Christopher BarrettOn the back of two Event Production Award wins, Access caught up with NoNonsense Group founders Liz Madden and Steve ‘Jumbo’ Richards to discuss how the company has evolved its staging offering while focusing on versatility, sustainability and safety.
Looking back, Liz Madden and Steve ‘Jumbo’ Richards recall that when they left Edwin Shirley Staging to set up NoNonsense Group 15 years ago, a priority was putting clients’ needs first and maintaining a personal approach.
“We weren’t the youngest when we set up the business, and having spent most of our lifetimes in the industry working really hard we wanted to work with people we liked and on projects we really wanted to be part of,” says Madden.
A decade and a half later and that ethos appears to have stood the company in good stead, with the duo having built an impressive longstanding client base that includes annual UK events such as Live Nations’s annual Summer Series at Somerset House in London and AEG’s Eden Sessions at the Eden Project in Cornwall, along with projects further afield.
Among NoNonsense’s stalwart international clients is Mexican concert giant OCESA, for which it recently helped to deliver a series of shows at the 65,000-capacity Estadio GNP Seguros in Mexico City (pictured below). Among the more than 35 concerts that have taken place on its Atlas stage at the venue since August are Shakira, Oasis, Kendrick Lamar, Guns n Roses, Zoe and Imagine Dragons.
Oasis on NoNonsense’s stage in Mexico City
Other major projects for NoNonsense last year included providing the staging for Robbie Williams at the Royal Crescent in Bath, the Afro Nation Festival on a beach in Portugal and Drake at Wireless Festival.
Arguably, one of the most impressive projects of last year, and one that particularly impressed the Event Production Award judges, was NoNonsense’s main stage for the Labyrinth on the Thames (main image) six-show series in London.
Located at Sir Christopher Wren’s twin-domed riverside architectural masterpiece, the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, the debut event was produced by We Group and promoted by Nick Castleman and Michael Dicks’ independent operation Labyrinth. The series attracted a combined audience of 57,000.
For NoNonsense, and the wider team, delivering an event at a sensitive UNESCO World Heritage site came with no shortage of challenges, with numerous guidelines and restrictions that had to be adhered to.
The permitted weight loadings varied within the outdoor event spaces and individual point loadings for each scaffold standard had to be provided by NoNonsense. Getting a crane on site was another key challenge, as a permit had to be obtained from City Airport due to its proximity. A bespoke, 42 metre wide, stage was built based on NoNonsense’s existing Zeus stage, with bespoke components fabricated to meet the client’s design brief, including an angled roof.
A key part of the client’s vision for the event was enabling fans to enjoy the performances while taking in the remarkable views across The Thames of the London skyline. NoNonsense provided clear roof sheets and the client opted not to have any rear wall or side wall sheets, in so doing enabling unrestricted views across the water. Meanwhile, side wings were incorporated into the stage design to create VIP hospitality areas that enabled guests to get close to the action.
Steve ‘Jumbo’ Richards
Richards, who has been known throughout his career as Jumbo, says the project was just another case of NoNonsense being focused on sustainably satisfying client requirements, rather than delivering an off the shelf structure.
“We designed our own modular kit to make sure we could be as versatile as possible without having to create a vast amount of specific elements for each project,” he says. “Designing equipment in-house enables us to control the material selection and take into account the lifespan of components, when looked after steel can last 30 years, aluminium 15 – 20 and roof sheets 10 years.”
A co-chair of the Production Services Association, Madden was recognised at the Event Production Awards with The Legend Award. Looking ahead, she says there are no plans to change the ethos that has been central to NoNonsense Group since the outset.
Liz Madden
“It’s not about volume,” she says. “We know what our costs are, and we know what needs to be achieved to survive. We don’t want to have 20 crews out at any one time building stages around the world, because we feel that we would lose the human touch with clients. Jumbo and I are involved in every projects we do, and that is very important to us.
“Even when it’s an off-the-shelf solution from one of our existing stages, we can still make sure we tailor make it to match a client’s specific needs. It’s never a case of one size fits all.”