Ball valves control Stones' stage spectacular

Pneumatic system comprises 36 air cannons, which fire 30 metre ribbons of Trivera fabric from the top of the stage set, accompanied by explosive sounds.

The Rolling Stones' latest "A Bigger Bang" world tour has broken all sorts of records for duration and audience numbers, and features spectacular stage effects based on innovative use of pneumatics technology.

The Stones' latest tour started in Toronto in August 2005.

Since then, the group has performed in front of sell-out audiences on 116 occasions at 103 different venues around the world, spanning North and South America, the Asia-Pacific region and Europe.

The tour culminated in Vancouver on 25th November 2006.

Hailed by many as the world's greatest rock and roll band, the Stones are renowned for the quality and sheer dynamism of their performances - making each successive tour series a harder act to follow.

For the "Bigger Bang" tour, the Stones' stage set and production designer, Mark Fisher, was presented with something of a conundrum.

In addition to an "explosion" of sound, which would normally be created by pyrotechnics, it was decided that each concert should end with a spectacular display of movement.

Fisher and the constructor of the stage set - Brilliant Stages - chose to investigate whether pneumatics could provide the necessary performance, and sought the help of automation specialist Parker Hydraulics and Pneumatics to develop the system.

The results "speak" for themselves.

The pneumatic system comprises 36 air cannons, which fire 30 metre ribbons of Trivera fabric from the top of the stage set, accompanied by explosive sounds.

Each cannon consists of a small high pressure air reservoir that is pre-charged by a compressor; on command, the reservoir quickly discharges its entire contents to the barrel of the system, which is essentially a 15cm diameter, metre-long tube, packed with a Trivera ribbon.

The system works very much like the Cheetah bead seaters used by tyre fitters, which discharge a high volume of air very quickly, to help seat tyres on vehicle wheel rims prior to inflation to the correct pressure.

Parker Hydraulics and Pneumatics choose to use Festo components for all the pneumatic control functions.

The company is an approved Festo Premier Stockist, and knew that Festo's mechanically actuated ball valves offered an ideal means of controlling the output from the cannons' air reservoirs.

The ball valves have a high volume throughput capability, accommodate high air pressures, and feature an inherently safe, blow-out proof shaft that is assembled from the inside of the component.

Each ball valve is driven by a Festo quarter-turn pneumatic actuator, which provides very fast response times, controlled by a Namur series solenoid valve.

The solenoids are wired back to the stage set's main sound and effects management desk and triggered manually when required.

According to Tony Bowern, General Manager of Brilliant Stages: "The performance of our new air cannons has far exceeded expectations".

"The sound that they make is quite incredible, and the visual affect is superb".

"The system provides a dramatic audio-visual finale for each concert and has proved remarkably robust, having performed flawlessly on every occasion".

There is an unsubstantiated rumour that Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards is especially pleased with the performance of the pneumatic system.

Following the infamous "coconut tree incident" in Fiji back in May last year, it is believed that he is very keen to avoid stuff falling on his head.

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