The brief for Unusual was to manage the suspension of all the equipment required for the presentation of The Commonwealth Games in 15 sites around Manchester. In addition, there were two large screens and a scoreboard to be erected for the new Sport City Stadium.

The Commonwealth Games ran from July 25th to August 4th. Unusual was awarded the rigging contract at the end of 2002 but working information was only available from April.

The Commonwealth Games was the largest sporting event hosted by the United Kingdom and inevitably, it was not possible to plan early to the finest operational detail. A fundamental issue for Manchester 2002 would be the ability of Unusual to respond to changes and additions to the technical specification, when setting all the venues up.

With the largest and most comprehensive rigging resource in the UK, Unusualâ??s contract manager Simon Burnett ensured that all of the â??known factorsâ?? were addressed ahead of time to enable him to respond to the â??unknown factorsâ?? as and when they would come in. Working closely with project manager Steve Porter and project administrator Petrina Smith, the team kept a close eye on the four main resource elements: equipment, crew, plant and transport.

All of the equipment was sourced from Unusualâ??s main stockholding from their warehouse in Northampton including 400 electric chain hoists and over five kilometres of truss. The core crew was booked onto the job well in advance, so the focus was on distribution of the crew and making sure that they had sufficient rest periods built into their schedules. Unusual chose UK Platforms as their plant and access equipment provider. The close partnership between the companies and the 24/7 service offered by UK Platforms underpinned the tight response times offered by Unusual to Manchester 2002.

Although much of the rigging work required by the client was technically familiar to Unusual; success or failure depended on good planning and management. The build period was in the region of eight weeks, with the majority of work falling into the last two weeks. Unusual elected to provide a small yet highly experienced team to move from venue to venue over this period. Critical to the success of this policy were two key factors: the quality of the brief and the experience of the team. The brief from Manchester 2002 had to be precise as well as being realistic in terms of lead times. The team of riggers was kept down to 20 and although the work load was heavy at times, the timely and efficient implementation of the tasks was a major contributory element to the success of the games. Solutions were provided at speed and delays for contractors waiting for rigging infrastructure were kept to a minimum.

Unusual set up and staffed an office in Manchester for the project and also had a depot with extra rigging equipment on-site to facilitate a fast response service. The Commonwealth Games were staged over a wide area where security and accreditation were major issues. Private vehicles were not an option so Unusual provided a minibus and driver for the crews. Where equipment was used outdoors over a large event such as the marathon or triathlon, Unusual used flatbed trucks to distribute and collect equipment.

The Commonwealth Games subsequently became â??an umbrellaâ?? for what was ultimately to end up as a couple of hundred small to medium scale rigging jobs over a period of 8 weeks.

The load out was a major challenge. Whereas the majority of the work on the build period happened over two weeks, the requirement was to â??undoâ?? the process in three to four days. The rigging crew was augmented by loading crews, who had fifteen 40ft trailers to load over three days. Likewise, crews were engaged to unload the vehicles on their return to Northampton.

Scope of Works
Supply and installation of truss, motors, winches and sundry rigging equipment. Supply and installation of cable bridges, motorised flag ceremony mechanisms and start/finish gantries. Suspension of lighting, sound, screens, clocks/timing devices, TV cameras and equipment, Manchester 2002 branding and Advertising banners.