The intriguing towers at the far end of the arena
A Saturday morning visit to the Castle of Good Hope, again with Mom in tow after a visit to the Gardens Centre for an early morning cuppa coffee, revealed that much work had been done since yesterday’s visit.
All three seating stands are now ready for the Cape Town Military Tattoo 2015, which is being hosted here next week, from Wednesday 11 November to Saturday 14 November 2015. It is the 10th Anniversary of the Cape Town Military Tattoo and it promises to be an incredible show.
If you have not yet booked your seats at Computicket, please do so QUICK-QUICK! It is going to be a fabulous show, and you don’t want to miss this!
Here is the link: http://online.computicket.com/web/event/cape_town_military_tattoo_2015
Ahhh, wow…. This is massive…
Stand A is at one of the short ends of the rectangular arena. Stand B, the largest of the lot, and Stand C, a bit smaller, run along the long end of the arena. Regardless of where you sit, though, the view promises to be terrific! Even the front row seats are elevated about a metre or so from ground level, like last time, which certainly improves lines of sight.
The new control box for the announcer and the sound and lighting crew at the back of Stand A has been assembled. In past years, this was always on the balcony in front of the officers messes of the Cape Town Rifles (Dukes) and the Cape Town Highlanders. Now, with the new configuration of seating stands, it makes much better logical sense to have the control box actually looking down on the arena from the side of the VIPs.
The most startling development was that the floor has now been installed, and workers were busy painting it with black paint. The use of such a raised wooden floor is a completely new development. For the first time in the history of the Tattoo, the entire arena is covered in a sturdy level floor, which is sure to make things easier for the marching bands and performers, as the ground underneath is rather uneven. Workers were also installing a couple of gently sloping ramps leading up from the sides.
I just can’t resist the colours – and that’s my favourite little forklift again…
On a couple of previous occasions, we did have a platform in front of the Kat balcony, for instance when we’ve had the lovely long-legged lasses of the Celtic Dance Tapestry or the Alexander School of Dance performing their Scottish and Irish hard and soft shoe dances, but it was only a fairly small platform. The new setup is bound to up the ante, and I for one am eagerly looking forward to seeing how well it works!
We ascended to the roof again, to marvel at the setup from a higher vantage point.
Looking at the intriguing new scaffolding at the far end of the arena, I could swear that it has risen even further into the sky! There are steps leading to platforms at various levels.
The lighting crew from 3 Electrical Workshop – clearly, none of them suffers from vertigo! – were busy mounting their special lights, under the watchful eyes of WO1 Shawn Boehme. Charl Smit from Gearhouse and Lt Col Johan Conradie of the Defence Reserves office at the Castle (he is the Chairperson of the Cape Town Military Tattoo’s Executive Committee again this year) were also keeping a close eye on proceedings.
And now, I hope you enjoy the photos:
Grains of Sand 
Really comes to life!
It does, hey, Bobz? It feels almost surreal that, just for that one week, the Castle was completely transformed… and now it’s all back to normal.