Fete Kit List

[Tom Lovick]

Hi Guys-

 

I've got a church fete in June and just wondering what sort of accessory kit I need to take.

 

I've already read this thread - http://www.blue-room.org.uk/index.php?showtopic=40426&st=0 (found it V. useful and stole some of the things below from it :) )

 

So far I have on the list:

· Batteries

 

· LX Tape

 

· Tarpaulins

 

· Gaffer Tape

 

· Stocked Toolkit

 

o Inc. Rubber mallet

 

· Torch

 

· Spare IECs

 

· Barrier Tape

 

· Hazard Tape

 

· First aidkit

 

· 13Aextensions

 

· Rigginggloves

 

· Quad spanner

 

· Cable ties

 

· PLICertificate

 

· Bin Bags

 

· WalkieTalkies/Radios

 

· Gazebo

 

· Hi-VizJackets for crew

 

· A fewtraffic bollards

 

 

 

Any thing else anyone can think of that I need to remember?

 

 

 

Thanks,

 

 

 

Tom

[ddproduction]

Suitably-rated cabling for tea urns?

[Tom Lovick]

Suitably-rated cabling for tea urns?

 

I'm providing stuff like that!

 

I'm only doing the PA system for the fete with music & microphones etc.

[Oldradiohand]

Several copies of the RA. Supplies of food and drinking water for rig and derig - the burger van will be gone long before you are and even in June dehydration can be a problem. Sunblock (you never know....) Something to keep your tarpaulin wrapped 13A connectors off the waterlogged ground (or some IP6/7 connectors) Moist toilet wipes/loo roll/hand sanitiser/babywipes (if it's portaloos) Umbrella. A handful of cheap disposable waterproof plastic ponchos for the crew. Camera - take reference pictures of the rig in case you get the gig again. 40mA 40mS RCD - unless you trust the venue power supply to have a properly working one. Putting two in series won't do any harm. Sharp edged spade - cutting into the turf to tuck cables underground may be necessary in places.

[kerry davies]

Nothing much to add to last years thread and anyone posting should have a quick look through as it covered oodles of things that might get repeated here.

 

If anyone is doing community events then please feel free to email me and I will forward them an old guide which I wrote for volunteer-run events. It is a few years old but can be updated easier than re-inventing the wheel.

[lightsource]

Interestingly the OP has never said what he is actually contracted to provide at the fete.

 

Last fete I did, included £120 of fuel, a 7K sound system and a 20k lighting rig ;)

 

Sort out the personal basics first........

 

Toilet paper

Painkillers / Headache tablets

Food / Drink

A hat

Tools / equipment that others have listed above.

 

But not several copies of a RA. That should have been sorted well in advance. Paper trail Monkeys are not required for most fets's :P

[brainwave-generator]

Interestingly the OP has never said what he is actually contracted to provide at the fete.

 

Last fete I did, included £120 of fuel, a 7K sound system and a 20k lighting rig ;)

 

Sort out the personal basics first........

 

Toilet paper and immodium because dodgy burgers are not constructive for a quick and comfortable load out.

Painkillers / Headache tablets

Food / Drink

A hat

Tools / equipment that others have listed above.

 

But not several copies of a RA. That should have been sorted well in advance. Paper trail Monkeys are not required for most fets's :P

 

Edited that for you.

 

Yes I know you could just not eat the meat from the burger van. But I think we all know that if it's a slightly miserable morning for the in, the smell of a hot, juicy bacon double cheeseburger and chips wafting onto the stage can be just too much for any amount of hygiene-based common sense to overturn.

[david.elsbury]

Really, B-G? In my part of the world, food caravans et al have to go through rigorous health inspections and checks, exactly the same as what food outlets in buildings do. Is it really that common in the UK to have dodgy food and get sick really easily from a burger van? I'd have thought that there would still be rules and regs to prevent this kind of crap (ha! sorry... ;)) from happening.

 

David

[brainwave-generator]

Really, B-G? In my part of the world, food caravans et al have to go through rigorous health inspections and checks, exactly the same as what food outlets in buildings do. Is it really that common in the UK to have dodgy food and get sick really easily from a burger van? I'd have thought that there would still be rules and regs to prevent this kind of crap (ha! sorry... ;)) from happening.

 

David

 

No chance. The food safety certificates here are very easy to acquire with a basic knowledge of not-being-a-complete-idiot and ticking the right boxes. Food safety from burger vans, especially on multi-day events, can be very poor.

