Latest / Project Podcast / The show must go on! Royal Ballet and Opera’s £40m renewal programme

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The show must go on! Royal Ballet and Opera’s £40m renewal programme · Project Podcast

0:06
Right. So right now we're in the stalls
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of the auditorium. So here is where you probably
0:15
see some of the projects we've we've delivered recently.
0:19
It's a lot of red velvet and gills and the lights are what
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catches you and gives the atmosphere.
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Yeah, so the the house lights as we call them.
0:37
Welcome to the APM podcast. APM is the chartered body for
0:40
the project profession. My name is Emma DaVita and I'm
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the editor of Project APM's quarterly journal and your host
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for this podcast. I go on location to bring you
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the story of what it takes to deliver a big renewal programme
0:54
at one of EU KS most important cultural institutions.
1:05
I'm here in rainy day in January at the Royal Ballet and Opera in
1:08
central London. For any of you who've come to
1:11
watch your performance here, you'll be familiar with the
1:13
sumptuous red velvet and gilt auditorium.
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Behind the Scenes tells a different story of hundreds of
1:19
performers and backstage soft working way to deliver a
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punishing programme of performances.
1:25
Today it's La Traviata. While they rehearsed and set up
1:28
for this evening's production, I'm going backstage to delve
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into a £40 million ten year renewal programme to find out
1:36
about how it's being project managed, the challenges and what
1:40
it takes to make it a success. Royal Ballet and Opera is an APM
1:44
corporate partner so it takes project management seriously,
1:47
especially when it comes to the projects involved to replace the
1:50
ageing and increasingly failing backstage infrastructure.
1:53
All this project work has to carry on while the teams of
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artists, creative and technical and front of health staff work
1:59
together to ensure the curtain rises on time, day in, day out.
2:03
This requires a level of mature project management skills, so
2:07
come with me to find out more part.
2:15
Of what we had to deliver was actually keep in the sense the
2:18
warmth. I go through the stage door
2:22
entrance to find Musa Halame, the technical estate renewal
2:26
programme lead, who reports to the CEO Heather Walker.
2:30
He joined in 2018 to work on the upgrade of the power fly system
2:34
above the stage, which is the structure from which all the
2:37
lighting hangs, and became the project that led to the five
2:40
year renewal programme to upgrade the 25 year old systems
2:44
that is being worked on right now.
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Way to make sure that we've got, so I've got oversight of the
2:52
Sage machinery side, the sound video broadcast and the lighting
2:55
side of it all. So I've got three PMS who look
2:58
after each of them specific areas and I've kind of got
3:00
oversight of everything. I try my best to prioritise
3:05
projects, budgets and so on, meet timelines, see where
3:08
there's efficiencies across the projects and try our best to
3:11
kind of work together when we're, you know, for example,
3:14
working in the same areas that, you know, both projects are
3:17
aware of each other's scope and just try and find efficiencies
3:22
that way. I ask him what he enjoys about
3:24
the work. I think it's the excitement of
3:28
that challenge, knowing that I feel like when we take a project
3:31
on, even when we're just in the concept phase and the
3:35
feasibility phase, we know we're going to deliver it.
3:37
We know there's going to be something new next season at the
3:40
start of the season that will be delivered and the journey
3:42
between now and then, we know it's going to be rough, but it's
3:46
it's achievable and we know we're going to end up with the
3:48
right product at the other end. So flexibility is, is very key.
3:53
I think you, you've got to be a quite a quick learner when it
3:57
comes to just learning different aspects of theatre,
4:02
understanding why it's important to people, understanding why you
4:05
can't interrupt their operation, understanding the impact.
4:10
So I think that's it. So it's all about understanding
4:12
the bigger picture, having that ability to learn it and have the
4:16
communication skills to go out to people and actually ask what
4:18
they want and make sure that you arrange the right time.
4:22
You know, there's a certain pressure, having been there
4:25
myself, you know, when you're operating during a live
4:27
performance and something doesn't work, it just feels like
4:30
the whole world's watching you and you feel this immense amount
4:34
of pressure. And I think for a successful
4:38
project manager here, they really need to empathise with
4:40
that and understand that feeling and, you know, do their very
4:44
best to make sure that our end users never go through that.
4:48
Russo is working on the most critical part of the building,
4:51
the stage. When it's not filled with
4:53
performers rehearsing during the day for one, maybe 2
4:56
productions, as well as putting on an evening performance, it's
4:59
filled with everyone backstage who has a job to get done,
5:03
whether it's working on the lighting or moving props around.
5:06
That makes for a lot of highly involved stakeholders who Moosa
5:09
needs to keep on side in a collaborative way.
5:12
Communication is key, so I asked him how he approaches that.
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I think it's face to face here, even though we try and send out
5:20
like monthly status updates of each projects or what projects
5:23
are coming up. We share the full programme of
5:26
the renewals programme of what's happening in each year.
5:29
But yeah, it's, it's general communication going up, talk to
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them about what will be happening.
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And then we really like to get workshops in as soon as possible
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so that people can actually have their input.
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Because at the end of the day, we're delivering for them.
5:41
We're not deciding what they need.
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They're telling us what they need.
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And we're trying our best way to deliver that.
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So it's keeping that sense of ownership maybe with them.
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So even though they feel like they own that part of the stage,
5:54
for example, which they do, we want them to own the process of
5:58
changing it too. So we we empower them in that
6:01
way, I suppose to tell us what they need.
6:04
The key objective behind it is really business continuity.
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We don't want the stage to start where things have been
6:13
overworked probably over the years, components have become
6:17
obsolete. We've looked at that ourselves
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and said, right, OK, well, how can we replace this in a manner
6:22
that won't affect the performances?
