[SML] [EXTERNAL] floors again

[Dave Vick]

True Story: When the Giant Pulsating Wallets were specifying how the
Wharton Center should/would be built, back when dinosaurs ruled the
earth, people who actually, y'know, *work* onstage begged and cried
for a quasi-sacrificial, easily replaceable hardboard surface over
plywood substrate for the Great Hall stage, because they/we knew in
our bones, even in the early 1980s, that the stuff rolling off the
trucks and into the big door wasn't going to get any lighter. The
opposing camp had their hearts set on a hardwood stage, because "it
looks better with the symphony."

Oy...

We wound up with a sort-of-compromise, a surface of edge-grain western
yellow pine, stained to look like something un-pine-like - maybe
mahogany or teak if you squint enough - but easy enough to repair when
(not "if") it splintered - and repair we did, believe me - and no one
got all hot & bothered when we lagged into it. No one was truly happy
with it, which I suppose is about the best compromise you can hope
for...

Over the years, I've toured through a ton of places with hardwood
stages; the best example was taking a show into a concert hall in
Springfield MA with a solid cherry deck, I kid you not. Absolutely
beautiful to look at, and one of the worst load-ins I've ever endured
because at the time we were lagging eight torm towers and two BIG
sound towers into the deck, and you can bloody well forget about a
local presenter holding still while you drill thirty-two 5/16" holes
into a solid cherry stage floor, thank you very much.

Get the Plyron. The accountants and the Swells in the front office
might hate you, but everyone tasked with actually mounting a show or
maintaining the stage floor will love you.

-DV