reflect the light in the most unbelievable way, creating unique and dramatic effects on the drape based just on the placement, color and intensity of the light against the beautiful swags in the Austrian drape. Anything that has any sort of translucence will want to have a strong front AND back light in order to utilize the best look of the drape, whereas those with no translucence will still have a very powerful effect with strategic front lighting only. This specific lighting can be especially effective on glossy, shimmery, and iridescent materials. Drapes of this style can be made from all different types of materials and in all different shades. However, the most popular materials tend to be silks, satins, synthetic velours, silky charmeuse, irridescent, super vel, and anything with a gorgeous, polished finish which will really help capture the light very dramatically. Used in combination with some of our gorgeous giant swag drapes can completely finish the look! These photos show clearly how different lighting completely changes the look and “feel” of the exact same drape based on their intensity and colors.
One of Rent What?’s most popular Austrian drape styles is definitely from our Silver Satin series. These have been so popular because they are the ultimate in diversity when it comes to creating new and exciting looks for our client’s stages, tv shows, concerts, and productions. As you can see, with a slight change in the angle of the lights, lighting color, and stage design, we can help create a unique and exciting look for any event. Some of our satisfied clients have been the Jennifer Hudson/Robin Thicke Tour, Maxwell, Foo Fighters, the Glee Live Tour, and an Amfar Benefit starring Lady Gaga, the queen of fresh and innovative style herself. Each Austrian Drape has such a wonderfully rich and special look to them, that you can use them for practically any event you can think of where you may need to add a little touch of “wow-factor”.
All in all, we are very proud to be able to offer a wide variety of Austrian Drapes for our clients, and we know that adding one to your special event will make it that much more memorable.
The Austrian Drape has had a very special history with production houses around the world for many years, in which Austrians are used to shape and add unique drapery outlines to staging areas in a very dramatic and effective way. This beautiful style of “front curtain” was originally created centuries ago to help production houses keep the gorgeous and elegant look of a grand drape when their space didn’t have the width to travel the drapes off to the left and right of the stage, called “wing space”. Another great thing about the Austrian Drape is that in situations where there might not be space in the rafters to “fly the drape out”, then the motor in the lift system can raise this drape up and basically just fold it onto itself, making it a very compact system that will still hide the drape when opened, but also won’t take up any additional fly space, either.
One of the main reasons Austrian Drape rentals are so popular for Rent What? is that our expertise in this field has allowed our clients to obtain a designer look for their special event or production, which is now an affordable possibility for them. Because of the massive amounts of man-hours it takes to build, and the vast amounts of material it takes to make one of these gorgeous drapes, they can be expensive to purchase. Ever since we’ve started offering them for rent through Rent What?, they have been extremely popular items for everything from concerts to cabarets, as well as stage productions that want to add a real touch of class to the overall feel to their show.
We started out with a few Silver Satin Austrians, and have expanded to fit our ever-growing clientele’s requests. So now we have Silver, Red, Ivory, Gold, and White in satin and silk varieties, and because of its popularity and demand, our rental base is growing all the time!
Recently Rent What? was able to add a gorgeous, shiny, beautifully created drape to its Rock ‘n Red and Timeless and Traditional Series. It is an unbelievable 30′ high by 60′ wide Red Satin Austrian Drape, with close to 50% horizontal and 25% vertical fullness in its beautifully sculpted folds.
Our client needed something spectacular for a special edition of an internationally famous play here at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles. Utilizing our fabulous and easy to assemble rental Drapery Lift System (more on the different types of drapery automation to come in a future blog), this refined yet exotic Austrian Drape was able to be lifted and dropped with complete control from our client.
With the help of our sister company Sew What? and the brilliance of their representative Gwen Winter, we were able to have them make this luscious drape merely from an simple idea in our client’s vision, and actually create it completely from scratch.
With the incredibly hard work of an amazing sewing staff, she was instrumental in helping organize its development and creation in just two days– unheard of in the drapery design industry. A drape of this size takes more than 240 yards of material to construct, which is more than 720 feet, or 8640 inches, or 22,000 centimeters of material! And each panel is painstakingly sewn one at a time, with the lift line sewn right through the back of the seams. The seamstress has to gather all of this material on the vertical seams in order to create the iconic “smiles”, or soft swags, that an Austrian drape is known for. The greater the horizonal fullness, the longer and deeper these swags will become. Because it’s being lifted and lowered by a lift mechanism and not human hands, the lift lines have to be stragetically and evenly placed exactly right. The drape’s extremely elaborate construction takes a HUGE amount of man hours to sew and create, so that when the lift mechanism is activated, this beautiful drape will ride up and down smoothly and flawlessly so the audience will be completely blown away.
You can see now why it is so impressive that our sewing masters were able to cut, sew, and design this gorgeous 30×60 foot Red Satin Austrian drape in just two days!
Now that we have added this amazingly versatile and gorgeous drape to our Rent What? collection, we know it will be a huge hit for all sorts of events– from holiday parties, rock concerts, stage productions, television shows, and everything in between. We can’t wait to see what else our clients will come up with next for us to help design for them!
We’re so very excited to be in the midst of our fourth year of business here at Rent What?, and are even MORE excited at how great the company is doing! Getting to provide drape rentals for major tours and concerts, and helping our clients conceive their visions for these events, is something we have always enjoyed. But lately, we are providing a LOT more than “just drapes” for many different types of events. We are able to help create the overall feel of almost any event that crosses our path. We aren’t just all about Rock and Roll anymore!