 

Glastonbury, with it's combination of lots of beer and dodgy burger vans, is an orgy of food poisoning and the mighty D&V. The public portaloos quickly become utterly uninhabitable boxes of filth that only somebody with terminal sensory deprivation to their nose could get within half a mile of, and whilst the 'long drops' tend to be better due to their greater ventilation, the whiff of a few thousand peoples' bodily outputs mixing and fermenting in a metal tank is not a whole lot better. With time (I would consider myself a fairly seasoned Glastonbury-goer, doing 2003 til 2007 as a punter, and 2008-current working), you do begin to learn how to choose your food van... typically the ones which appear to be privately owned with their own identity have a reputation to protect and will do a good job. The generic "Burger and Chips" wagons painted in cream with green writing - those are the ones to avoid. Anyone with the aforementioned food safety certificate can rent one for a few hundred quid a week, buy 10,000 of the nastiest, verging-on-sell-by-date, rat-meat burgers and a ton of cheap french fries, and cook the lot over and over again in the same oil for 7 days running, and if they give everyone the runs, aren't all that bothered. Every year a couple of wagons get a visit from nasty men with ID cards who subsequently shut them down, confiscate the keys and invite them to come back on Tuesday to pick the van up; but by and large most go un-noticed. Personally, I use the Welsh Oggie van next to the Other Stage for every meal, it's big, tasty, and properly cooked by a lovely welsh bloke who'll always give you the pick of the bunch if you're nice to him; or the diving club's marquee which is just off muddy lane, at the back of the Pyramid field (ONLY place it's safe to get steaks from). Apart from that, I generally play it safe with Jacket Potatoes... if you manage to get those wrong and poison somebody, you really are a special one. Fried chicken vans should be avoided to the max, as should all generic burger and hot dog vans, and if you go down the baguette route, avoid the steak and onion ones. You'll be seeing all of these again, either doing a fantastic Niagara-falls impression from your mouth to the nearest point of semi-privacy. (Complete privacy does not exist at all), or making you feel like Apollo 13 discharging it's rocket fuel onto the launch pad at high velocity; whilst all manner of intoxicated punters open the door on you sat with block and tackle on full display, since the only cubicle without a wee-soaked seat was missing it's locking mechanism - although, in time, you learn to adopt to 'Glastonbury Squat', a highly skilled sitting position that involves leaning on the back of the cubicle to avoid seat-contact, whilst getting your feet under the door to notify outsiders of your presence, and, if you've really mastered it, you can even push your toes onto the outside of the door, meaning it can't be opened even if said outsiders manage to miss your toe-cap indicator of presence in the box of shame. And only then comes the greater problem - that in your drunken state, the devil within told you "don't bother grabbing a bog roll off the salvation army, there'll be one in the toilet cubicle", leaving you to loosely refit your boxers, and penguin waddle to the nearest bog-roll-collection-point, where you can then take one back to the box of doom, where you will no doubt have to queue, to re-enter and finish the deed properly. This experience alone is enough to see why meat is preferably avoided at festivals, but failing that, at least selected using a process as stringent as government defence procurement which t-shirt to wear today.

There is a huge red and yellow big top actually up off to the right hand side of the Pyramid field, as you walk across towards the John Peel. As a repeat visitor of Glastonbury and not easily forgettable at that, they also tend to put some effort into keeping the food good, but they do unfortunately charge the earth for it. But if you've got tanked watching a Pyramid stage band all night and just want something hot to settle your belly before bed, it can be a lifesaver to save you walking to the Sub-Aqua on the other side of the field, a field which at this point will still be covered in disorientated punters working out which direction their tent is in.

 

Reading and Leeds Festivals are a similar situation, apart from the fact that all of the food vans are purely commercial and have it in for the punters (since, traditionally, on Sunday night, the punters will run around and attempt to set fire to all the food vans). So at these it is highly recommendable to stick to the jackets or the wedges. If you really get a burger craving, get out into town and find something there. The second problem at these festivals is that, largely due to the influx of teenagers who are seemingly thus-far not toilet trained, all of the ablutions appear as if they have been the subject of suicide bomb attacks. And you have to queue for the privilege. The result of which is that people instead prefer to use their beer cup, and then hurl it across the audience. In 4 years of security work at Reading, I have seen all 3 bodily fluids hurled in beer cups, mainly at us, although they usually fall short and take out the 13 year olds pressed against the barrier... (although it was admittedly why after just two shifts at the barrier I went back to working the search lanes on the gates, confiscating the £30 bottle of vodka that little miss lippy has saved up for a whole month to buy is far more satisfactory than getting beer cups of urine thrown at you whilst you stand behind the thin blue line of nutjob glaswegians handing out cups of water to children with more piercings than teeth).

 

V Festival is much the same as Reading and Leeds except without quite as much vengeance from the traders since the tradition of attempting to burn their vans on Sunday night hasn't reached Chelmsford yet. Download and Sonisphere again don't suffer from the trouble so much, and are also slightly cleaner, probably due to the fact that the long haired metal enthusiasts who attend these events have a religious belief that washing at festivals is prohibited, and the emos just sit in their tents all weekend slitting their wrists and avoiding all contact with civilisation anyway.

 

The dance festivals seem to attract greater examples of bodily reactions gone wrong, probably due to the fact that everyone is high as a kite and have absolutely no control over what their body is doing. At Glade I have had people pass me a half eaten burger, telling me they're trying to ring their girlfriend with it but the battery has run out and they want to borrow mine, and who won't go away until you tell the burger that they love them and miss them very much and will be home about midday on Monday. I have also run around a field trying to clear it of people whilst a water tanker slid sideways down the hill towards the campsite, and had several people insist that 'the force' will prevent said tanker from flattening them and their tent, and if I couldn't feel the force it was me in the wrong. I can say hand on heart that if anything should be avoided more than the minefields in the falklands, it is the thunderboxes at Glade. Particularly in 2007/8 (don't remember which) when it absolutely hoofed it down and the river burst, and the entire site turned into a fast-flowing stream of diluted bodily ejections.

