The Parklife Festival in Manchester is an annual music festival with a capacity of 75,000 people. Each year the event has a different theme, Space was the theme for 2016, with all of the decorative elements around the site all tying in together to give the festival its own feel so it wasn’t seen as a set of generic stages. Splinter were asked to build various elements around the site including the main stage ‘Parklife’ signage, the entrance archway, VIP Entrance archways & a rocket that was mounted on top of a VIP stage.

Building the elements for the festival was a great experience for Splinter and sometimes quite a challenge. Designing the illuminated letters for the main stage was an interesting balancing act with trying to make the letters large but at the same time light both for fixing purposes and for installation to make it easier for the Splinter crew. The three archways that were built were all fabricated by our master welder in the workshop and built in a manner for ease of construction on site and more importantly very sturdy for the safety of the general public.

The greatest challenge of the build was how to install a 2.5 metre tall rocket on top of a 7.5 metre bandstand roof. This resulted in multiple discussions and meetings with the designer, owners of the bandstand & event organisers to built an impressive and safe visual piece. Overall, with Splinter’s extensive knowledge in the theatre industry the project was a brilliant success and every element of the design was achieved to a high standard for the festival.