Rent What? has expanded our inventory to not just include, but to now also specialize in, everything from our wide variety of Flame Retardant Drapery, Kabuki Drops/Solenoid Systems, Traveller Track, Drapery Lift Systems, Pop-Up Portable Dressing Rooms, Pipe and Drape, and Shadowboxes. This incredible diversity has grabbed the attention of those outside the rock and roll touring industry that has been our “bread and butter” so far. With our expanding inventory, our clientele has also expanded, to include churches, schools (high school and universities), conventions, casinos, trade shows, community theatre, major television shows, and everything in between.
What I think sets us apart from our competition is having such a close relationship with our sister company Sew What?, who can help create any custom-made draping that our clients might have envisioned. With the combination of our ever-growing rental inventory, along with the custom-made soft goods that Sew What? can also create, our clients are able to get exactly what they dreamed for their event, at very competitive pricing.
This is an incredibly exciting time to be a part of the Rent What? team, and we know that with our continued “Extreme Service”, we will always continue to expand and grow to fit our growing clientele’s needs, too.
With the end of summer coming fast upon us, it’s a great time to start thinking about the holidays that are quickly approaching, and ways to make your special event even more memorable. I recently came across some incredible photos of the amazing LED Stardrop Drape rentals that Rent What? has.
We offer these gorgeous drapes for every type of occasion you might want to add a “little sparkle” to! With a rich black background, you can choose from either beautiful and inspiring white twinkly lights, or really breathtaking “chameleon” changing-colored lights. For these drapes you also have a dmx controller so you can decide how fast you want the lights to blink, in what succession, what colors it changes through, etc. Rent What also offers a very unique Low Tech LED drape, which is a sheer white voile with the beautiful static white lights running through it!
We’ve had some very happy customers use these drapes for their special events. Everyone from Mary J Blige to the Jonas Brothers, ballet and church performances, trade shows, bridal fairs, unforgettable stage productions, and everything in between! These drapes are so versatile, and can help create some really amazing showcases. With some colorful lighting, you can literally create the most dramatic vision on your stage imaginable. Try layering them with other drapes (especially our Silver Satin Series) to create some very spectacular scenes that will not soon be forgotten!
Take a look at our LED Stardrop Rental Drapes on our website, and get ready to be completely wow’ed like I was!
I have posted about the wide variety of specialty drapery collections that Rent What? has available for rent, from “Rockin’ Red” to “Industrial Textures” to “Delightfully White” and beyond. At Rent What? we have tried to think “outside the box” to continually re-imagine soft goods and stage decor to create interesting and beautiful new drapery options for our clients.
Today, I want to give you a sneak preview of our newest specialty collection, the “Swanky Collection.” We have just added the first piece in the collection, and it is definitely something different. Rather than a traditional custom stage curtain made of fabric, instead this piece is actually a series of individual linear pieces composed of mirrored plates suspended on invisible threads.
Each thread of mirrored plates is separate and distinct – different heights, different placement of mirrored plates – allowing a completely customizable dazzling linear mobile. By attaching each thread to a different location on the stage truss, you can create a unique mobile “drape” for every show.
I am so excited about this new piece. I hope you like it as much as I do. Stand by as we add more “Swanky” pieces to the collection – I’ll keep you posted.
Recently, Rent What? had the honor to be selected by Dell Computers to be featured in an online video on America’s Favorite Small Business. It was a great opportunity for Megan and Marce and all the folks at Rent What? to discuss the committment that the company has to provide high quality, innovative custom stage curtains and hardware for rental.
I think the folks at Dell did a great job in capturing what it is like to run a small business, ensuring that your business is well run and your customers are provided the highest quality product along with the best customer service possible. As the Rent What? motto goes, “Ultimate Rentals. Extreme Service.”
I have posted in the past about the various stage curtains that Sew What? and Rent What? have provided to Glee, both the television show and the touring show. It is such a fun and innovative show (recently nominated for 12 Primetime Emmy® Awards, including “Outstanding Comedy Series”) that it is exciting to be selected to provide custom stage curtains to the franchise.
Recently, Rent What? provided a gorgeous 30′ h x 60′ w Gold Satin Austrian Curtain to the show, which was used as a backdrop to numerous musical numbers in the show’s Season Two finale. This beautiful drape, along with a portable lift system (also provided by Rent What?) then “went on the road” with the Glee Live tour. Also on the tour were several other rental drapes, including a Red Contour Drape and a White Silk Austrian.
In a world of high impact graphics, vibrant colors and over the top visual/video effects at shows, I’ve found over the last few years that the color gray and shades of gray are my favorite colors to work with.
For most people, gray evokes images of battle ships and gloomy days. From my perspective, it’s a lighting directors dream. A gray backdrop lets the lighting designer take control of the mood and drama of the stage.
Add the texture and sweep of a complex swag to your drapes and you can achieve beautiful effects that will transcends your stage to a whole new level. It’s not the only color of course, but something to consider when your planning your tour. Get your gray on!
If you haven’t gone to our Flickr page recently, you are missing out! There are a ton of new photos there, from a variety of stage drapes and custom backdrops to theatrical equipment such as traveler track and kabuki systems. I am sure you will see something that will inspire or educate you! Here is just a small sampling:
I have discussed Kabuki Systems and Solenoids in the past, but I know that sometimes it is hard to visualize from a written post. Hopefully these photos will help.
