Following a three-week build time, Arena handed over their installation project to the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), ready for today’s launch of the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show which takes place from 21 to 25 May.
The Society spent under a week transforming event areas with a variety of colourful blooms spread across the showground, based at the Royal Chelsea Hospital in south-west London.
Arena has collaborated with the gardening charity for more than a decade to deliver the well-renowned annual event. Every year, the Arena team are tasked with working in confined spaces around multiple contract workers, with stringent one-way traffic measures in place. Collectively these pose a number of challenges and risks to build and delivery timings.
Daniel Bluff, Account Director for Arena, said: “We are always faced with particularly challenging circumstances when it comes to logistics for the Flower Show so implementing a realistic plan we can deliver on is crucial.
“The combination of our long-standing relationship with the Society and good working relations with all the contractors on-site to be flexible with one another means we can get the job done successfully and with minimal disruption.
“We have achieved the perfect balance for the Flower Show and the team are intrigued to see exactly how the horticultural teams transform the structures we have installed, as every year delivers something new and even more elaborate than before.”
Arena has supplied tented areas and double-deck structures for the Rock Bank Restaurant and Garden Terrace for the five-day show.
The popular restaurant will serve breakfast, lunch and dinner to visitors, affording diners with impressive panoramic views over the showground, as a result of the strategic placement of the temporary structures.
The first show was held in 1913 with just one single tent, and fast-forward more than 100 years later and today the RHS works with a myriad of designers, exhibitors and sponsors, featuring cutting edge displays in keeping with what one would expect for the world’s most famous garden show.
The RHS is a UK charity established to share the best in gardening, enriching lives through plants to make the UK a greener and more beautiful place.
Highlights for this year include From Zimbabwe to Chelsea, which supports the education of women and girls in Africa, and the dramatic Per Oculus Apum (Through the Eyes of Bees) which is constructed using bee-friendly plants. Click here for this year’s lineup.
