Royal Caribbean Awards Handling Specialty its Largest Fixed Price Contract in 58-Year History
To have recently landed a project that can be identified as a company’s largest fixed price contract in its long history is reason enough to celebrate, but when it’s with a corporation that is intimately familiar with your work and company values, that validates an organization’s processes from sales and engineering to manufacturing, installation and service.
Handling Specialty made history in 1995 when it was contracted to produce the underwater stage lift system for Cirque du Soleil at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. The ‘O’ show continues to perform two shows per night after 24 years on the original Handling Specialty lift systems. It is an extraordinary engineering feat from a world-class SME located in the heart of Niagara, in Grimsby, Ontario.
Since that monumental moment for the company, several underwater stage lift systems have been designed, built and installed in multiple theatres, including the City of Dreams theatre, which runs The House of Dancing Water show in Macau. This epic undertaking gained Handling Specialty a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Handling Specialty is the world leader in underwater theatrical spectacles and is installing systems all over the world. They are also flown to remote vacation locations to provide highly skilled technicians to repair or maintain these multi-million-dollar systems efficiently to ensure that the show(s) go on.
This latest win for the company is the accumulation of an almost 20-year relationship designing and building for Royal Caribbean International. “This project began 2.5 years ago with technical sales and conceptual engineering leading the charge to win this prestigious venture,” says Tom Beach, President of Handling Specialty and the lead sales associate on this project. “We cherish our relationship with Royal Caribbean, and with a revenue stream via new builds, service, and dry dock overhauls that will last over 10-plus-years, we understand what it takes to keep our customers happy.”
Handling Specialty’s turnkey solutions for Royal Caribbean includes conceptual engineering and contract settlements to full design, including all electrical and hydraulic networks, custom stage flooring, installation, training, commissioning and ongoing MRO.
“Experience goes a long way in winning a project as large as this,” Beach goes on to say. “Deploying professionals and skilled technicians to Finland over the next six years to install our equipment will be a challenge, but we’ve completed similar scenarios many times before.”
In March of 2021, Handling Specialty sent a team of technicians to Barbados, where they quarantined on the Allure of the Seas for 14 days, one of the Oasis class of ships, and then performed planned maintenance on the ship’s underwater stage lift equipment. This same group of people went on to Spain, where they completed similar work on Harmony of the Seas. Freighting the parts and flying people to these locations during a pandemic and successfully completing the work ahead of schedule is another nod to Handling Specialty’s abilities to organize massive projects and perform the work without interruption. It also speaks to the quality of the people working at Handling Specialty and the lengths they will go to to see a job through.
“Having worked together for almost 20 years on our Oasis-class ships, I’m thrilled to be partnering with Handling Specialty again.” – Christopher Vlassopulos, Superintendent SLVR & Architectural Lighting for Royal Caribbean International & Celebrity Cruises, says.
The financial impact on the Niagara-based company is a welcome one. Entertainment industry builds have been scarce through the pandemic, and to come out the other end with a project of this size is a boost to company morale and another nod to Handling Specialty’s impressive track record designing and building stage lift systems for the entertainment industry.
Beach says of the future, “I feel certain that Handling Specialty will continue our relationship with Royal Caribbean International and international shipyards for decades.”