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How can we improve things to meet today's standards at the
6:29
same time? So, yeah, it's a programme
6:32
that's focused pretty much on business continuity, increasing
6:36
resilience. We're definitely looking at
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sustainability as part of obviously all the projects that
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we do. It's particularly lighting and
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we're trying to improve health and safety.
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So again, we've got this advantage of having 25 years of
6:49
experience of people using the same systems and they can tell
6:52
us that it's all well and fun when it's working and we're
6:55
we're during the performance, but when we come to maintain
6:58
this, we can't get to this part or that part.
7:01
So we take that into consideration when we're doing
7:04
our upgrades. And yeah, I think the last point
7:07
that we always mention is obviously value for money.
7:09
We want to make sure that, you know, even the way we're
7:13
delivering it sometimes can be slightly more expensive because
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we're doing it overnight. We're not doing it in a bulk
7:19
when we're doing it like just in a phased manner, but we just can
7:23
we justify that extra bit of cost and if it keeps the
7:26
performances going, usually we can.
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The main benefit we're hoping to realise, and we've realised
7:33
already, but I hope to realise a bit more once we've done more
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upgrades, is integration between different systems.
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So everything is IP based, everything is on a network.
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So to have them all talking to each other, all move away from
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manual procedures really, and have tracking between machinery,
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lights, video, sound, that's all something that's achievable.
7:58
It's already achievable now with some of the upgrades we've done,
8:00
but it will be even more achievable ideally with all this
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new technology coming our way. With these upgrades, we'd like
8:08
to be able to have a virtual stage essentially where we could
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plot anything with a creative once they're happy, that can
8:17
just happen on stage because it's just transferring files at
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that point. You, you get the risk out of the
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way earlier and the earlier you get rid of it, the better or the
8:26
early reduce the risk, the better.
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And that's literally the only way we can work here.
8:31
There's there's no other way. There's no way we could just
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turn up with a, you know, with the new systems, and fingers
8:36
crossed it works. As you might imagine, access to
8:41
the stage is extremely limited. Moosa and his team usually have
8:44
three weeks in the summer when the performers have a break to
8:47
get work done. Otherwise it's overnight work.
8:50
This makes for projects that are front loaded with the focus on
8:53
preparation, prototyping and risk mitigation so that when
8:57
they have the green light to get on stage, everything goes to
8:59
plan. The show must go on no matter
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what. Deadlines can never slip when
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tickets are sold and performers booked five years in advance.
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We just really, really focus our energy on that, that initial
9:12
part, that design. I think that design phase when
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we can, like it varies from project to project, but when we
9:18
can really focus on getting prototypes through the door,
9:22
showing them to stakeholders, getting their feedback.
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And if you know, there's any tweaks or anything like that,
9:27
going back again and getting, you know, version 2, come
9:30
through the door, show everyone and really try and get that sign
9:33
off. Sometimes we push our limits,
9:35
our time limits because obviously you've got to get
9:37
signed off and then you've got to start manufacturing the
9:40
installation. But I think it's pushing them
9:42
deadlines and being realistic when you, when you draw out your
9:45
schedule to say, you know, I need an answer by this date and
9:49
here's my contingency, 2 weeks or so on.
9:52
But beyond that, you're not going to deliver the projects on
9:54
time. So it's being very aware of that
9:56
schedule. It's kind of almost dictated to
9:59
us in many ways because of the stage, but it's just working,
10:03
working around the stage schedule, making sure the
10:05
project schedule aligns. But we try and get the end users
10:08
in and people that really know the schedule of the stage of how
10:12
long it takes to build a set, what's required.
10:14
So really the experts on the other side that are actually,
10:18
you know, putting the show together.
10:20
It is a hybrid approach of, you know, both kind of like the
10:23
waterfall linear approach and also, like I said, the agile
10:28
iterative kind of approach is also used.
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Because I think especially when we're talking about prototypes
10:33
and design, that kind of front heavy approach to projects, we
10:38
really push no designs perfect first time around as much as we
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try and input to that when it's, you know, on a screen and so on.
10:47
When we see the physical prototype, there's always
10:49
feedback. And sometimes it's, it's
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literally like just a practicality of right, OK,
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you've built this thing, it's perfect.
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But now when I go up to the space to install it, I can't fit
10:58
my hand in to get a bolt in and say, all right, this isn't going
11:01
to work. So we need to rethink A bracket.
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But it's trying to squeeze as many of them kind of suggestions
11:07
in as possible before signing off the final, you know, design.
11:12
So that's to me quite an iterative process, which, you
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know, a lot of people see it with software.
11:17
It's like, oh, go back, do that again.
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We try and turn it around with just prototypes and you know,
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once we've got something physically here, we're trying
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our best to turn it around to the the product that we can sign
11:28
off as soon as possible. So then we can transform into
11:30
more of a linear process at that point.
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And then we know what we're going to set.
11:34
We're going to place an order. Here's potentially our delivery
11:37
date and here's our installation date.
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So yeah, it's a bit of a mixture of both, definitely.
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Moosa reports to Heather Walker, the COO who is project director
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of the Royal Ballet and Opera's Open Up project, completed in
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2018 when the front of house was transformed to make it fit for
11:53
the 21st century. I'm very lucky, I think with
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Heather, who I reported to the CEO, she's like very
12:00
understanding. She's got a very good project
12:02
background herself. So it's, yeah, it's a lot
12:05
easier. It's it's, it's a really good
12:07
culture. I've got to say, you know,
12:09
working here and it's, it's probably enabled me to become a
12:11
programme manager by being in this kind of environment.
