# It really wasn't my fault!



## WestlakeTech (Nov 17, 2008)

So we rent out our main facility often. On this particular "Rental" I was the sound tech for a dance company. Sounds not exactly my favorite Tech aspect, but hey, Rentals are the only time most of us can get paid to do shows so I didn't complain.

Well, being a dance company, they of course want to make sure that everything goes perfect, so there are two main things to note. 1. They're company director was the SM for the show. 2. They checked with me to make sure every song was in the correct order. Everyday, one of their ladies would give me a CD, I'd put it in the CD player and run the first few seconds of each song. She'd check her list and make sure that all of the tracks were in the right order and never ONCE did she say that any one of them was incorrect.

Well, we get part way through a show that's going pretty good when I get to look like an idiot thanks to HER mistake. Cue comes for lights and sound to go, so I press play. Well the lights come up and the dancers are just standing around on the stage looking petrified. Then I hear over Com "lights out, that's the wrong song!" So I'm going through the binder their lady gave me asking "is whatever-song the right one". Oh, wait, SM/Director Woman doesn't know the song TITLES!! Just what it's track number is SUPPOSED to be. So I'm frantically trying to check w/her that the next song on my cd is the one she's looking for and she's got ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA! (as it turns out, it was)

... and I'd be ok with that, knowing it was their mistake not mine. I just hate all those eyes I felt that entire time, looking back at House Sound thinking and whispering things like "he doesn't know what he's doing" or "how hard is it to use a cd player?" or "oh don't tell me he's a high school student." I just know they all think I slipped up, but it really wasn't my fault.


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## icewolf08 (Nov 17, 2008)

Well, as long as you know it's not your fault (if it really isn't), that is what counts. As an operator, it is your job to do what you are told. If the SM says jump, you don't say "how high?", you just jump. If the SM tells you to take a cue that is supposed to be the correct cue you do it, if it is wrong, it isn't your fault. It doesn't matter if everyone else thinks you were wrong, as long as you know that you were not.


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## seanandkate (Nov 17, 2008)

I find it helpful if you chant Alex's signiture quote like a mantra after such events . . .


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## avkid (Nov 17, 2008)

It could have been worse, they could have handed you cassette tapes with uncertain start points.


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## Sony (Nov 17, 2008)

avkid said:


> It could have been worse, they could have handed you cassette tapes with uncertain start points.



We don't allow Tapes anymore at MVPAC...in fact we don't even have a tape player we can hook up to the system anymore. It died last year...

One of the requirements of putting on a show as MVPAC now is everything has to be on CD or some other form of Digital Media like MiniDisc, or iPod. My boss instituted that a couple years ago after one particularly disastrous episode concerning a tape player and mislabeled and mismarked tapes.


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## WestlakeTech (Nov 17, 2008)

Yeah, I got over it after a while, but I hated the pressure while it was there.

We have a beastly cassette player, but we never really use it for actual performances. 

I would never run a show off an iPod. I had to try once using iTunes and the computer hooked up to our sound board; it was a nightmare. I had to get a CD burned immediately 'cause it just wasn't cuttin' it for me.


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## lieperjp (Nov 17, 2008)

Charc said:


> But at that point, just use QLab. I feel like a fanboy, but come on people, look at it:



That would work... except not everyone has a Mac. I've used iTunes on my Windows Vista PC and I was satisfied. Just create a playlist. If you have time, leave all the songs/cues unchecked and then check the ones you are going to play. That way you don't accidentally play a cue. I was impressed because I used Audacity to create the files and iTunes handled everything well. Much better than Windows Media Player.


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## WestlakeTech (Nov 17, 2008)

We used Audacity too and the program worked fine, I just preferred the CD instead. To each his own, I guess.


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## Pie4Weebl (Nov 18, 2008)

I'm gonna cast a vote for using SFX for playback, the new version is pretty snazzy.


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## willbb123 (Nov 18, 2008)

I used to DJ. I found the software MegaSeg, and fell in love with it. I've used it for sound cues and it works great. Unfortunately it costs $250. I used iTunes for one gig, I tried to open the main window by pressing [apple] [1], unfortunately I missed the 1 and hit "q" instead, quitting the program immediately. The thing I really like about Megaseg is that it is really hard to screw up. It asks you before you quit or do anything that will stop the music playback.

