As we head towards Christmas and the pantomime season, most theatres are going to be very busy indeed. However, some stages will be very quiet – notably school hall stages and those in colleges and universities, since these are closed for the Christmas holidays. Now would indeed be a very good time to undertake any cleaning of school stage curtains and check over the stage curtain track or install new if required.

Undertaking the cleaning of stage curtains is no easy task, because of their sheer size. Cleaning is important not only to keep the look of the curtains but also to help keep the flame retardancy up to the right level. How you clean the stage drapes will depend on the type of fabric that has been used.

Both natural fibre fabrics and synthetics will attract dust, and this works to reduce the flame retardancy as dust is not flame retardant. However, synthetic fabrics attract more dust than natural fibres because they have a slight electromagnetic charge – static – and this attracts dust. By far the best method of cleaning synthetics is vacuuming. If you do this, you must be sure to vacuum both the font and the back of the curtains and ensure that you clean them from top to bottom.

Another method of removing dust from synthetics is simply to blow it off using compressed air from a compressed air pump. Effectively, you simply hose down the curtains, back and front, from top to bottom. How often you need to do this will vary according to the environment in which the curtains hang, but you should certainly do this once a year, if not every six months. If the curtains are very dirty, it may be necessary to vacuum them initially and then follow up with regular hosing down with compressed air. If you use compressed air you should certainly wear some form of eye protection because it will blow the dust around.

Another method is to sweep the curtains down using a broom. If you do this, the broom should only be used for the curtains and not for anything else.

For cleaning natural fibre curtains such as cotton, linen, silk, jute, and so on, the best method is dry cleaning. These materials have all been treated with a flame retardant which is water soluble, so washing the curtains will simply remove the flame-retardant solution that has been used and the curtains will no longer pass a fire safety test. However, it is unlikely that your local high street dry cleaner will have equipment big enough to handle curtains of this sort of size so you will need to use the services of a company that specialises.

Dry cleaning will tend to preserve the flame retardancy, but even so it will diminish with each cleaning cycle and the curtains may need re-treating after as little as three cleans, depending on the type of fabric. Another fabric may last for as long as a dozen dry cleans. The only way to be certain is to test the fabric for flame retardancy and, if necessary, re-treat the curtains with a flame-retardant spray.

Another thing which can affect flame retardancy is high humidity. This can wash away the flame resistance chemicals from parts of the curtain, so this is another reason to test for flame retardancy periodically.

Some materials, such as wool serge and polyester velvets are inherently flame retardant, so these curtains can be washed or dry cleaned as you wish.

Of course, if you are taking down school or college curtains for cleaning over the Christmas period, now is a good time to give the stage tracking a thorough examination and overhaul if necessary. Since working at height is dangerous, you should call in a company that specialises in cleaning and treating curtains and also installing tracking and machinery if you use an automated system for opening and closing the curtains. Such a company will have all the appropriate equipment for working safely and checking tracking and repairing it if need be. They will also be able to advise on, and supply, automated equipment if you want to change over from ropes, and also check over existing ropes and supply new if needed.