Come Alive - a circus spectacular in the round
The whole-group package - scenery, drapes, automation, 7-axis performer flying and rigging - engineered and supplied by TSA as a single show, and kept show-ready on tour, with three custom builds at its heart.
Come Alive plays in the round, with performer flying, custom scenic builds, chain hoists and a full scenic build all moving together, to a cue, every performance. Select a point to see the system TSA engineered and supplied.
Come Alive - a circus spectacular in the round
An in-the-round circus arena show where the scenery, drapes, automation, performer flying and rigging all have to work as one, with custom-built staging carrying performers and musicians in the round - and pack down to tour.
Engineered, supplied and maintained the whole-group package on tour - hippodrome scenery, 14 roof swags, 7-axis Hercules and RAYNOK performer flying, a 30-hoist EXE-Rise package, plus a self-climbing balloon platform, a 238 sqm show deck with four 15 kN circus anchor points and the Showman wagon - with a TSA transfer team on every city move.
One team across every discipline, packed down and re-rigged city to city, and handed over show-ready for each new season.
An in-the-round circus spectacular is one of the hardest briefs in live performance. There is no back wall to hide the rig, no wings to mask a scene change, and an audience on every side. The scenery, drapes, automation, performer flying and rigging all have to read as one continuous world, while every load-bearing move happens over the heads of the crowd.
Come Alive raised the bar again with three custom builds at its heart: a self-climbing balloon band platform, a 238 sqm show deck with four 15 kN circus anchor points, and the Showman wagon. Each had to carry performers or musicians, and pack down to travel from venue to venue.
TSA was engaged to deliver a broad package of works across the production, including scenic engineering, drapery systems, automation, performer flying and rigging. The challenge was not the individual systems, but helping ensure they worked together as a cohesive touring solution that could be packed, transported and reassembled season after season.
The success of an in-the-round spectacular relies on multiple technical disciplines working together. TSA contributed across scenic engineering, drapery systems, automation, performer flying and rigging, helping transform complex creative concepts into practical touring infrastructure.
Three custom builds led the scenic work. The band platform is dressed as a hot-air balloon basket, assembled at floor level and raised to height on its own self-climbing truss. The 238 sqm keyhole show deck levels from the top surface on concrete, bitumen or grass, and has four 15 kN circus anchor points engineered into it. The Showman wagon is a working, steel-framed hero piece finished in deep red and gold.
At the heart of Come Alive is a full circus arena rig suspended above a stage surrounded by audience on every side. The system supports aerial performance, performer flying and custom scenic elements, all controlled through an integrated automation platform that delivers precise, repeatable movement on cue.
Every lifting point, movement path and load-bearing element was engineered for safety, reliability and consistent performance throughout the tour.
The whole package was engineered to pack down and travel. TSA supplies a dedicated transfer team - two automation riggers/technicians and a Performer Flying Director - who work each city move alongside the production's own riggers and crew, and service every TSA system so it arrives show-ready for the next season. When the whole stack is ours, one team stays accountable for the whole package, city to city.
The design called for a tent roof dressed in colour: 14 swags, seven purple and seven burgundy, alternating in a fan from the centre of the roof to its edge. TSA made all 14 in its soft goods workshop.
Each swag is a tapered panel 13.13 metres long, 2.8 metres across at the narrow end and 7.3 metres at the wide end: about 66 square metres of cloth. The cloth is flame-retardant Mechano, made flat with no fullness, with a little belly allowed in the cut so each panel hangs with a soft curve.
It was a short-turnaround job, and it left the workshop wrapped, labelled and ready to hang.
Each swag starts as full widths of cloth sewn into one panel, then cut to its taper. Mechano is a synthetic cloth, so the cut was made with a hot knife against a straight edge. The blade seals the edge as it cuts, which stops the cloth fraying.
The narrow end of each swag takes TSA's Option D header: Velcro connections with D-rings, sewn onto black webbing. The wide end is finished with webbing, eyelets and a tie at every eyelet. Fixings at both ends are set out at 300 mm centres.
Part-way through the build, a swag went up on truss in the workshop. The test hang showed the scale of a 13 metre panel in the air and let the workshop check the hanging method before the rest were finished.
All 14 swags were wrapped and labelled with colour, size and number in the set, 1 of 14 through to 14 of 14, then packed for dispatch two days ahead of the delivery date.
Come Alive runs as one show because it was engineered as one. The hippodrome scenery is TSA's. The roof swags are TSA's. The automation, the performer flying and the rigging are TSA's, and a TSA transfer team - two automation riggers/technicians and a Performer Flying Director - works every city move alongside the production's own crew. Across those disciplines nothing was stitched together from separate suppliers - one team drew it, built it, flew it and keeps every system show-ready, season after season.
That is what whole-group delivery buys a production: a single team accountable for every discipline, from the hippodrome scenery to the aerialist in the roof of the tent. It is the clearest proof we have that TSA can deliver every stage discipline as one package, not a single system.
Circus and arena, touring productions, theatres, themed entertainment. When the scenery, drapes, automation, flying and rigging all have to work as one show and travel, one accountable team makes the difference. Talk to us.