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I ask him what he enjoys about project managing in a place like
12:19
this. Like a lot of our backgrounds
12:22
are working on stage and new productions and the reason you
12:26
do it, it's like it's all about the evenings and the weekends
12:29
and people are like, why would you do that?
12:30
But once you put a show on and you do like what we call the
12:34
press night, the opening night, and the audience are loving it,
12:39
you get such a buzz. I don't watch as many
12:41
productions as I should, but it, it's really important to know
12:45
that like I read the show report every day.
12:48
So the show report is like at the end of every show, the stage
12:50
manager will, will send out like a, a report of, you know, how
12:54
the show went, what time the curtain went up, if there was
12:56
any, any changes to the cast, but also if there's any problems
13:00
technically on stage or anything like that.
13:01
So I read that religiously every day just to make sure.
13:04
And I, you know, to me, it's really, really important to know
13:07
that anything that we've upgraded over the years is
13:11
working and that there hasn't been any problems, any kind of
13:14
show issues. And it's, it's giving the
13:16
audience what they've come to see really that's, that's really
13:19
important. That's your motivation when
13:21
you're when you do the late nights trying to get everything
13:24
up and running, you know, it needs to be perfect.
13:27
You know, you know who The Who the audience are coming into the
13:30
Royal Ballet and Opera and what they're, they're kind of level
13:34
of expectancy they've got when they come to see a production
13:37
here, what sort of quality they're after.
13:40
So you definitely, yeah, you're pushing yourself for that
13:43
reason. Even if you're working backstage
13:45
and putting a show on, you've been part of the creative team
13:49
or anything like that, you get such a buzz out of seeing the
13:53
audience react to your effects. I think in projects we're behind
13:58
the technology that allows them to do that, but we wouldn't get
14:00
the buzz at the same time, if you know what I mean.
14:03
So it's really important, like I said, to go watch some shows for
14:06
that reason to see, you know, for the project managers to
14:09
actually see what their hard work has enabled the other teams
14:14
to do and get the audience going.
14:17
From a project point of view. Like in the technical state
14:20
renewal team, we can definitely say, you know, you can say that
14:23
about all the products, sorry, all the productions.
14:25
It's we're involved in all of them, like making sure they all
14:29
continue. Like the stage elevators don't
14:31
work, there's no show, The lighting rig doesn't work,
14:33
there's no show and the comms go down, there's no show.
14:36
It's just they're all show stoppers.
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And it's, and I think what we really need to be proud of is
14:45
the methodology, the way that we've delivered it without
14:48
interruption. We've gone from old to new.
14:51
So the show must always go on, as Musa says, but let's meet
14:55
George Townsend who can shine a spotlight on the lighting
14:58
upgrade projects that he's masterminding.
15:00
One of which was the task of swapping out all the
15:03
auditoriums, 960 Candelabra lights and down lights from
15:06
tungsten to LED. After a lot of research,
15:10
planning and prototyping, he swapped out a couple in the
15:12
auditorium without telling anyone be on the team whilst
15:15
they adjusted them to match what was already there.
15:18
After three months, no one could tell the difference.
15:21
So we basically hid them in the auditorium, didn't tell anyone
15:25
which ones they were, and we were tweaking the dimming curves
15:29
and things like that and the colour temperature and things
15:31
like that to match it as best we could.
15:34
So when we came to install, we already had a background of
15:39
testing and people had confidence in the products we've
15:42
chosen and things like that. So when we came to do it, we
15:46
were just replicating those little tests on a much wider
15:49
scale, lots of collaborative meetings, lots of prototype
15:55
sessions and feeding that all back to the stakeholders here.
16:00
And we had sessions in the auditorium where we said, all
16:03
right, well, one of these candles is LED.
16:04
Can you tell me which one it is? Whilst Front of House had
16:08
experienced a lot of change during the open up project, Back
16:11
of the House has been dealing with the same tech and
16:13
infrastructure for the past 25 years.
16:16
Making change happen can be daunting, as Townsend explains.
16:20
There's two groups of people. I think there are, there are
16:22
people who are very much up for change and then there are people
16:26
who are a bit scared of it. And if you've got someone who's,
16:28
you know, been working in the organiser for 20 years, they
16:30
know how thing works and then you say I'm going to bring in a
16:32
new thing. Some people can be a bit fearful
16:34
of that. So we have to put in lots of
16:36
sessions where we're explaining what we're going to be doing and
16:41
why, but also training them on the new systems before they come
16:44
in. And that was really important
16:46
for us. Equally, we have all the artists
16:50
on stage and although lights in the auditorium is probably not
16:53
the thing they're most interested in, we do feedback to
16:57
the directors of the Royal Opera and the Royal Ballet and say in
17:01
the technical estate, these are the things that we're going to
17:03
have to start working on. This is how it might affect
17:06
productions and performers and the schedule and things like
17:10
that. So it's as a building, we plan
17:15
our production as five years in advance.
17:17
And there's lots of reasons for that because we share sets with
17:20
other opera houses, but obviously performers need to
17:22
know which Opera House they're in, where they're singing and
17:24
all that sort of stuff. So there's this real culture of
17:27
planning. And then the renewals team has
17:30
been created and we've just sort of dipped into that culture.
17:33
And it's, you know, same for us. We, we know that in two years
17:36
time we're going to need to do a thing.
17:38
Well, let's tell everyone now. Let's get it into the schedule.
17:41
Let's talk about how we might do it, how it might affect the
17:44
stage productions. The second project George has
17:48
been looking after is the updating of the production
17:50
lighting rig. They're the lights you see on
17:52
stage and all the systems that back them up and make them work,
17:56
he explains to me. It surpassed its lifespan.
18:01
It was becoming very difficult to support and get spare parts
18:04
for because almost everything was discontinued at that point.
