Head In the cloud’s festival – Los Angeles

Simpson Patterns Ltd worked with another Yorkshire company to produce a stage set for the fifth year of the “Head in the clouds music festival” in Pasadena, California.

We were tasked with manufacturing the GRP components of the stage emblem, a cloud themed character with moving eyes, legs, and arms… with laser’s installed in the eyes and CO2 gas canisters installed into the side of the head to add to the special effects. The complete assembly spanned over 11 metres wide by 7m high.

As is the norm in a lot of the projects we undertake, the lead time was extremely time sensitive. With us having a matter of weeks to get this complete and delivered to our customer for rigging and testing.

We designed a system of throw away moulds, that were machined on our three 5 axis CNC machines. These were then laminated to give us the series of fibreglass panels that would make up the shape of the ‘head’ and the arms and legs also. We assembled the pieces and fitted them together using a series of fixings. We then added the rigging fixings into the assembly to allow for a quick, easy, and straight forward install/un-install for future festivals.

We were happy to hit the deadlines stated and enjoyed seeing the end-product. It really did look of top quality, credit to the craftmanship of our team. From the design, to machining, laminating, assembly, and paint/finish… we are really proud of how everything came together.