Genie lifts work their magic at Coachella Music & Arts Festival

Holding a rock concert for 60,000 people in the middle of the desert takes a lot of equipment. The Coachella Music and Arts Festival is held on the Empire Polo Grounds near Palm Springs and this year featured artists such as Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails.

The hot and dusty environment is a test of endurance for both the people creating this temporary city in the desert and the equipment used to make the festival possible. Genie Industries’ stick and articulating boom lifts were used by the producers of the festival for everything from tent building to transporting materials.

The Coachella Festival features five stages. Two huge outdoor stages are used for some of the most well-known artists, while the other three stages are housed in large tent structures.

Genie boom lifts are used in the construction of the tents — first to assemble the tent framework and then to help with the covering. The tents are constructed by assembling arch-shaped support beams on the ground. These beams are then erected one at a time and attached to each other to form the tents’ super structure.

The Coachella production staff that use Genie lifts go through a training program and are then given additional practice time operating each lift. The lifts are used during the festival in public areas, so each operator has to feel comfortable using the equipment. The lifts travel along the perimeter road at Coachella both during the building periods and during the festival. This road is also used by pedestrians, a tram, vendor’s vehicles and a significant number of golf carts; therefore, safety is a prime concern.

Once all the stages are erected, the lifts play a major role in allowing lighting, sound and projection crews to access equipment overhead. At the two largest stages, articulating boom lifts allow technicians to access lights that are directly over the stage from a lift positioned in the front row.

The articulation of the boom is such that the technicians can reach the entire area above the stage without disturbing the stage set below. Inside the tents, Genie lifts provide the only access to the trussing from which lights and speakers are hung. The large all-terrain tires on each lift easily navigate the turf of the polo field.

The Genie lifts that are used at the Coachella Festival, quite simply, allow access where otherwise there would be none. An entire infrastructure is created for the Coachella Festival, but Genie Industries’ stick and articulating boom lifts are used in place of the normal access infrastructure that would be found in a concert venue. The flexible nature of each lift, and its ease of use, means that they have a permanent home in the middle of the desert.

Local university finds versatility in Snorkel jib machines

At a local university in St. Joseph, MO, one of Snorkel’s new jib booms helps bring the university’s MIAA Football team many victories. The TB47J is used at all the university’s home games and practices to film the team from a higher level. On a higher plane, the team is able to study their plays and improve on their techniques.

When this machine isn’t participating with the football team, the university has been able to use this machine in a variety of applications. For example, they use the Snorkel TB47J to maintain the lighting around the football field and in keeping up the football arena.

They also use the jib boom to preserve and repair their clock tower in the center of campus, as well as general maintenance and upkeep on all of the other campus buildings. The university maintenance staff likes Snorkel’s booms the best because of the ease of use and versatility the jib gives them. They are able to use the machine all over the campus and in hard-to-reach places.

Snorkel offers a wide range of products including jib booms that range from 42 to 126 feet, articulating booms from 41 to 60 feet, and straight booms from 42 through 120 feet. Other products in the line include trailer-mounted lifts.