18:07
So it was time to upgrade. And that's a little more
18:10
difficult for us than it sounds because we have lots of
18:13
productions in our Rep that obviously are in storage and
18:16
they come back and we replicate the lighting design as it was.
18:21
But this was the first time we were going from a, you know, a
18:24
tungsten rig to an LED rig. So one of the big challenges was
18:28
we actually had to start re lighting our shows in a virtual
18:32
world in our visual visualisation suite in our
18:37
virtual Opera House. So we actually started
18:39
relighting shows before we bought the new lights.
18:43
The big problem we would have is if we went from an old rig to
18:47
the new rig and we didn't have a virtual space, we would have to
18:50
relight every show on stage. And to do that we would have to
18:55
add technical sessions for every show.
18:58
And if you added up the hours, it'd be hundreds of hours that
19:02
we don't have. We'd have to cancel
19:03
performances. Obviously we don't want to do
19:05
that. So we do all the backbone work
19:08
in the virtual space and then when we come to stage it's sort
19:12
of tidying it up and adding in the finessing and you might
19:15
tweak some colours and, and all that sort of stuff.
19:18
We had to be able to say right, how are our lights going to the
19:21
lights that we want to buy and purchase?
19:23
How are they going to look? We had to know how it was going
19:25
to be before we do it because we have a three-week maintenance
19:30
period in the summer. So the the bit we've done so far
19:34
is we've replaced our overstage lighting bands, which are
19:39
basically our big metal structures that house that
19:41
permanent rig. We had to replace the actual
19:45
structures themselves because the old structures were too
19:48
heavy. If we took the new lights, which
19:51
of course are much heavier than the old lights because they're
19:53
not like cans with light bulbs anymore, they're basically
19:56
robots, they weigh a lot more. We'd have been massively
19:59
overweight for the winch capacity.
20:01
So we worked with a few companies, manufacturer in
20:05
Germany called Hof who make lighting trusses and things and
20:10
we designed custom structures with them and we had to get it
20:14
to the point that we basically would wheel them into the
20:18
building and install them in this three-week period.
20:21
This year we had four weeks, we had an extra week as a treat and
20:25
at the end of that four week period we go straight into the
20:29
next season. First show hits, the stage has
20:32
to work. So it's getting all of those
20:35
people together, getting your scope together, prototyping as
20:40
much as you can or you know, real world or virtual.
20:44
So by the time you get to the install you you're really
20:47
confident in what's coming through the door.
20:49
And at that point, we've put so much effort into planning the
20:53
install method as well. What are the secrets to success
20:57
to getting such a time bound project like this done, when the
21:00
usual workings of the organisation can never be
21:03
disrupted and when so many people fear the jeopardy that
21:06
this might cause? You know, comms is such a big
21:09
part of this and saying why you need to do the thing and how you
21:14
might do the thing. But we're still working on it.
21:16
Even if you're not quite ready to share the this is what we're
21:19
thinking. But you know, there's an
21:20
overview. Just getting that information
21:23
out, I found that enough people would sort of get on board that
21:29
the the people who were a bit scared would start to shift into
21:32
the group, like people would take them with them.
21:35
So it wasn't all on the project managers to pull people in.
21:38
The other thing we did that I thought was really good was in
21:41
terms of the production lighting project, we tried to involve as
21:44
many people who we could with the installation.
21:48
So the lighting team have actually helped build these
21:52
structures and, you know, put the lights on and they're the
21:55
ones who are going to be using it.
21:56
So it wasn't a case of we just wheeled it through the door and
21:58
went there you go. They knew what was coming.
22:01
They helped put it together so they understand how it works,
22:04
how it was put together, all that sort of stuff that really
22:07
helped. One of the biggest tools that's
22:10
been amazing for us is Microsoft Teams, because obviously not
22:14
only is it a tool where we can all get together in groups and
22:17
have video calls in various countries, but also, you know,
22:20
within our, our are sort of IT firewall.
22:23
We've we've allowed file sharing structures.
22:27
So if you take the lighting batons, for example, we had a
22:30
Teams channel where the structure manufacturer is
22:34
putting in drawings, the cable manufacturer is putting in
22:36
drawings, We're putting in our comments in feedback and we're
22:39
all working for the same set of documents rather than us being
22:43
the sort of people in the middle.
22:45
And you know, you come to me and I'll go back to you and say this
22:47
company said this. We're all just getting together.
22:50
We did a lot of like weekly phone calls and they might just
22:53
be half an hour and they were just in the diary.
22:55
But this project has a weekly phone call with these
22:58
manufacturers, these manufacturers for something
23:00
else. And we all just get together and
23:02
sometimes you'd all get on the call and go, there's nothing to
23:04
talk about this week. But we never took them out of
23:06
the diary. They might be 5 minutes, there
23:08
might be an hour, but they, you know that every week on a
23:11
Thursday, those manufacturers are like, oh, I've got call.
23:13
We roll Opera House at 1:00. I asked him if there were any
23:17
other lessons he learned. That's another thing I say to
23:20
project managers, don't overload yourself.
23:24
Look at what's achievable in the space.
23:26
We definitely put a lot in last summer and our biggest lesson
23:30
was actually our capacity. Although we achieved everything,
23:34
it definitely had a a toll on us as a team.
23:38
Adam Lindsay is the Project Manager at Royal Ballet and
23:41
Opera who has spent his entire career within project
23:43
management, sorting out at the BBC as a graduate trainee, but
23:47
working across different private sector organisations including
23:50
Siemens, he is responsible for the comms renewal projects.
