Download a PDF - PLSN.com

COMPANY 411
PROJECTION LIGHTS & STAGING NEWS
The company is new, but the staff has decades of experience.
By Kevin M. Mitchell
“
The company is new, but the product
is not,” says Jocelyn Roux of Mega-
Stage. Mobile stages, he adds, are
“something that we know.” Roux is the head
designer for the new-to-us stage company,
which is based in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu,
Québec, Canada, just southeast of Montreal.
The seemingly contradictory statement
is easily explained. Sales manager Stephane
Berger’s family had a history with another
company known for their pioneering work
with mobile stages (among other things).
The Berger family, known as Groupe Berger,
bought that company, and Stephane lured
Roux, who had once worked for it, back into
the fold.
For a new name, it’s an organization that
is long in experience, both as a manufacturer
of mobile stages and as users of them.
For the past 30 plus years, they have been
supplying sound, lighting, video and staging
to clients in Canada, and their experiences
doing so has had a major influence on their
latest venture.
“We know how customers use mobile
stages,” says Roux. “For instance, when you’re
at a downtown park and you sometimes can’t
move the stage too much one way or another.
It gets wedged in somewhere, yet you still
need full access to everything. We know because
we’ve experienced that ourselves!”
History 411
The history of the company actually goes
back to 1973. Fafard International was founded
that year and their main purpose was the
Herculean task of building airports. In 1982
the company built their first mobile stage,
which Berger admits, “was not designed very
well.” Later Berger’s father, Guy Berger, working
with Fafard, would design and build a far
superior electrical mobile stage prototype in
1994 that would be called the Logicstage.
By 1998 Fafard International was selling
their mobile stages across Canada, U.S. and
Europe, the latter being particularly challenging
because of the strict European regulations
imposed on such products. But the company
succeeded in complying with them.
The Berger family would acquire the company
in 2001, but the mobile stage side of the
business was dormant for a while as the division
was reorganized. Then it reemerged, harnessing
the years of experience of Fafard’s operation
with new direction and vision supplied
by the Berger family. The company would be
given a new name, too: Mega-Stage.
The Team 411
One of Berger’s first tasks was to attract
design talent to the “new” company. He
went directly to Roux, and in the words of an
American movie cliché, made him an offer he
couldn’t refuse. Roux had worked for Fafard in
the 1990s, and he says he loved it. But when
the organization stopped producing mobile
stages, he moved onto other things. Now he’s
back and he wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I love it when I’m involved in the design
of a stage and it turns out really well. I can
step back, look at it and say, ‘Wow,’” Roux says.
“But when Stephane approached me about
this company, I had another very good job
— I was very grounded. ‘Why should I leave
that?’ I thought. But then he explained his vision
to me. At heart I’m a designer, and when
I have the chance to work with someone who
has a vision, I feel I can go to the moon. Too
often people are closed minded, and there’s
no room to create. But that’s not the way it is
here. Stephane has a very open mind.”
First, they set out to redesign the Dynastage
series of products. Roux was involved in
the 1998 version, which he maintains was the
very first aluminum stage, but the new version
would need to make a bold impression. Today
it’s their most compact line of mobile stages.
The floor and roof are both hydraulically deployed
and the leveling is handled with standard
scaffolding screw jacks. They come with
built-in pipes that allow for lights to be rigged,
as well as audio, video, rigging motors and
other equipment. It’s quick to set up, and it requires
no external electricity to be deployed.
“It’s fully galvanized,” Roux says, adding
with emphasis that the larger Groupe Berger
is both a client and probably the best testing
ground for all their mobile stages. “It was a
pain for our people to paint a mobile stage
every year, so we won’t ask our customers to
do it, even if it means it costs a little more,”
Berger adds. Both say that by using the prototypes
and products in action and seeing
them up close, they are able to refine them.
They also welcome comments and criticism,
as it allows the design team to improve the
product.
Feedback 411
“The Berger family rents sound, lights and
video equipment, and a lot of people working
inside the company are using our stages, so I
get unlimited feedback even before it’s built,”
Roux explains. “I will design something, do a
3-D model of it and show it those in the company
who use them all the time. And they will
say, ‘Yes it’s good, but…’ Then we are able to
incorporate their comments into the final design,
and before it’s fabricated it’s practically
already tested.
“Everyone comes and whines to me, but
if I didn’t listen to those guys, we’d be like the
other companies!” he laughs.
Berger explains that as improvements
were made to their initial mobile stages, the
first big success was in achieving a better setup
time: it was cut in more than half. It’s now
down to two people setting it up in 35 minutes
sans tools.
Mega-Stage’s headquarters facility in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Quebec.
They also have a Lightweight series that
offers stages from 20 feet by 16 feet by 10 feet
to 32 feet by 32 feet by 15 feet. The 24-footby-20-foot-by-15-foot
stage is their most
popular model. They feature vibration reduction
in the floors and hinge covers, and sound
and lighting necessities are built right in. The
Pro series offers stages from 32 feet by 30 feet
by 21feet up to 50 feet by 38 feet by 27. “The
nice thing about the two series is they take
the same training. If you use the Lightweight
series, you know how to use the Pro Series”
and vice-versa, Roux says.
“Often you’re asked by customers to make
a 32 foot stage be as strong as a 40 foot stage,”
he continues. “The Pro series addresses this.
We have a platform that doesn’t need to double-up
and it allows you to rig LED screens on
the wing and in the back. Plus it has all these
other components. They are excellent stages
for big lighting and sound equipment. And
the Pro series are the most reliable mobile
stages on the market,” he says. “We’re about
25 percent cheaper yet offer 50 percent more
rigging capacity.”
But Mega-Stage is not stopping at mobile
stages. Berger says they are getting into the
accessory market, designing riser systems
and guardrails. He adds that he’s been showing
their risers to the clients and they are all
impressed with their light weight. With fuel
prices at a premium, the savings arising from
lower-weight products becomes more significant.
Mega-Stage is especially sensitive to
that and they work to create products accordingly.
Mega-Stage is also the exclusive U.S. distributor
for ArcoFab, which manufacturers
ground support and truss systems.
“This allows us to offer customers a complete
range of products,” says Berger.
And that’s a very wise move, especially for
such a “young” company.
Guy Berger, Stephane’s father, updated a prototype design
for Mega-Stage’s mobile stage products back in 1994.
Jocelyn Roux at Toronto’s Edgefest 08, which featured one of Mega-Stage’s 70-foot-by-52-foot-by-45-foot mobile stages
Stephane Berger, with a MegaLED tile panel.
46 PLSN NOVEMBER 2008