Delia's Guide To The Worlds Worst Gig

[Rob]

I feel I need to share this if just to make me feel better! I'm sure some smart ass amongst our midst can better it, but hey. Some names have been changed / omitted to protect those who should keep their distance from me for the next ten life-times. Some haven't as I think their incompetence and laziness should be made public.

 

Ingredients:

 

1 x Dose of typical British Summer weather

2 x Car

1 x Public School

3 x Brilliant Crew

1 x inexperienced 18 year old student production manager

4 x Unhelpful caretaker (Must be hairy)

1 x Useless decking company (*cough* SteelDeck *Cough*)

1 x Lighting / Production company

2 x Extra brilliant crew

1 x Themed event production company

Copious quantities of alcohol - Both for spilling over gear and for creating:

150 x Mostly drunk school kids and teachers

1 x Headmaster

1 x "Dave" - See Appendix A for further details

 

Recipe

 

Step 1: Arrange to meet crew at tube station. Bloody wet weather in June (summer last time I checked?!) makes everyone late.

 

Step 2: Proceed to crash car containing said crew into Saab 900. Cause major damage to front-end, rendering car un-driveable, and cause minor paintwork damage to Saab's rear bumper. Life's just not fair.

 

Step 3: Having pondered what to do with car and crew about 10 miles from venue, phone crew already on site to give them the good news that they might have to do the whole job alone.

 

Step 4: Await rescue from supplier "Dave", who having dropped off equipment at venue, offers to come and tow car and crew back to site.

 

Step 5: Worship Dave for his kindness and help. Call RAC to collect car. Learn that there are other poor sods who have had similar adventures and that it will take an hour to get the car picked up and taken to a garage. Wait three hours for car transporter.

 

Step 6: The job is now 1 hour behind schedule. Ponder the fact that it is now 10 AM and the delivery of decking promised for 8-30 AM has not turned up. Phone hire company to query this and after several further phone calls, await delivery promised within 30 minutes.

 

Step 7: Ask the student production manager to enlighten us as to which Invisibility cloak the three access towers are hiding under. Have polite argument with caretakers about why they have not built any of the towers as agreed. Caretakers offer to build one of the three towers and point out that they have decided that the other two are not safe to climb on. Slightly less politely, point out that it would have been convenient if they could have shared this small issue earlier. Having built half the tower, have even less polite discussion with caretakers who have realised they have lost some of the components, and that the tower will not go any higher or reach our rigging points in the ceiling. Instruct caretaking staff in how to build tower correctly, so they do indeed have enough parts to make up the required height.

 

Step 8: Realise that 30 minutes after the last 30 minutes, the decking has still not turned up. Keep carpenters entertained with various other small jobs. Eventually break carpenters for an early lunch as they are jobless. Lighting crew wander around aimlessly as they are waiting to rig all the gear off the decking structure.

 

Step 9: Three phone conversations with hire company later, unload decking which has finally turned up three and a half hours late. Student production manager and designer are now slightly irate.

 

Step 10: Watch carpenters put up first decks, which have to marry in to existing stage structure. Proceed to get slightly more irate as the realisation dawns that the decks are far from horizontal. Realise that incompetent decking company have sent one leg at the correct height out of a total of 50.

 

Step 11: Proceed to loose patience with hire and decking company, (decking is subbed in through production company) who insist that correct legs will be onsite within 40 minutes.

 

Step 12: One and a half hours later, unload correct legs and begin putting in decking. The job is now over four hours behind schedule. Student production team are becoming more and more agitated with each other.

 

Step 13: Unload themed equipment and realise that supplier has changed order by substituting items. Have several phone conversations with theme hire company about what they are going to do about it. Await promised taxi with more equipment from theme company.

 

Step 14: Phone around and rustle up two extra brilliant crew members to speed up job. Break news to production manager that the reception may have to be held outside as weather has improved.

 

Step 15: Fail to trouble shoot why Demux unit will not work with house dimmers. Fail to comprehend why there are two spare 20mm fuses taped to demux, and there are actually no fuses in the unit.

 

Step 16: Realise that one piece of decking looks out of place. Observe that a 4' x 2' deck is longer than a 4' x 4' deck and deduce that there is a problem. Figure out that decking company are a bunch of total ********s and have send a 5' x 2' by mistake. Have several further phone conversations with hire company before decking company make their third trip of the day with the correct stuff.

 

Step 17: Fail to hang 15 pin spots to light each table. Realise that there will not be any time for programming, and evening will have to be busked. Try and figure out why half the channels on the house dimmers are 'locked' on and won't respond to their manual desk.

 

Step 18: Having done the best job possible, open doors 45 minutes late. Punters have emptied bar already, and are already slightly the worse for wear.

 

Step 19: Proceed to busk the sound and lighting operation incredibly well. Eat meal provided with leatherman in the absence of cutlery.

 

Step 20: Following what the Headmaster deems to be inappropriate behaviour between students, the event is shut down thirty minutes ahead of schedule. Celebrate the fact that nightmare job is almost over, and that something happened ahead of schedule.

 

Step 21: Proceed to strike all equipment, including cables covered in beer and candy floss. Leave venue one and a half hours earlier than expected!

 

Appendix A

 

"Dave" - Top bloke who has a stock of very high quality gear for hire. Always reliable, on time and helpful. A thoughroughly nice and caring guy - If anyone wants kit in North London, PM me and I'll pass on the details. He might also happen to be a regular round these parts... B)

[Angelic]

Wow Rob, sounds like quite a handful - I love the way you cunningly disguised the decking suppliers' name from us :P

 

Sounds like a gig I'd enjoy actually, well maybe not the first part but certainly the venue leaving time!

[Ben]

hold on rob I think you missed the fact that the "2 x Extra brilliant crew" did not even ask to be paid

 

but you know what, having spoken to a few of the punters since everyone was amazed at how much was done and how well it went (well in their eyes) adn it could have been worse, the very helpfull people on here could have not given me any answers to the problems I had with the frog the night before.

 

and look at the amount of problems we had and just think to your self "we did it"