23:55
Here he explains what it's like working at the Royal Ballet and
23:57
Opera, and how he brought himself up to speed with an
24:00
entirely new sector, as well as his advice on how to make change
24:04
happen well. I've always been very clear on
24:07
having worked for companies that provide managed services is that
24:11
project work should never be in a position where it can impact
24:15
the services and the actual business that's that's trying to
24:17
operate. So the show must go on.
24:19
And people here tend to be risk averse, a bit resistance change,
24:23
as I think most of us are, but very risk averse.
24:26
The, the schedule is so intense that people need to be able to
24:29
turn up on time, get on with their job with no delay.
24:32
Even a a short delay of a few minutes in the stage schedule
24:36
can have huge knock ONS throughout the rest of the day.
24:39
So it's a really intense place to work from that perspective.
24:42
And so everyone of course is very protective of their job and
24:47
needs to make sure that they're on that stage on time with
24:50
everything they need. So keeping those stakeholders
24:54
happy, making sure that we've identified them all.
24:57
And it's not just people that are going to be impacted by
24:59
change, it's also people that think they might be impacted by
25:01
change. I think project management, the
25:04
the theory, the discipline, the training is great, but
25:06
ultimately it's about getting people to effect change and
25:09
achieve things. So the people skills are so
25:12
important here. Most people are quite, quite
25:17
happy or at least accepting of change as long as you tell them
25:20
what's going on. What people don't don't like is
25:23
when a system or some process is changed, you know, under their
25:28
feet and without being consulted or informed.
25:31
That's not not everyone. Projects shouldn't necessarily
25:34
be run as a sort of a democracy, OK, You're going to have people
25:37
in charge, you're going to have budget holders, you're going to
25:39
have the the senior management in the organisation who want to
25:42
effect that change. Not everyone at grassroots level
25:46
is going to have a say. That's just not how projects
25:48
are. But keeping people informed is
25:50
critical. What's great here is that people
25:53
are quite open. They will tell you their
25:54
concerns. There are very, very, very few
25:56
times people are going to sit down and just not give you any
25:58
feedback whatsoever. And you think this is either
26:00
going really well or they don't understand what's going on.
26:03
So the fact that I think on the systems level, talk about the
26:07
technology, because there's been so little change on some of the
26:11
systems I'm looking after specifically over the years,
26:13
people are now crying out for that change and are mostly are
26:16
really happy to engage. But also it was actually a
26:18
challenge for me because I had to learn a new language to work
26:21
here. Even simple things like learning
26:23
about stage direction. So what's stage left, what's
26:26
stage right? What's upstage and downstage?
26:28
I've never worked on a stage before.
26:29
There's a lot of parallels with delivering projects, but in
26:31
terms of this environment I never worked in.
26:34
So what I tried to do was go out and shadow a few people in their
26:39
jobs as well. We're unusual in in the theatre
26:42
world in that we have our own broadcast facilities on site.
26:44
So just before Christmas we had a broadcast of Cinderella
26:48
Ballet. So I came along and was down in
26:50
the broadcast gallery and I was actually watching people
26:52
operationally, operationally that night, seeing how
26:55
everything connected together, who was doing what.
26:58
And it meant that when I went into meetings and started
27:00
discussing things with people, I had a better awareness of what
27:02
their day-to-day job was. And I think actually when you
27:06
show people that you're trying to learn about their world,
27:10
quite often that opens them up a bit and they feel like they're
27:12
being listened to, they are being listened to and are and
27:15
are happy to share, willing to share.
27:16
And most people, you know, are proud of their jobs and are
27:19
proud of the work they do, especially at the Opera House.
27:22
And I'm very happy to spend time with you, the small amount of
27:24
time that they've got describing things and explaining things.
27:27
So I was always keen to make sure that when I was in
27:30
meetings, I was learning about them rather than dictating to
27:33
them what was going to happen. And I was in a workshop with
27:37
some of the stage managers. And the, the stage managers are
27:39
the, are the people that sit just off to the side of the
27:42
stage during a show and actually directing everything that's
27:44
going on. And we did a workshop with some
27:47
of them. And one of them asked me, you
27:48
know, is it your intention to do XY and Z?
27:50
And I said, well, just picking up on the subtlety of your
27:53
question, it's not my intention to do anything to you.
27:57
We've been asked to implement some change.
27:59
I'm trying to understand from you guys what you need.
28:02
And this is not something that's meant to be forced upon you.
28:04
It's meant to make things better, easier, more reliable.
28:08
Try to list out some of the benefits there were.
28:11
What does he think makes for a successful project culture?
28:14
Maybe it's a bit of a dark art, but but ultimately trust's
28:18
really important. And to build trust, you do what
28:22
you say you're going to do and then people trust you.
28:23
So if you can demonstrate that people will be allowed to do
28:27
what they say they're going to do.
28:28
You have to allow people to make mistakes.
28:30
Everyone's human. So it's important when the
28:32
mistakes are made that there's a learning process and you you go
28:35
back and say, well, what went wrong?
28:36
How could we do things better? But I've always been very
28:41
fortunate in working for other project managers or programme
28:44
managers who've given me the freedom to go off and plan
28:49
things how I want. But I've always been available,
28:52
made themselves available for me to go back and ask questions and
28:55
advice without feeling like they're micromanaging me.
28:58
So it is a balance. I'm not claiming to have the
29:01
answers to how to do that, but I'm fortunate in that the most
29:03
successful project teams I've been part of have all got that
29:06
balance right between allowing people the freedom to go ahead
29:10
and not be micromanaged, while also having the support and the
29:12
trust to be able to come and ask questions or support when they
29:15
need it. Let's find out more about what
29:17
he's working on. Yeah.
29:19
So I'm replacing the production communication system here.
