Blowers Help Set Scene For Walking Dinosaurs

Based upon the popular BBC series, this live theatrical event employs life-size, animatronic dinosaurs to re-enact life as it was when the creatures inhabited the world.

The arena sets are designed to create appropriate settings to represent different periods of the world’s history as the Pangaea (super continent that began splitting up 200 million years ago) broke up to form the various continents of the world.

An integral part of the mobile scenery, produced by Yorkshire-based specialist set builders Stage One for The Creature Production Company who created the animatronic dinosaurs, is the vegetation.

The realistic vegetation which sprouts during the show is inflatable. The fact it is inflatable permits it to ‘grow’ during performances whilst also proving easier for set erection, stowage and transportation.

An important element of the vegetation effect is the blowers employed to inflate it. The vegetation is deployed across the set and ‘grows’ through holes cut out of the scenery. Inside the various set elements are blowers that initially inflate the plants and then keep them up to pressure during the performance.

“The ACI blowers are doing exactly what we want when we want”, said Roy Webber, Project Manager, of Stage One. “ACI has been very helpful, even lending us a blower to prove it was what we needed – and it is!”

The blowers were supplied by specialist fan and blower manufacturer, Air Control Industries (ACI) of Chard. The blowers are ACI’s MS11 blowers with backward bladed impellers for delivering high air volumes efficiently. The blade’s efficiency is enhanced by being directly mounted on the motor shaft eliminating transmission losses. This configuration also results in very low noise output. It is available with up to in either single or three phase AC or DC with up to 4 impellers mounted on the same motor shaft to deliver up to 750m3/hr (430 cfm) to pressures of 59mBar (23.8in WG).