Piano storage for film and television productions

A piano used in a film or television production can be almost anything. A Victorian parlour upright dressed for a period drama. A modern concert grand brought in for a music performance scene. An old bar-room instrument that needs to stay in consistent condition across several weeks of filming at different locations. What these pianos have in common is that they cannot be left on set between shooting days, and they cannot go into a general props store alongside sofas and lampshades. The conditions in a standard warehouse are not built to look after an instrument.

What happens between filming days

A piano on an active production is exposed to studio lighting, stage smoke, temperature fluctuations from location moves, and the general dust of a working environment. The instrument may be a valuable antique, a hired concert grand, or a carefully dressed period piece with its own continuity requirements. Between shooting days, or between filming blocks that are weeks apart, it needs to go somewhere where the air is controlled and the condition is preserved.

For most productions, the practical options are returning the piano to the hire company, leaving it in a rehearsal room or studio, or placing it in specialist storage. Specialist storage is the option that documents condition on intake, holds the instrument under controlled temperature and humidity, and can collect and re-deliver to any location on the production schedule.

Why a general props warehouse does not work for a piano

Props warehouses are large, usually unheated or variably heated spaces, shared with everything from furniture to fabric and costume. They are not built to hold temperature and humidity steady through an English autumn or winter. A piano that stays in one through a cold, damp spell will move with the conditions: the soundboard shrinks and can crack in dry cold, the action stiffens, and the tuning drifts. A polished finish takes dust and marks from proximity to other props.

The instrument that comes out of an uncontrolled store may not be in the condition it went in, which matters when it is a valuable instrument on loan or when its condition was logged at the start of a hire period. Climate-controlled storage removes that risk. Temperature and humidity are held at a steady level throughout the year, the polished finish stays under a fitted transit cover from collection, and every instrument is kept off the ground, properly spaced, and logged against its intake record.

Collection and re-delivery on a production schedule

Productions do not work on fixed weekly cycles. A piano may need to come in at the end of one filming block and return to a studio five weeks later, or move between locations at short notice. We collect and re-deliver across GB mainland and Belfast. Every postcode area has one set collection day each week, and re-delivery is booked when the production is ready, to whatever address is on the schedule.

Specialist piano crews handle collection and re-delivery. They know how to take an instrument through a building without marking doorframes or damaging the piano, and they use purpose-built equipment for uprights, baby grands and concert grands alike. For a grand piano, the legs and pedal lyre are removed by hand, each piece individually bagged and stowed in a heavy-duty crate that travels and stores alongside the body. Everything goes back together on re-delivery in exactly the order it came apart.

• Collection and re-delivery to production locations, studios and venues across GB mainland and Belfast
• Specialist piano crews experienced with location work and tight access
• Fitted transit covers protecting every instrument from collection through storage
• Grand piano legs and pedal lyre individually bagged and crated
• Condition logged on intake so the instrument's state is documented before storage begins

Insurance and condition documentation

Every piano in our care is fully insured from the moment of collection through its entire time in storage to re-delivery. For a production working with a hired or borrowed instrument, that insurance is continuous rather than needing a separate transit add-on to be arranged between stages. The instrument is logged with its condition at intake, so if anything is queried at return, there is a clear record of what was noted before the storage period began.

We are part of the Pianospeed Group, which has handled instruments for private owners, musicians, schools and institutions across the UK. The same specialist care taken with a private owner's baby grand applies to an instrument that will go back to a hire company or a production at the end of the run.

Production types we work with

We store pianos for drama and film productions shooting at UK locations, for music-based television programmes where a specific instrument is needed between recording sessions, for commercials and short-form productions where the piano is a featured prop, and for theatre productions storing instruments between runs. Where a piano is moving from one production directly to the next, specialist storage is the cleanest way to keep the instrument in good condition and its paperwork in order between engagements.

• Drama and film productions shooting across GB mainland locations
• Television series and music programming with pianos as featured props or set dressing
• Commercials, short films and promotional productions
• Theatre companies storing instruments between touring dates or production runs
• Piano hire companies needing a trusted specialist storage partner for instruments between hires