29:23
So that system is used for all of the teams on stage to
29:27
communicate. So whether that be the lighting
29:30
team, the sound team, the stage team who are moving scenery
29:33
around, the flies team who are looking after anything that's
29:36
raised up in the air, whether that be scenery or curtains or
29:39
performers. Even the older systems are
29:41
really creaking, showing their age and some of them were
29:44
beginning to fail. Even though people's radios were
29:46
still working, some of the infrastructure and some of the
29:50
the technology down in the engine rooms was becoming really
29:53
unreliable. So it's important to do a
29:55
general refresh and replace those systems.
29:57
I'm run a 3 year contract to run a whole number of renewals
30:00
projects and that was the first big one that was kind of the
30:02
burning platform we called it because it absolutely had to be
30:04
done urgently. So that was a significant
30:08
technical installation. So a lot of network, a lot of
30:12
signal processing communications equipment had to be installed.
30:14
But most importantly it was going to affect a huge number of
30:16
users who are on stage every day using this equipment.
30:21
And so actually one of my learning points, something that
30:24
didn't go particularly well was just getting all of those users
30:26
informed and engaged early enough.
30:28
We were going at it from a sort of a top down approach.
30:30
So the end users are, they could be stage teams, lighting
30:34
operatives, they could be people who are mixing the sound for the
30:38
show. They could be the costumes
30:41
department who are trying to get costumes to dressing rooms on
30:43
time. They could be the wigs, the make
30:45
up department. Because ultimately when the show
30:48
is ready to go on, everything needs to be in the right place
30:49
and happening at the right time. There's also the stage
30:52
management and the deputy stage management teams who are the
30:54
ones who are actually directing the show and are responsible for
30:57
the all the activities on stage. So they have a station just off
31:01
to one, one side of the stage and it's critical that they've
31:04
got everything they need at the touch of a button and can
31:06
communicate with everybody. Although it went live in end of
31:10
August 25, the project's not due to close until June this year.
31:14
26. We've still got some.
31:17
One of the benefits of the project was that we would not
31:19
just replace some ageing equipment, but also be able to
31:21
bring some other teams onto the system who'd not had comms
31:25
before. So we have a second theatre
31:26
here, it's called the Linbury Theatre.
31:28
Not everyone's aware that the Royal Opera House has a main
31:30
auditorium and then there's a smaller studio theatre, about
31:33
400 seats. They've always had a separate
31:35
Comm system, but by doing this upgrade there's some benefits
31:39
that we can realise by integrating them, bringing
31:42
everything on board and now people will be able to roam the
31:44
building and work in either theatre but be on the same Comm
31:47
system. I asked him if it mattered that
31:50
he wasn't an opera and ballet buff before he started working
31:53
here. It's important, I think, for
31:55
project managers to understand the nature of the projects
31:58
they're delivering, the environment they're delivering
32:00
them into. You don't necessarily have to be
32:02
an expert. Having an understanding is
32:04
important. I knew very little about what
32:06
before I started, and I sometimes wonder if that can be
32:09
a benefit because it can give you that detachment from just
32:13
being overwhelmed by everything you see because you're such a
32:16
fan of it and actually treat it in a much more objective way.
32:20
But I still get a buzz from coming into the building every
32:22
morning and walking into that auditorium that that listed
32:25
auditorium. Walking around the maze of
32:28
backstage corridors, rooms and huge open spaces, it's easy to
32:31
agree with Carl Erickson, who looks after the renewal project
32:34
for the stage Machineries, that it's a venue, not like any other
32:38
place. It's got an outrageous amount of
32:42
machinery in it. It's incredibly vital for it to
32:44
work. The schedule is just kind of
32:48
mental because, you know, you again, there's this series of
32:55
projects that needed to be done and the schedule to accomplish
33:00
those projects, you know, is incredibly difficult.
33:02
So you have to be really creative about how you approach
33:05
like these engineering problems. It's the things that primarily,
33:09
you know, move the scenery. Like do you know, the thing that
33:12
most people will see if they've ever been to a theatre show is,
33:16
you know, pieces of cloth flying out or flying in, you know,
33:20
during the scene change, you'll see stuff disappear above you or
33:24
fly in. That's the that's the most
33:25
common thing. And traditionally that stuff has
33:28
always been done sort of manually with people pulling
33:31
ropes. But there's been some machinery
33:35
assisted venues for quite a long time.
33:38
But really in the 90s is when that took off just because like
33:41
the technology became cheap enough and that you started to
33:48
see venues being purpose built with these, you know, fully
33:51
loaded with machines to do all of the scene changes.
33:53
And here it's really important. So there's a lot of things that
33:57
you use machinery for in the theatre.
34:00
I mean, often it's to reduce risk because when you have
34:03
people that need to move heavy loads, you know, that's its own
34:09
risk of having people do that work it.
34:12
I mean, it also enables a lot of more spectacular effects.
34:15
I mean, these days you have all sorts of, you know, heavier and
34:19
heavier things like LED walls. Those are very popular.
34:22
They're also very heavy. So, you know, if you want to
34:26
have some, again, some sort of spectacular transition in your
34:29
scene during a show, you need to have machinery to do that for
34:33
you. But here our schedule is, is
34:37
getting very unusual in the sense that we are a, an Opera
34:42
House and we do repertory. We do shows in repertory.
34:46
So that means we change what's on stage every day.
34:50
And partly that's just a factor of how opera has to work because
34:53
opera singers Can't Sing every day.
34:55
They have to take a rest day in between.
34:56
So like, as soon as you say we're going to do opera, you
34:58
automatically have to be a, a venue that that does a wrap.
35:02
So you have to change what's on stage, but then that also means
35:05
that you have to like, rehearse the things that are coming up.