I am not affiliated with megaseg but I'd love to get my $250 back


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## Gretsch (Nov 18, 2008)

I too have experienced these dreaded dance shows...and I fully sympathize. I like to use cd playback but I bring in my laptop and burn my own show copy so I can make sure all the tracks have even volume and at least 2 seconds of minus time on either side of the track so there is no run over.


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## LordOfTheTechies (Dec 14, 2008)

Ohh I hate that feeling.When something like that happens at our theatre the director comes out on stage and says "sorry, our sound guy is having a little trouble, I'll get this fixed in a minute." I know how humiliating it is.


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## tech2000 (Dec 16, 2008)

That always sucks!
That same thing has happened to us twice in the past few months! (Only it was the renters/leadership club students that messed it up)

First was our veterans day assembly when the leadership students come up tp me and say, "Oh yeah we're finishing up the powerpoint right now so it should be finished before the assembly starts!" Of course it wasn't and they had not only video clips of interviewing staff members who are veterans, but they overlayed a music track. So now the music level is permanently set in the powerpoint and it comes to the interviews and the music keeps going and the volume of the interviews is also permanently set (at about half the music's volume) so you can't understand what the veterans are saying! Since they gave it to us after the assembly started, we couldn't test the sound on the ppt. and it sounded like crap, which of course comes back to me!

Next, a week or so ago, we had another event and since our main projector system is down, I had to hook up a portable projector and dvd player (that's what the renters said was to be used) from backstage. We were rear-projecting and that is fine; even better video quality than with the main system. However, I couldn't use a dvd player because there were impedence issues and I didn't have the right adapters or a di box to overcome it, so I used our PAC laptop and it worked flawlessly. The audio (somehow) was great. Then, a performer (the renter had hired) comes in 10 minutes before the show with (of all things) a VHS tape! Now I have to run around and hook up a VCR and get the audio to work! I had to plug the laptop audio into the projector and the VCR audio into the projector and from there out to the sound desk. However, I managed to run out of time and not be able to test it. So, long story short, it gets up to video time and...no sound. I run around and eventually we get sound up, but not before the Principal and a Vice Principal come up to another tech and ask about the many video sound issues. (our principal, 3 vice principals, and a counselor were there) Afterward the renter didn't mind and knew that if the performer had just used a DVD everything would have been fine!

Sorry for such a long rant...had been holding it in too long and this seemed like the right place to drop it!


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## tech2000 (Dec 16, 2008)

LordOfTheTechies said:


> Ohh I hate that feeling.When something like that happens at our theatre the director comes out on stage and says "sorry, our sound guy is having a little trouble, I'll get this fixed in a minute." I know how humiliating it is.



Oh yeah, at least our director understands not to come out and say that. As our boss (we get a lot of renters) she knows how to act professionally.
(However, the renters do say this sometimes...)


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## zuixro (Dec 16, 2008)

I've noticed that a lot of times when "the sound guy is having trouble" it's not the sound guy's fault.

At the last chapel for the year at my high school this past year, we had a projector with a video, two microphones, a few CD's, and an iPod. Not a huge amount of stuff, about 30 minutes working alone at comfortable pace (we have a gymatorium, all of our equipment is stored in a room, we have to drag it out every time we need it). They come to me 10 minutes before chapel starts and tell me what they need set up. So I scramble to set it up. I grabbed the guy who's iPod it was because he knew a little about sound (read: he knows how to turn the volume up). I sent him to get the cord for it and hook it up. I'm hurrying to set up the projector, get it focussed, hooked up for sound (DI through the floor pocket on stage to the board), didn't get a chance to check the level. The guy setting up the iPod yells at me from across the gym and asks where to plug the ipod in. I tell him to just leave it sitting on the board and I would do it. Chapel starts about 5 minutes late, I don't have time to check any levels, so they are all over the place. The dance teacher hands me a stack of CD's right before we start, with post it's about where each track fades out (don't ask me why she can't cut them herself with audacity or something). I queue up the first track. Hit play. Silence. Check the gain, EQ, fader, plugs, everything is as it should be. I start checking the snake. Everything looks ok. Finally I switched the output from Left out, to Right out on the board and it started working (our space is mono). I figured that the left channel on the board was dead or something. The rest of the dance act goes well considering the circumstances. We get into the part with the iPod. I checked to make sure that it was plugged in. Hit play. Nothing. I start checking everything again. and I realize that it's not plugged into a channel. In fact, it's plugged into the "Insert" for Left main. I plugged it into a channel, and the rest of the show goes on fine. After the show, I asked him what he was thinking, plugging that in there. He said that he didn't know where to plug it in, so he just picked one. I gave him a good speech about not plugging something in if you don't know what it does. He ignored me through the whole thing.

