My weekend (for Lenny)

[chrispenycate]

The first stage is to find out what is supposed to be happening (which might or might not bear some resemblence as to what will actually occur; the best-laid plans etc.), what role I'm expected to play in it, and what material I will need to supply to make this role possible (well, perhaps the first thing to find out is when, where and whether this event is likely to take place; but that, relative to finding out "what" is child's play) The occurence was a memorial to a music composer who would have been celebrating his hundredth birthday, if he hadn't died at ninety four, organised by a committee, and involving "Fanfares" (they are not flourishes of trumpets but sort of brass bands, except that they have woodwinds) fife and drum marching groups, three ballet schools, several folk dance ensembles (no, they don't have clogs, but the theory is the same, 'cept that they're mixed) choirs, both unisex and mixed, three computers driving projectors onto onstage screens, interviews with people who had known him, people who'd met him, politicians who'd heard of him, theatrical representations… all held together by explanations from his daughter (born in the thirties, so no spring chicken herself) who's just come out of hospital for open heart surgery. Rearsals? I went on the wednesday morning, and on wednesday, thursday and friday there were lots of rehearsals, but always with whoever was available, never in order, no idea of changeovers.
As I don't drive, I didn't want to take more with me than is absolutely necessary, so I contacted the hall to find out what they could supply. Loudspeakers and power amps. After negotiation, I got them to add the mixing table, mic stands and a CD player. This still left me with more than fifty kilos of luggage to lug onto and off the train; microphones (wired and wireless, the latter requiring receivers, batteries, power supplies), cables, intercom system, external effects, adaptors, the list goes on and on.
The organiser of the ballet part, she who had insisted I be present, is called "Faust"; yes, one of the same family. I suppose that makes me Mephistopheles.
No-one knew where the musical groups were going to be, and while lots of people knew in which order they were going on, they all knew it differently, Members of groups would sidle up furtively asking for a pair of accordion mics "for the second group saturday evening" which I would duly note, only to discover that they were the first group after the interval. Group's names changed, depending on whether they were accompanying dancers, choirs or playing on there own, and changed depending on who you asked, so the occasional programs that ppeared, mutated and were relegated to the dustbin of evolution wouldn't have helped even if they had at any point been accurate. I had prepared the "non-live" music on compact discs, but but duplicated them on MD so I could edit on site; which proved to be a wise precaution.
The hall electrician and the lighting operator (both local) were having a feud in which each would attempt to sabotage the other, making it look as if he were inept (none too difficult, I fear) which led to black outs, mysteriously diappearing fuses, power cutting from and being rapidly replaced to the audio setup (with attendant enormous bang), spotlights crawling under piles of costumes (which they cooked, and could easily have set fire to), the main speaker finding himself totally in the dark for one of his principal speeches, musicians forced to play from memory because of a total lack of illumination for their partitions (although that might have been due to nobody knowing where they were going to be before they got there.
The first night's performance should have lasted two and a half hours; it lasted four, not because of lost time, things were going on an off in seconds, just because nobody had ever added up the lengths of the various bits (well, the interviews they couldn't have. We hadn't seen any of them before they got up on stage) The television reporter fell into the audience, but she was young and pretty so no-one really minded. The speeches (after the four hours, note) were as dire as expected, but we'd obtained a couple of bottles of wine for the technicians, to help them past.
Saturday, zero rehearsals, thousands of disconnected bits of information. Launch into it, motors full ahead, and damn the icebergs. All performers performed, possibly not in the right order, every time someone gave an announcement into a microphone, the microphone was open. Every instrument or voice that needed amplifying had a microphone in front of it which was turned on more or less when needed, What I really wanted was an "antimic" to reduce the level of the brass bands; no, I hadn't got time to drop sponges down the tubas. The last group involved fireworks, which didn't unfortunately, succeed in burning down the hall.
Sunday, the minidisk, which had functioned perfectly through the rehearsals and previous days' performances, waved a mini white flag and gave up. The prepared edit for the show was not available, but I still had all the basic information on CD, even if I needed to change discs a bit rapidly - no sweat. On learning this, one of the committee members burst into tears and locked herself in the toilet. No reduction in function was observed, but, in a relatively high alcohol region such as that, putting a toilet out of use for most of the evening is an exceedingly antisocial act. More annoying, when they faded up the lights, there was an annnoying buzz which hadn't been there before; I never found out where this originated (probably a ground loop, but with that much material, after the show has started? Forget it). They ran out of people to put on stage around eleven, and I started packing my gear onto the boot of the car that was going to carry it back to Geneva - no more train, hurrah. By midnight I was in the bar, celebrating the success of the enterprise with the other technicians and a few of the artists.
No problems.

[Lenny]

Haha! Sounds like you had a lot of fun!

Were you the sole audio technician there? And who was the Composer that the memorial was for, out of interest?

[Rosemary]

A typical time for a sound technician! Faded up the lights?

[chrispenycate]

Yes, I did everything sound; and placing microphones while mixing, with the only gap being the time when groups were getting on, and off, is an interesting experience.
The composer was Jean Daetwyler, and his march "Marignan" is apparently the third most played march in the world; but he also did alpenhorn music, choir music (both religious and secular), orchestral, contemporary, film…
Ninety plus years gives you time for quite a lot of different styles.

[littlemissattitude]

Oh, Chris! That recitation puts me in mind of some of the adventures I've had whilst handling props for the ballet. Isn't live performance fun?