35:10
So you have to figure out some sort of schedule of changing
35:15
what's on stage all the time. And the only way you can do that
35:18
in any sort of feasible sort of time frame is having a lot of
35:21
machinery that helps you move your scenery around.
35:24
We usually change over in the morning.
35:25
We do a, you know, from half 7:00 to 11:00, we do a rehearsal
35:29
from 11:00 to 2:00 and then they change over again from 2:00
35:32
till, you know, 630 and then they do a show that evening.
35:36
And that's most days of the year.
35:37
That's that's usually six days a week.
35:40
I asked Carl to explain the projects he's been working on.
35:43
So the two projects that I've done so far, the first one was
35:49
our stage elevators and the second one is the false
35:53
proscenium stage elevators are a lot easier to explain in the
35:57
sense that our stage is made-up of 6 elevators.
36:04
So they're sort of long rectangular elevators and
36:07
they're all next to each other going sort of from the
36:10
downstage, upstage stage elevators.
36:14
They they have like multiple facets of how they're used.
36:20
So it's not just like the, it's a moving floor and it's also got
36:29
like a mezzanine level underneath it.
36:31
So you can actually walk in on like at the level below, there's
36:35
a there's actually a level. And again, it's this part of the
36:39
elevator. So it travels up and down with
36:42
the elevator. And the reason why you have
36:45
something like that is because you often in a lot of shows, you
36:48
want to have some sort of effect where people come up from below.
36:50
You know, whether you have some sort of like, you know, lift
36:54
that pushes somebody up and through the floor or if you just
36:57
have a staircase, but you need to have some sort of, you know,
36:59
platform underneath that you can rise come up through.
37:03
So there's that level. But then that level is actually
37:07
very useful in the sense that like if you don't need it for an
37:10
effect during a show, you can actually store stuff in it.
37:13
And so the elevators can come all the way above stage.
37:16
So you can then wheel stuff inside of it and store stuff
37:20
inside of it and then, you know, put it down.
37:24
And then of course, they also drop down quite far.
37:27
So we use that particularly to great effect.
37:31
There's a lot of shows that rely on that action.
37:35
There's a lot of sets where they will build like a whole extra
37:39
level and then they'll drop the whole thing down so that there's
37:43
like a whole other level underneath that people can, you
37:46
know, have staircases come up and out of like in Traviata.
37:49
That's a very good example. The Act 1 of Traviata has
37:53
staircases and a bunch of people come up from below.
37:55
They're like curved staircases. And the only way you could do
37:58
that is by having the ability to put a massive, you know what
38:04
they call infill and lower it down.
38:07
So most of them go down 4 metres.
38:09
So that in itself is a pretty big drop.
38:11
But then the most upstage elevators, 5 and 6, go down even
38:16
further. They go down 5.7 metres and
38:21
that's used to really good effect in The Nutcracker to, you
38:24
know, one of the sort of effects in The Nutcracker that's
38:29
important to the telling the story is that essentially like
38:35
Clara, you know, the main girl in the, in the, in the story,
38:41
she kind of gets like shrunk to toy size, you know, because like
38:45
she gets given this Nutcracker for Christmas and then, you
38:47
know, whether it's a dream or not a dream is always, I think a
38:50
little bit up for interpretation.
38:53
But it's this idea that she gets shrunk down to toy size.
38:56
And then like the toy soldiers are now like her size or so
39:00
rather she's the size of them and then they're fighting rats,
39:03
you know, all this sort of stuff.
39:04
So things that would have to only happen with her shrinking
39:08
and the way that's usually communicated is this idea of
39:10
like the tree grows and most, you know, 99.9% of the theatres
39:17
around the world do not have like a, a big elevator that they
39:20
can drop. So usually they have some sort
39:22
of kind of cloth tree that folds.
39:26
So they just kind of like leave that.
39:27
And so it's a very like 1 dimensional tree.
39:30
And yes, you can do scene painting and make it look
39:32
interesting, but we actually get to have a physical tree, right?
39:36
We get to put on our elevator. So it's much more impressive
39:39
effects. I ask him what the biggest
39:42
challenge is that he faces working with the stage
39:44
elevators. So the biggest problem with the
39:47
stage elevators versus any of the other projects we're doing
39:52
is that a lot of the things that we do sort of are above you or
39:58
to the side. You know, it's like, OK, this is
40:00
out of the way. You can sort of work out, you
40:02
know, oh, you can put a scaffold up.
40:03
Oh, you can, you know. You can work at high or, you
40:06
know, you can sort of get access to a lot of these things and you
40:08
don't have to impede everybody everywhere.
40:11
The problem with the elevators is that, you know, they are the
40:15
floor of the theatre. So like if you're doing stuff
40:18
with it, nobody can be stood there.
40:20
Nobody can, you know, if you if you put them all down, that's a
40:22
giant hole. The biggest problem with doing
40:25
those was the fact that there was no way to not impact other
40:29
people. I really like them raid, you
40:35
know, risks, assumptions, issues, decisions.
40:37
I really like that a lot when you're, especially when you're
40:41
talking to like your stakeholders, 'cause the I mean,
40:46
the thing that you're really trying to do, you know, on a,
40:50
you know, as as frequent basis as you need to is, you know,
40:53
you're, you're always trying to solve issues, right?
40:55
You're always so you're always trying to mitigate risks.
40:58
Like you're always trying to look ahead and say like, OK,
41:01
well, there's a, there's an amount of planning where you're
41:04
going, OK, whatever our goals. Like I, my favourite part,
41:08
actually, I'd say my favourite part of doing this work is
41:11
actually talking to the people about what they want at the end.
