Pfaff-silberblau completely replaces the fly machinery of this traditional Hamburg musical theatre in record time.

Stage technology specialists from Pfaff-silberblau, Germany had little more than three months in which to convert the fly machinery of the renowned “Operettenhaus” on behalf of Stage Entertainment, one of the leading companies in international live entertainment, for which Pfaff-silberblau has already handled several complex stage machinery projects.

Under difficult conditions, the stage technology specialists from Friedberg installed 25 tonnes of structural steel, 7.5 kilometres of special wire ropes, 300 pulley blocks with almost 700 pulleys and 27 electrical rope winches, with an ultimate load of 900 kilograms each, in this traditional theatre on the Reeperbahn.

The refurbishment has now been completed and the Operettenhaus Hamburg radiates a new technical splendour in good time for the world première on 2nd December 2007 of the new Udo Jürgens musical “Ich war noch niemals in New York.”

This project represents one of the most extensive refurbishments of a musical theatre commissioned by Stage Entertainment. The Operettenhaus Hamburg is considered to be the birthplace of the German musical, since this is where the German première of the highly acclaimed musical "Cats" took place in 1986.

For the intricate high-tech set of “Ich war noch niemals in New York“, the latest rope winches and manual counterweight systems were fitted, the machinery level was fitted with a new grid whilst all of the fly machinery was upgraded to the latest state-of-the-art technology.

In an initial stage, the engineers from Pfaff-silberblau, together with a structural analysis company in Hamburg, jointly developed a concept for the reinforcement of the existing steel structure in the roof and the structural displacement of the fly grid. Numerous details needed to be taken into account, for example the non-uniformly distributed load of the steel structure above the stage, which mainly arises in the front area during musical productions. It was also essential to deal with the designed “historical loads” of the existing structures. For example, the existing steel structure was deemed to be unsuitable for welding owing to its age, so that all the connections between the existing and new structures had to be cramped or bolted together.

Owing to the tight timescales, the conversion work started during the season in June: During the day, technicians from Pfaff-silberblau were busy above the stage of the Operettenhaus, whilst the performers presented the popular musical “Mamma Mia!” in the evening without interruption. By the end of the season in September, the historical equipment had been removed, all of the reinforcing steel construction and pulley blocks had been installed, the steel ropes were laid and the various special point drops for transformations had been installed.

This was followed within two weeks by the successive installation and commissioning of 27 DELTA wire rope winches by Pfaff-silberblau on the fly grid. Each one of these winches weighs around 800 kilograms, and had to be installed very securely above the stage. DELTA wire rope winches are used for reliably supporting and quickly changing the set and the structures on the stage whenever necessary. Each one of the centrally controlled wire rope winches lifts a maximum weight of 900 kilograms at a velocity of up to 1.2 metres per second. Pfaff-silberblau engineers were assisted in this by Fülling & Partner, Pfaff’s established control design partner, who took responsibility for the control system supllied by the customer. The technical structures were rounded off with adapted load bars on the steel ropes of the winches for a special take-up of the scenery for the première of the new musical.