Dance floor

An event dance floor is a system of interlocking panels laid over the existing floor, with a bevelled trim around the edge. It exists because a ballroom is carpeted and nobody dances on carpet.

Two things decide whether it works, and neither is the finish. The first is size. A floor is sized to the number of people expected to be dancing at once rather than to the guest count, and the number dancing at once is a fraction of the room that varies enormously with the event. Undersizing is the usual error, and the result is a crowded square with people standing around its edge.

The second is what is underneath. Panels need a flat surface; a floor that dips, a seam in the subfloor, a cable crossing underneath or a sloped function room all produce a floor that rocks or opens at the joints, and both are noticed immediately by somebody in heels. Levelling is work, and on an uneven floor it is work that has to be allowed for in the schedule.

The trim is the part people trip on. A bevelled edge all the way round is not decorative; it is the transition that makes the floor usable, and it matters most where the floor meets a route somebody will cross in the dark.

Outdoors the floor needs a subfloor beneath it, because grass is neither flat nor dry.

Corporate event production — owned inventory, our own crew, and a site survey before anything is specified.

• Stage deck The modular platform a stage is built from — four feet by eight in most of the country, with the height set by the legs rather than by the deck.
• Load-in Getting the show into the building — decided by the dock, the door, the lift and the route, none of which appear on a floor plan.