Scenic flat

A flat is a framed panel, skinned and finished, standing as a wall or part of a set. Where drape reads as fabric, a flat reads as architecture: it takes paint, laminate, applied logos, routed shapes and trim, and it holds a sharp corner that cloth cannot.

The reason to use one is light. Hard scenic takes shadow and texture, so a surface can be modelled with grazing light and look like a built environment rather than a coloured backing. It is also the only option when something has to support weight — a doorway a presenter walks through, a shelf, a mounted screen.

What it costs is time and space at every stage. Flats are built before the show, travel as rigid panels that do not fold, need floor area to assemble, and are braced and weighted from behind so there is a depth behind the set that is not usable for anything else. A set wall is not a drape line; it is a construction with a back.

The decision is usually made on how long the set is seen and how close. For a one-hour general session seen from forty feet, drape and light will do it. For a multi-day conference with a set in every photograph and people walking past it at arm’s length, the finish is what the room remembers.

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

• Backdrop The surface behind the stage — fabric, printed, hard scenic or an LED wall — and the decision that sets what the lighting and the cameras can do.
• Masking The drape that defines what the audience cannot see — legs at the sides, a border across the top, and the difference between a finished stage and a visible crew.
• Soft goods The collective name for every piece of fabric in a production — drapes, legs, borders, skirts, cycs and backdrops — and a category that lives or dies on its paperwork.