Helter Skelter

After the success of the portable ModTruss theatre for Pleasance and keen to expand the ModTruss brand in Europe, we decided to do an in-house project to showcase the potential of the ModTruss system.

And so, this is how we ended up as licensed fairground attraction operators…

The unique ability of ModTruss to be made into anything you can dream up is a dangerous thing when there’s a room full of theatre practitioners who like to have fun. You can build big things, tall things, funny shaped things.

You can bolt anything you want to ModTruss - walls, a roof, lighting, speakers, LED screens… even a slide.

Initially, we wanted to build a small slide to take to a significant exhibition in the UK theatre calendar - The ABTT Theatre Show. A great publicity stunt we thought, we’ll win stand of the year for sure we thought!

Being adventurous types we ended up designing some much bigger. So big in fact that it no longer fitted into the Palm Court so would instead be used at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and was now also a viewing platform and a bar!

Unlike most structural systems we just needed to bolt on some more bits to provide for all of these new functions.

‘Sip & Slide’ is over 400 times stronger than a normal helter skelter and had over 7,000 sliders go down it in the middle of Edinburgh’s George Street, Assembly Festival’s Gardens drawing press attention from many corners.

We even had a publicity shoot for an acrobatic troupe hanging off it!

The future of ‘Sip & Slide’ possibly lies in another design change where we again utilise the amazing ability of ModTruss to morph into something else by making it into a VIP bar or an elevated DJ tower with video screens.

Who knows what the future holds for it, but with the ModTruss system’s unique characteristics we’ll be able to change and adapt with no waste and minimal fuss into whatever our clients need.