“…We weren’t interested in building a motor that merely performed, we wanted to create something extraordinary.” –Gary Krypel, CM
Anticipating and acting on customer demands separates a good company from an exceptional one. Columbus McKinnon has been a leader in entertainment technologies, and we have been a proud CM Master Distributor for years. CM’s chain hoists are second to none, and the Lodestar brand is one of the most trusted hoists in the industry.
Some of the biggest names in country rock music gathered in Fort Lauderdale to take the stage at the 2015 Tortuga Music Festival. This is Tortuga’s 3rd year, and the festival brings fans together to “enjoy an unforgettable beach weekend experience that pairs music with meaning to raise awareness for marine conservation.” (Click here to read more about the Tortuga Music Festival at their website) Mountain Productions provided the main stage as well as many of the support structures at Tortuga.
When the lights go down and the show starts, we all count on our power distribution systems to work flawlessly—after all, your show depends on it. Motion Labs is an innovator and leader in high quality motor control and power distribution units. They develop the products that make your event possible. I recently reached out to Motion Labs’ Greg Quinkart for any exciting, new products they had launched. Greg had some great info on their Dual Voltage Power Distribution units—designed for convenience and dependability.
Crew supervisors love Motion Lab’s Dual Voltage units, due to their flexibility and dependability of the brand. Greg describes the Dual Voltage Power Distro configuration shown below:
Over the years, we have worked with universities all over the country designing and building commencement stages that are unforgettable. Graduation season is right around the corner, and every college is gearing up for this year’s ceremony. The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) projects that 1,855,000 students will graduate in 2015*. Students deserve a graduation ceremony that they will remember for years to come; after all, it is one of the most important milestones of their lives. We’re in the business of creating memorable experiences, and Mountain Productions is no stranger to staging graduations and commencements.
One of the kickoff events of our season takes place in March and brings hundreds of thousands of people to Bayfront Park in Miami. We’re talking about Ultra Music Festival, one of the premier EDM festivals in the country. Mountain Productions is proud to stage the 2015 Ultra Music Festival for another year.
Our largest system, the Mountain Truss, was built as the main stage alongside a variety of structures including entranceways, side stages, mix positions and more. Here’s a highlight of the structures that we engineered and built for the 2015 festival:
The popularity of mobile stages has been growing over the past few years. These stages revolutionized the industry, and provided more affordable, portable and efficient alternatives to traditional staging. While a tower system, scaffold staging or our Mountain Truss can offer more features (greater flexibility, custom designed, greater load bearing capacity, etc.), mobile stages deliver a dependable system that you may be surprised are not just “one-size-fits-all” units.
Efficiency—it’s one of the most beneficial aspects of mobile stages that is a huge factor to production companies. But just because they are easily set up doesn’t mean that you can’t maximize your event’s design.
Along with being extremely durable and protective, the MTN BOX excels at adapting to our users’ needs. With hundreds of different combinations of inserts, you can find a configuration that is exactly what you need, for each one of your cases. We’ve put together a few helpful packs that hold common equipment that is prevalent at most jobs in our industry. Take a look…
This pack features (2) 3 Large Frame Classic Lodestar cradles (LD16-V2) with additional small dividers (SD1H and SD2H). Each Lodestar fits comfortably in precise water-jet cut cradles with chain lying below each hoist. Each hoist “compartment” can hold up to 180′ of chain per hoist.
One of the most important weeks of our year is not necessarily one of the hectic, fast-paced weeks in the midst of the summer season, but rather our annual safety training week at the beginning of the year. This is a mandatory week dedicated to educate and refresh our employees on safe work practices. This year, the training consisted of various safety speakers representing many familiar brands including 3M, Milwaukee, CRC, Brady and more. The first three days of Mountain’s safety school welcomed Jeff Burd of the PA Department of Labor who certified all Mountain employees in CPR and AED.
All Mountain employees were certified in CPR & AED
Mountain Productions’ fleet is comprised of flatbed, drop deck and box trailers. Having such diverse and extensive trailer capabilities allows us to load our equipment before trucks and drivers are present, giving us an advantage and keeping our fleet moving with as little interruption as possible. Our vehicles are made up of Tractors, Class B and C trucks along with many passenger vehicles, all used for transporting our fleet of trailers and mobile stages, not to mention our supervisors to and from sites across North America.
We are constantly growing our business, resulting in the need for a larger fleet. Recently, we added additional covered wagon style trailers which follow our Mountain Truss systems.
This past Tuesday, January 20th, Tom Wolf was sworn into office as the 47th governor of Pennsylvania. Mountain Productions, founded and based in northeastern PA, is proud to have been a part of the event, providing and building the staging for the ceremony. This is the 4th inauguration Mountain has staged in Harrisburg.
The Capitol main stage consisted of a 70’ x 35’ deck area with stair access and seating behind the main podium area.