Overhead Stage Header

Overhead Stage Header — made to your size in a choice of 3 fabrics, from 115gsm to 240gsm.

Stage work is lighting work. A banner behind a lit performance is competing with front wash, backlight and often a video wall, and the fabric choice decides whether the artwork survives that or disappears into it.

This product is offered across more than one fabric because the right answer depends on where the panel is going and how long it needs to last. The table below sets every option side by side on the specifications that actually decide the choice — weight, opacity, finish and weather behaviour — so you can compare them directly rather than opening a page for each one.

Best for

• Main stage backdrops
• Stage wings and side banners
• Overhead headers and truss banners
• Line-array and PA tower banners
• Festival and outdoor stage drops

Fabric options compared

Which fabric should you choose?

• 180gsm FR Elastic Stretch (B1) — Four-way stretch that pulls drum-tight into a frame and stays there.
• 240gsm FR Stretch (B1) — Four-way stretch that pulls drum-tight into a frame and stays there.
• 115gsm Knit — The all-rounder of the range — light enough to move, dense enough to hold a photographic print.

Key advantages

• One product, 3 fabric specifications — compare and choose without leaving the page
• Stretches in all four directions, so it tensions evenly rather than pulling to one axis
• Wrinkle-free face once fitted — creases from shipping pull out under tension
• Fits, removes and refits repeatedly without permanent distortion
• Conforms to curved and shaped frames that a rigid cloth simply cannot follow

Choosing the right specification

Opacity is the specification that decides a stage fabric. Anything semi-sheer will glow the moment a backlight hits it and reveal the truss behind, so choose a blockout or a heavy soft knit for anything lit from the rear. It is also worth confirming your venue's material and rigging rules early, since those are far easier to design around at the artwork stage than on the day.

How ordering works

• Send your artwork — Upload print-ready artwork at any stage — we check scale, resolution and bleed before anything goes to press and come back to you if something needs adjusting.
• Made to your size — Every panel is cut and finished to your dimensions. Tell us the finished size you need and how it is being fixed, and we will allow for hems and fixings correctly.
• Printed by dye-sublimation — Colour is transferred into the polyester fibre under heat, so the image becomes part of the cloth rather than a layer sitting on top of it.
• Finished and shipped — Hems, eyelets, pole pockets, silicone edge and other finishing are applied before your order is folded, boxed and dispatched worldwide.

Related specifications

Closely related products in this range include Featherweight Stage Silhouette (115gsm Knit), Indoor Main Stage Backdrop, Stage Wing / Side Banner, and 2 more. They share this fabric and finish, so the choice comes down to format and size.

Technical detail

Fitting a tensioned panel. A silicone-edge or pillowcase graphic is cut marginally smaller than the frame opening so that fitting it puts the cloth under even tension — that is what pulls shipping creases out and holds the face flat. There is no single industry-standard bead size or undersize allowance: both are set by the extrusion profile of your particular frame. Tell us the frame make and model and we will cut and bead to match it.

What to expect from service life. Indoors and out of direct sun, printed polyester holds its appearance for five years or more. Outdoors, published ranges for dye-sublimated polyester run from roughly six to twenty-four months depending on how exposed the position is, with the shorter end applying in high-ultraviolet regions such as the Southwest, Florida and the Gulf Coast, and in coastal or high-wind locations. Sheltered and north-facing installations reach the longer end. Coated and tarpaulin-grade constructions extend beyond that band because the coating carries the UV load.

Best suited to

Tensioned display — SEG walls, pop-up and curved frames, fitted table covers and shaped booth panels that fit, strip and refit across a season.

Also in this range

For free-hanging backdrops and drapes, our soft knit and blockout ranges hang beautifully without a frame.

Not sure which fabric is right? Order a free swatch pack and see the weight, texture and finish in your own hands before you commit to a full run.