Now granted, I should have checked everything before I started, but I was in a hurry (and I expect a certain level of intelligence from people that I work with) Anyway, sorry for the long rant.


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## len (Dec 16, 2008)

Event Technicians: Underpaid to do the impossible for the uninformed and unappreciative.


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## tech2000 (Dec 16, 2008)

zuixro, that's kind of like how when I ask one of my techs to go plug the computer into the projector ad they plug it into the monitor out port.


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## WestlakeTech (Dec 16, 2008)

len said:


> Event Technicians: Underpaid to do the impossible for the uninformed and unappreciative.



actually, most people would consider $10/hr for high school students as being paid quite well... 

but for the most part, I completely agree.


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## photoatdv (Dec 16, 2008)

We do tend to make more than our peers, but personally I wind up doing lots of preproduction work, so when you average those hours in it is more like $6 an hour.

Besides due to the major time constraints in most cases we know the venue well and where eveything is and therefore have as good of a chance of pulling it off as a local professional who would be trying to find everything. So maybe they should be paying us more...


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## LightingPenguin (Jan 6, 2009)

My school uses Ableton Live.

Nice program. Expensive program. Too bad we cant afford it without the school's help


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## spiwak2005 (Jan 6, 2009)

A couple years ago on the advice of someone on CB, I downloaded the free version of Q Manager (for PC). It's great for running music and sound cues and I still use it all the time (just used it for Nutcracker). Unfortunately, it seems to have disappeared from downloadability. I HATE using iPods to run sound for shows. ITunes and any other media players are also a pain in my opinion.


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## dsm (Jan 18, 2009)

Had a show recently. Show finished, house lights back up...but they didn't. Someone had knocked out the cable to the house lights or something. I'm sitting there at the lighting desk with all the audience filing past me on the way out in darkness.

Another show I was involved in (filming, not doing lights), the house lights came up in the middle of a show. The lighting op is panicking and wondering what happened, they didn't touch anything, the SM is getting angry, people are getting confused.
Turns out that someone had accidentally flicked the lighting switch in the sound booth.


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## Esoteric (Jan 18, 2009)

Hahahaha... 

Last year at a huge (500+ kids) middle school camp worship service we hear a POP! and suddenly no lights, no front of house, but monitors are working fine.

We don't know that at this point, so we check out generators (the original ones were faulty and we had to get replacements), then the distro, finally someone tells us that monitors are still working so we start at the power split and trace. Turns out a kid was swaying to the music and pulled a plug apart (why you would leave an exposed plug in the house without taping it I will never know, sound guys, geez).

Mike


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## soundlight (Jan 18, 2009)

I've been in the "it's the sound guy's fault" situation before. I hate it when people pawn of their own shortcomings in organization and ability to perform on the technical staff. They've also pawned things off on me as "technical issues" before, in which case every single last person glances over their shoulder at me sometime during the 30 seconds that follows that statement.

I've had some brilliant "why didn't you tell me before?" moments. Working a gig over at the small student venue on campus, the arts residential college is having a mini-talent show for themselves. I haven't been told any technical requirements. I arrive and find that I need to connect audio for a projector and set up 3 individual microphones for performance and also run CDs in something along the lines of negative time. They're also rather technology dumb, so they need help with the projector. It's a bunch of folks that I kinda know, so I help them. But none of the audio levels match on the audio from the computer - always fun. Whenever they're about to start a video clip, I'd push the fader down and bring it up until it was at a good level. However, I worked like crazy for that event, so I spent my own sweet time cleaning up and coiling all of the cables perfectly and make sure that everything was stored properly whether or not it had been at the start of the gig - basically took an extra half hour of billed time to clean up.

