Project: Kelly Clarkson Tour
Fabric: 22oz Encore Velour and Iridescent Silky Charmeuse

A tour which is booked to perform in medium sized theatres often poses a challenge to designers and producers. Unlike an arena where you bring your own ground support (and know your trim height etc) in a theatre setting you are at the mercy of the stage parameters of each venue.
Producer Ray Woodbury of RK Diversified overcame this challenge by creating a design which could be incrementally shortened – in either height or width – for this tour. Upstage a series of five free-hanging projection screens were designed with soft fabric borders at the bottom, giving them over 5 feet of flexibility n height. Additionally, as the screens were independent, crew could drop a unit in width (down to four screens) when the venue required them to.

Utilizing the inherent flexibility of an Austrian Drape at mid stage, crew could easily shorten the feature drapery without spoiling the effect of the curtain. The photos of this production are gorgeous, doing justice to a talented singer as well as a clever and versatile design.

Photographs by:Todd Kaplan

Project: Soul In The Machine

Check out this great photo! – not often granted the opportunity to take photos with the stars……. The artists who are “Soul In The Machine” stopped for a moment to pose with Megan Duckett and Gerilyn Gregory of Sew What? Inc. while checking out the company’s trade show booth at a recent convention. Visit them online at: www.soulinthemachine.com

Photographs by: Photo Credit Soul In The Machine (www.soulinthemachine.com)

Project: Dierks Bentley Kabuki
Fabric: Dye Sublimation to Heavy Weight Poly Poplin

“You need a 30’h x 60’w in how many days?” …………….Production staff from Deirks Bentley knew where to call when they needed digital printing services for their tour. Dye sublimation to Heavy Weight Poly Poplin gave us the saturation of color required to really hit the CK and process blues in this logo embedded artwork. As it was to be used as a kabuki drop down stage and there were obvious vertical break lines in the art, we chose to product the item with vertical seams which disappeared intot he artwork.

Photographs by: Todd Ortmeier

Project: Hannah Montana Tour
Fabric: Commando Cloth and Poly Poplin

Finding the balance between the “look” desired by designers and the “durability” needed by production staff led us to produce the Hanna Montana masking and dressing room draperies from a combination of fabrics. All areas which were to be high traffic with lots of dancers (and cosmetics!) were produced from washable yet durable, Poly Poplin. The front of house masking was then produced from durable and economical 16oz Commando Cloth.

Making the drapes which mask “behind the scenes” may seem low profile to some suppliers, but we see it as a challenge – the magic of the show would not be nearly as captivating if the “mechanics” were visible to the audience. At Sew What? Inc we take masking draperies seriously!

Photographs by: M Duckett

Project: Rod Stewart “Still The Same” Tour
Fabric: 100% Cotton Poplin / Traditionally “Drum Printed” with the Stewart Family tartan
22oz Encore Velour for all black masking drapes.

When audiences come to see Rod Steward’s 2007 tour, they are met by a 360-degree stage completely enclosed by 160 linear feet of the Stewart Family tartan.

The challenge was to translate the 2” x 2” tartan pattern into 1,500 yards of “larger than life” stage curtain. “We experimented with a number of fabrication techniques,” said Sew What? president Megan Duckett. “We considered digital printing and custom painting, but they didn’t produce the results we were after”. The Sew What? team settled on traditional “garment” printing methods utilizing four 60” ink drums. Once the ink was dry, the material was sent through a separate flame-retardancy process in preparation for sewing.

Learn more about the designer’s vision for this tour by reading the related press release.
See it in action. Click here or here.

Design: Ian Knight / Lars Brogaard
Photographs by: Jim Steinfeldt

Project: Digitally Printed Backdrop for The New Cars
Fabric: Digitally Printed Celtic Cloth

Isn't this a great shot? And let me tell you - The New Cars sure did put on a good show. This photo is from their performance at the House of Blues show on Sunset Blvd.

Our multi-tasking digitally printed backdrop hangs behind them for personalisation and displays their logo with clarity. With so many different substrates to choose from there is a digital backdrop for every band no matter the budget.
Photo by: Jim Steinfeldt

Project: Hand Painted Scrim Drop for Scott Stapp Tour
Fabric: Black Sharkstooth Scrim

Click on the image to get a great shot of the scrim being painted. The 40'w x 24'h scrim was hand painted with the artists custom design. A combination of paints in varying degrees of intensity gave an overall texture to the scrim. The logo was carefully painted to show the detail of the the cherokee text and design as seen in the original artist rendering.

Did You Know? A scrim is a commonly used piece of stage curtain magic. Learn More.

Project: Studio and Window Draperies for artist Prince
Fabric: White Leno Filled Scrim

This call came in on a Sunday - Designers for the temporary residence of artist Prince required sound absorbant draperies for the windows and studio in the Hollywood home. The large quantity of draperies were designed, quoted and delivered within 3 days!

The most exciting moment of course (aside from the opportunity to work on a project for such a high profile artist) was that the home was then used as the setting for the album / CD insert! So there we are - Sew What? Inc in, and on, Prince's album titled "3121".

Project: Kid Rock Tour
Fabric: 22oz Crimson Encore

As always we were totally excited to be asked to manufacture the draperies for Joe Gallagher of Accurate Staging. This project for Kid Rock included upstage drapes, stage and riser skirting as well as all the hampers necessary to house the softgoods.

Manufacturing insight:: All the skirting was sewn with both a webbing reinforcement at top and a 2" durable velcro for easy atachment to the risers. The upstage drapes were broken down into 20 foot widths to make folding and hanging easier and more manageable!

Project: Sting
Fabric: Black Ripstop

A basic white cyc and four legs is all it took to create this dynamic stage set. The lighting could vary the look of the stage scene dramatically with this type of drapery arrangement. The upstage areas were designed for both projection and cyc lighting.

Designed by: Bruce Rogers of Tribe Design
Photo by: Todd Kaplan