Although Gallowglass has built its reputation as a provider of event crews for conferences, exhibitions, sporting and public events, for the last six years we’ve also been working in the TV industry, supporting studio services provider dock10, at MediaCityUK’s The Studios.
As the largest outsourced UK event crew provider, Gallowglass has also been supplying technical crews for the production, theatre and entertainment industries for over 20 years. When we learned that the BBC would be moving from London to Manchester, we set up our own offices in Salford in 2009.
In the early days, Gallowglass crews worked on one-off productions but over time we proved our value to The Studios as the can-do attitude and efficiency of our crews made a noticeable difference in speeding-up production turnaround times. We trained and built-up a flexible labour force that could offer the kind of skillsets needed to support the entire range of production requirements. This could mean anything from painting palm trees to assembling and dismantling sets. Nowadays, we routinely provide large numbers of qualified staff on demand – to do whatever is needed to help shorten the turnaround times between productions at dock10’s busy studios.
The UK’s largest independent supplier of studio services, dock10 provides production facilities for the BBC, ITV, Sky and Channel 4, as well as Europe’s most technically-advanced HD production facility. The Studios boast three large sound stages and The Pie Factory provides the in-house location for a wide range of productions – from commercials to feature films.
Among the regular shows that Gallowglass crews work on are Match of the Day, The Jeremy Kyle Show, Blue Peter and Dragon’s Den.
Jon Scales, Gallowglass’ Regional Manager, North, manages the provision of manpower on a day-to-day basis and dock10’s studio support managers call upon him to source scenic artists, carpenters, electricians, stage hands and gaffers. These may often be needed at short notice, because workforce requirements vary significantly from one week to the next, and the labour resource for any given production may need to be rapidly-mobilised, so having ready access to a nationwide crew resource makes Jon very popular!
Since 2015, Gallowglass and dock10 have partnered in running a technical skills-based apprenticeship scheme, offering dedicated training at The Studios for students living in and around Manchester. We are now supporting our fourth apprentice and the scheme has been highly successful.
We believe this collaboration provides a unique offering – and are proud of the way in which our working relationship with dock10 has evolved to the point where we have become a long-term in-house resource at MediaCityUK.