I always end up putting one of the people there in charge of the CDs and making them hand me them one by one and tell me what track. I don't write anything down. For dance shows, I drop everything in to Qlab. Makes my life easy.


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## cdub260 (Jan 19, 2009)

soundlight said:


> I've been in the "it's the sound guy's fault" situation before. I hate it when people pawn of their own shortcomings in organization and ability to perform on the technical staff.



Okay folks. It's time for today's lesson in assigning blame.

Now repeat after me.

It's the new guy's fault!

Now, do you think you can all remember that?


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## Eboy87 (Jan 19, 2009)

soundlight said:


> I've been in the "it's the sound guy's fault" situation before. I hate it when people pawn of their own shortcomings in organization and ability to perform on the technical staff.



That's because everyone knows how to do two jobs:

Theirs, and sound.


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## lieperjp (Jan 19, 2009)

cdub260 said:


> Okay folks. It's time for today's lesson in assigning blame.
> 
> Now repeat after me.
> 
> ...



Unless you're the new guy... 

Then it was the guy who trained you!


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## ETCspot (Jan 20, 2009)

I wish we could charge so called "Schools of Dance" (SOD) a fee for stress placed on Technicians... The "schools" I'm talking about are not classical ballet studios or cultural institutions, they are the ones named "Little Miss La'Petite's School of Dance" or "Miss Brenda's Tiny Dancers" or some other moronic name. They do far more harm for the arts than good . Now I'm sure some where out there exists a SOD that is great and treats venues with utmost respect, I've yet to hear of it. Most, not all of their staff members are blithering bimbos (hahah) who can barely pump gas much less put together a cd. My sympathies friend. I know what its like to be in your shoes.


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## renegadeblack (Jan 21, 2009)

Speaking of SODs...

At my high school over the summer, there was a recital that they did in our auditorium. We had spots in our coves and they decided to take one and move it to the booth. The only way to get it down is to carry it down the ladder or use the genie (which is what I do). First off, they could have broken it (they broke some sound equipment) and the door to the cove was locked so they were probably climbing in through the opening to get in there. Also, they completely trashed the place in other areas. The choir room which they used as their changing room they left in a complete shambles and there was crap everywhere! From what I understand, they were told that they weren't welcome next year.

Is that something typical of them?


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## theatretechguy (Jan 22, 2009)

Pretty typical. A couple of different dance groups use my facility, and while they DO cleanup the dressing rooms and backtstage areas very well, they often trash the "green rooms" like, the Choir Room and the Band room. 

Usually the CD's are out of sequence, "this song needs to fade when the dancers all do this thing", etc. I'll usually take an extra hour or two to put the songs together myself. I figure its saving my sanity.


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## kiwitechgirl (Jan 23, 2009)

Dance school season at a venue I worked at consisted, one year, of 21 dance schools in 12 weeks. Some were great, some were awful, most were somewhere in between. My favourite was the ballet school who were actually resident in our building - super-organised, booked the venue for long enough to pack in properly (and get the dance floor laid WELL), have a plotting session, a technical rehearsal and a full dress rehearsal before opening night, and always had all their music on minidisc in the right order with all the fades and everything pre-done. The dressing rooms were always left in an immaculate state and they had parents who turned up to help when they said they would, listened to instructions from the crew and would ask questions if they didn't understand. Consequently their shows were fantastic! They were closely followed by the school who had a lot of projection as part of their show, but had burnt the whole thing down to one DVD with all the music and images on it, a black screen where there was no image to be projected, and all the music edited so it was at the same level - so all we had to do was push PLAY on the DVD player at the top of the show and the sound and AV ran themselves.

Contrast this with the group who had one day booked, to rehearse in the morning, 2:30pm show and then 7:30pm show and wanted the dance floor (they did get charged for the time we spent laying it the previous night after the last show had gone). They turned up with a mixture of cassettes and very scratched CDs (fortunately we had a 10 year old domestic Sony CD player which would play anything!), not enough chaperones for the number of kids (we ended up calling some of our theatre chaperones and charging them for it) and a show that ran *4 1/4 hours*. When the 2:30pm show came down at 6:45, we told them that it was too long, and that they'd have to shorten the evening show as they legally weren't allowed to have the kids on stage that late at night. The dance teacher was furious with us, but had to back down when we showed her the hard copy of the relevant law which we kept for purposes just like this one, and was forced to take out all the dances that she and the other teachers were doing to show off how wonderful they were. They left the theatre in an absolute state - the kids, having had almost no time between shows, had been eating in the dressing rooms - and broke a whole pile of furniture which they hadn't asked if they could use anyway. After the bill they got from us, they didn't return the next year....