 

The folky festivals, I really thought I'd finally see hints of civilisation and not just a field which represented a tsunami refugee camp, which is basically what most rock festival campsites look like. I was wrong. Just because these people wear ponchos and listen to singer songwriters reel off melodic poetry about long lost boyfriends, it doesn't mean they are any less capable of making the place look like a landfill site. They are equally able to get off their nuts on white powder, eat bad food, and magically reproduce it in another location.

 

So there you have it. BGs guide to festival food. Take immodium - that's a must. But beyond that, look out for the independent food vans which look like they have a reputation at steak (geddit?) rather than the generic "burger and chips" or whatever food vans. These lot tend to charge more, give you less food... and, well, give you more than you bargained for in the other sense.

[Gareth A]

Really, B-G? In my part of the world, food caravans et al have to go through rigorous health inspections and checks, exactly the same as what food outlets in buildings do. Is it really that common in the UK to have dodgy food and get sick really easily from a burger van? I'd have thought that there would still be rules and regs to prevent this kind of crap (ha! sorry... ;)) from happening.

 

David

 

 

Blimey - if only all the world were as perfect as your part of the world.

 

 

Sadly David, but in the UK we are yet to be perfect. We are in many other ways though. Im sure most people have at one point in their life got the shi*s from some dodgy burger van.

 

 

Actually - theres an idea. Someone should make a Tom Tom map set, for approved burger vans and chalet food for the touring type. !!!

 

Would certainly cut down on some sick days. !

[Tom Lovick]

Wow!

 

I'm not providing a PA system for a large event!! Only a church fete!!

 

No dodgy burger vans, all the food is provided by the church :P

 

Its the stuff like this that I am looking for:

Several copies of the RA. Supplies of food and drinking water for rig and derig - the burger van will be gone long before you are and even in June dehydration can be a problem. Sunblock (you never know....) Something to keep your tarpaulin wrapped 13A connectors off the waterlogged ground (or some IP6/7 connectors) Moist toilet wipes/loo roll/hand sanitiser/babywipes (if it's portaloos) Umbrella. A handful of cheap disposable waterproof plastic ponchos for the crew. Camera - take reference pictures of the rig in case you get the gig again. 40mA 40mS RCD - unless you trust the venue power supply to have a properly working one. Putting two in series won't do any harm. Sharp edged spade - cutting into the turf to tuck cables underground may be necessary in places. <br class="Apple-interchange-newline">

[paulears]

Tom - you've got the flavour. The trouble is, it so depends on the type of fete, what you are tasked with and all the other factors. A fete means different things to everyone. A few stalls and two speakers on sticks for the PA, to those with small stages and big sound systems, to those with very special requirements? You didn't provide much in the way of facts, so people are guessing. Do you have electricity being distributed outside, or not? makes a difference. The advice you got was to have things available to keep the kit dry, provide reasonable safety to electrics of modest capacity. If toilets are indoors - forget that bit. What do you need to know?

[Tom Lovick]

Tom - you've got the flavour. The trouble is, it so depends on the type of fete, what you are tasked with and all the other factors. A fete means different things to everyone. A few stalls and two speakers on sticks for the PA, to those with small stages and big sound systems, to those with very special requirements? You didn't provide much in the way of facts, so people are guessing. Do you have electricity being distributed outside, or not? makes a difference. The advice you got was to have things available to keep the kit dry, provide reasonable safety to electrics of modest capacity. If toilets are indoors - forget that bit. What do you need to know?

 

Thanks Paul.

 

I think I've got most of the info I needed now :)

 

It is a small church fete - 1 main 'performance' area, but no actual stage. I'm using 6 speakers, (2 x Behringer B215As & 4xHill Powercubes) spread around the site.

 

But thanks to all of the info people have posted so far I have everything I need to know now I think :)

 

Thanks,

 

Tom

[revbobuk]

I've got several to do this summer, and I'd just add - if you are have speakers 'spread around the site' then you'll need rubber matting or other stuff to cover speaker runs. One careless trip and a speaker tripod topples, with a child underneath. So trip hazard prevention is always a big issue for me.

 

Oh - and if you fill in your profile a bit more, it may be that there is a BR member nearby who could help out...

[Tom Lovick]

I've got several to do this summer, and I'd just add - if you are have speakers 'spread around the site' then you'll need rubber matting or other stuff to cover speaker runs. One careless trip and a speaker tripod topples, with a child underneath. So trip hazard prevention is always a big issue for me.

 

Oh - and if you fill in your profile a bit more, it may be that there is a BR member nearby who could help out...

 

Thanks - I've got the rubber cable cover - 'trip slip'

 

http://www.slingsby.com/images/Category/large/PGRP_437597.jpgThis kind of stuff