41:16
So it was very fun for me to step in and start to look at how
41:20
they were using these things and going like, OK, well, that's not
41:23
a, you know, I could, I can see these pain points in your, in
41:26
your like operational processes. So like there's a list of things
41:31
that I would notice and then I would talk to them and say, you
41:33
know, what's good, what's bad? What would you like to change?
41:36
That's how this all starts. Like I don't just come in and
41:38
say like you should have X, you know, because like that's not
41:40
useful. Like I need to know what they
41:42
want to do. What's it like for him as an
41:45
engineer turned project manager to work on projects here?
41:49
It's the fact that I mean, this is, this is, I'm, I'm not just
41:54
like a project manager working in a field that's sort of like,
41:57
you know, to me, I, I can see that there's a lot of probably
42:01
project manager professionals that they're a project manager
42:07
has their career, you know, they will jump into this project,
42:10
that project, whatever, you know, and they're not going to
42:11
be very passionate, you know, about the project.
42:14
It's just OK, it's another project.
42:15
Like I know how to run a project.
42:17
I'll get this, you know, from start to finish, you know,
42:19
whereas I have the advantage that I'm managing projects in
42:23
the field that I have a lot of interest in.
42:26
So it's fun for me to think about the solutions, not just
42:29
execute the project. How does he personally measure
42:33
the success of the project he's worked on?
42:36
So the old system, you know, had lots of reoccurring faults, you
42:40
know, and constantly our sort of like support engineering team
42:45
would get called out all the time to, you know, sort of hit
42:49
it with a hammer and her power, you know, turn it off and on or
42:52
whatever they needed to do to get, you know, and this has
42:54
happened like almost on a daily basis.
42:56
And to me, the biggest measure of success is they never get
43:01
called. I mean, so again, reliability,
43:05
so that not having the engineers come every day is is to me, the
43:11
main measure that I see. But the important thing is that
43:14
it's everybody like even like throughout the building, like on
43:18
the technical, there was just this understanding that like try
43:22
to use the elevators as little as possible because they're not
43:25
reliable. And you know, that's now a
43:29
mindset that has they've been able to like throw away because
43:34
there's now shows. And again, I can't make spoilers
43:37
for what's coming up in future seasons in terms of like what
43:40
show it is and what they're going to do.
43:41
But there's people actually now planning to use the elevators
43:45
for live moves in shows again. What Karl is working on now is
43:50
what's called the false proscenium, which I discovered
43:53
is the frame separating the stage from the auditorium
43:56
through which the action of the ballet and opera scene.
44:00
In the Royal Opera House, you know, we have this very
44:05
decorative sort of carved golden proscenium.
44:10
And then but behind that is the thing that we call the false
44:12
proscenium. And so the false proscenium is
44:16
just black. It's just covered in black.
44:17
It's all flat and black on the front.
44:19
And very few theatres have anything that's like it.
44:23
It's, it's essentially, it's got some towers that can travel, you
44:28
know, on stage and off stage. And then it's got a lighting
44:30
bridge that can go up and down. So you can further control the
44:35
sort of the size of the aperture that people are looking at the
44:38
scene on stage. And and not only does it, you
44:43
know, sort of close that aperture, but it also the whole
44:46
thing can move upstage and downstage, which again, it's,
44:50
it's wild because it's huge. I mean, it's like 30 metres
44:54
wide. It weighs 50 tonnes.
44:56
It sits on 2 rails. You know, it's just, you don't
44:58
look at it go like, oh, that should move, you know, like, but
45:01
it does. So it's again the same problem,
45:04
reliability issues, you know, you had a 25 year old system and
45:09
just things didn't always want to work.
45:12
The original system was perfectly fine.
45:15
You know, it was of its era. Like I can't fault any of the
45:19
like the original design for how it emerged.
45:22
But you know, we have more interesting technology these
45:26
days, more interesting ways to operate stuff.
45:29
And again, it was easy to see the pain points.
45:33
It was easy to, you know, to, to watch the operators go like, you
45:36
know, hitting the reset button cause all the time, 'cause it
45:40
would just fall when you were trying to move it.
45:41
You know, so stuff like that is really obvious, Like, oh, this
45:44
is not in that's ideal state. So all of the stuff we have on
45:49
stage is from 25 years ago. It's from 1999.
45:53
After the false proscenium, Carl will turn his attention to
45:56
renewing the stage traps and sliders which allows performance
45:59
to pop up through the stage. The current ones, he says, have
46:02
been condemned. So it's time for the curtain to
46:05
come down on our behind the scenes look at just some of the
46:08
projects being managed at the Royal Ballet and Opera.
46:11
It's been a privilege to see the huge amount of usually unseen
46:14
effort that goes into putting on the productions here.
46:17
Mussoli is a dedicated team who continues on its journey of
46:21
greater professionalisation and it's fantastic to see people get
46:25
such a kick from doing their jobs.
46:27
I hope you've learned a few things that you can practise in
46:29
your own work, whether that's making change more of a success
46:32
or ensuring A moveable deadlines are met.
46:35
If you want to find out more about project management at
46:38
Royal Balloon Opera, look out for the Spring 2026 issue of
46:41
Project and listen to the APM podcast where I interviewed COO
46:45
Heather Walker about moving from Project Director to Executive
46:49
suite. Thanks again to Music, George,
46:58
Adam and Cole for joining us and to you for listening to the APM
47:01
Podcast. Don't forget to look out for
47:03
more episodes or to rate and reviews wherever you get your
47:06
podcasts. We'd welcome you to get in touch
47:08
with your comments, feedback and suggestions by emailing us at
47:11
apmpodcast@thinkpublishing.co.uk. Spotify users, please do also
47:17
leave us your comments. This podcast has been brought to
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you by APM, the chartered body for the roject Rofession.
47:23
For more information on APM, visit amorguk.