(Winterguard) PVC Winterguard Backdrops

PVC Backdrop Panels

The director wanted to create an intimate space for this show and did it with 22  5 foot by 10 foot panels. There is enough space between to panels to move the kids in and out between them so the audience never knows where the kids would emerge. Kind of like a magic trick! The cool thing about this design is you can scale it up or down in size as needed! 

The design criteria for these props were:
1. The 5' X 10' panels had to fit through a single 36" wide standard door opening.
2. They had to pack into the cargo bay of a charter bus which is 36" X 48" X 84".
 So a rigid frame design was out. So I settled on a tension pole style frame.  I am not going to describe exactly how I built these because they are flawed. I will describe how I would build them if I had to do it again! 
In a nutshell the vertical parts of the frame and the kick stand are made of 1/2" SCH40 PVC and the top and bottom horizontal pipes are 1" SCH 40 PVC. The top and bottom 1" pipes are drilled so the 1/2" pipes slip into them. The 1/2" pipe is about 6" longer than the height of the panel which creates the bow in the pipe. This bow applies the tension to the panel and holds it taught. The panels are 6 oz vinyl which is the lightest vinyl our supplier of winterguard floors had.
The panels break down for transport like this. The 2 top tension poles pull out of the bottom tension pole assembly. The bottom pole assembly consists of the 2 tension poles and the kick stand held together with an assembly of three 1/2" PVC Tees. The panel assembly is simply the 5' X 10' panel with a 1" PVC pipe attached at the top and bottom of the panel with duct tape. None of the pipes are longer than 5'. We would roll the panel up around one of the 1" pipes and 2 of these panel assemblies with the tension poles would fit into a single flag bag. All 22 props would easily fit into the rear of a minivan and did not take up more than 1/4th of the baggage compartment of the charter bus.

Click on the picture to enlarge it or right click and select Save As to open the picture in your photo editing program. I can not believe that I did not get a close up shot of the assembly so this will have to do. 
The 3 legs in the center box are built as an assembly and the upper 2 poles insert into it. It is basically 3 PVC Tees with a threaded rod with a lock nut on each end running though it to hold the assembly together. The center Tee swivels for the kickstand. The poles are held in place with sheet metal screws. I used 1/2" long  #8 sheet metal screws with 1/4" hex heads. There is a screw at the top and bottom where the 1/2 pipe slips into the holes drilled into the 1" pipe and a screw in each 1/2" pipe where they attach to the bottom pipe assembly. I found screws to be necessary because the kids are rough on the props getting them into the gym in a hurry. They would step on them or catch them on a door frame and pull them apart before I started putting screws in them. 
The kick stand has a built in stop so the leg will only extend but so far. This keeps the angle of the tip back of the props the same. I did this by figuring out how far I wanted the kickstand leg to set back and marked the position at the pivot point with a sharpie. Then move the kickstand 1/2 way back to the panel and drilled a 3/16" hole through the center tee fitting all the way through the inner pipe. Then I took the assembly apart and drilled the inner pipe hole out to 3/8". Then put it back together and installed 3/16" pop rivet in the exterior hole. The buck tail of the rivet acts as the stop and will only travel as far as the interior hole is in size. You may need to experiment with the inner hole size to get the extension you need. 
I slipped a rubber table leg cap (that I bought a Home Depot) on the end of each kickstand pipe. This was necessary to keep the prop from slipping once placed in position on the floor
I added 1" swivel casters near the bottom of the tension poles. This made it easy for the person pulling the prop. All they had to do is push the kickstand leg in against the vinyl panel, drop the prop, hold on to the pipe at the top of the panel and pull the panel off the floor.

Here are the bottom poles with the fittings attached. I glued these but I recommend you just fasten them using 1/8" pop rivets. That way if they break you can drill out the rivet and take it apart. 
The assembly is 2 of these assemblies slipped on to a 3rd Tee. the ends of these fittings were drilled so a piece of threaded rod would pass all the way through them and a lock nut on each end held the group together. To get the center Tee to swivel I reamed the Tee with a 27/32" reamer I bought at Grizzly.com for about $20. This had to be done to get the fitting to swivel on the pipe. When you insert PVC pipe into a PVC fitting it is a compression fit and the pipe will not rotate so the choice was to ream the fitting or turn down the diameter of the pipe. Since the reamer was inexpensive I opted for the reamer.

 The vinyl panel is simply taped to the top and bottom poles with good quality duct tape. I never had a problem with the tape. The director wanted the panel to look like it extended from the floor. He did not want the panel to simply roll under the bottom pipe creating a shadow.  I did this the wrong way so I will not describe it but if I had to do this again I would simply trim a 4" piece of vinyl off of the panel and duct tape it to the back of the panel so it was even at the bottom. Then wrap this short flap of vinyl around the bottom pipe and duct tape it. This will leave the bottom of the panel free to to extend to the floor. It is important to note that the key to getting a smooth look once the panel is under tension is to carefully measure the distance between the upper and lower pipes and make sure they are parallel to each other.

It is key to cut all of the pieces the same length so set up a fixture with a stop! And drill the screw holes in the same locations on each pipe. You do not want to have to match all of these pieces up so I made them so it did not matter which pole or base I put with one another. Any combination would work! There ended up being a total of 750 feet of pipe used.

Do NOT under any circumstance try to use these outdoors! They are so light that the smallest breeze will blow them away! They only weigh about 4 pounds each!

In Retrospect:

There are a hundred different ways to make a back drop for a winterguard show and this is just one way. If you are limited in space to transport your props you may find this way useful but be ready to do repair work during and after each performance. We had to use other guards to pull these 22 props and some of the kids thought they were indestructible and quickly found out they would easily break. I kept a pocketful of 3" long wood 1/2" dowel rod in my pocket to patch broken pipes and fittings while they were being pulled on the floor. There was at least 1 broken at nearly every performance! 22 10' long props made a train of props that was 250 feet long and we had to get them set in 1 minute so it was always a BIG rush! And things happen when you are rushing..