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## theatretechguy (Jan 23, 2009)

kiwitechgirl said:


> Contrast this with the group who had one day booked, to rehearse in the morning, 2:30pm show and then 7:30pm show and wanted the dance floor (they did get charged for the time we spent laying it the previous night after the last show had gone). They turned up with a mixture of cassettes and very scratched CDs (fortunately we had a 10 year old domestic Sony CD player which would play anything!), not enough chaperones for the number of kids (we ended up calling some of our theatre chaperones and charging them for it) and a show that ran *4 1/4 hours*. When the 2:30pm show came down at 6:45, we told them that it was too long, and that they'd have to shorten the evening show as they legally weren't allowed to have the kids on stage that late at night. The dance teacher was furious with us, but had to back down when we showed her the hard copy of the relevant law which we kept for purposes just like this one, and was forced to take out all the dances that she and the other teachers were doing to show off how wonderful they were. They left the theatre in an absolute state - the kids, having had almost no time between shows, had been eating in the dressing rooms - and broke a whole pile of furniture which they hadn't asked if they could use anyway. After the bill they got from us, they didn't return the next year....




Horrible! I don't understand how some of these dance schools stay in business when the people in charge are obviously morons. I've had my share of bad events, but nothing quite like that.


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## Sayen (Jan 24, 2009)

ETCspot said:


> I wish we could charge so called "Schools of Dance" (SOD) a fee for stress placed on Technicians...


I would second that!

As a suggestion, just let them run the CD player themselves, while you handle volume and other factors. I've started doing this - they usually know their songs better, and when they screw up they realize it...I find I have much less of a headache at the end of the evening.


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## Esoteric (Jan 25, 2009)

I have to say that I made a lot of money in college stage managing and doing lighting and stage designs for high school dance teams/cheerleaders/pom squads. For the most part they were great to work with, I just had to take the reigns let them know what I wanted/needed ahead of time. I think sometimes they get a bum rap because we don't communicate ahead of time exactly what we need, and get it in advance! If I didn't have all the CDs in my hands a week before the recital, no show! We went over songs, order, how many dancers, etc at least two weeks out.

Mike


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## jwl868 (Jan 26, 2009)

[I am apologizing in advance about the length of this post.] I’d like to try to explain why I think things seem to turn out badly with dance schools. This is not meant to defend the inconsiderate actions of some dance schools. This is general; like anything else, there are excellent organizations. (This is from my perspective as a parent-volunteer stage manager for a dance studio. I’ve been doing this for 6 to 8 years. Our recitals usually are bigger productions than other schools. I’ve learned things by book and the hard way, but I corrected a lot of poor practices that preceded my tenure. The studio also has a couple other on-the-ball parents.)

A dance studio owner is a small business owner, and she does things her way. In running a recital, she is choreographer and director, master and commander. Some owners are more head-strong than others. 

Because the studio owners were performers, the details of technical theatre were (probably) secondary during their performance careers. They danced and things happened. (Okay, that’s over-simplified, and no doubt many were aware of the individuals involved on the technical side, but they may not have known or cared about the how or why of technical details.) So, now, when they put on a recital, they expect the same results.

An early discussion between the venue technical staff and the owner (or their rep) about their needs and expectations is absolutely necessary. I’ve seen many cases (in schools) where there is a communication gap primarily because the venue personnel in charge of booking the venue are not the technical staff of the venue.

All dance schools will have different organizations. For putting on the annual recital, the studio owner may be trying to do it all, in which case first and foremost are the dance aspects. Other technical details may or may not have been thought out. And on the day of the rehearsal and show, her attention is on the dance and may be nearly unapproachable. Now, she may have delegated some technical responsibilities to one or more employee or more likely, a parent volunteer. This volunteer may be obligated to volunteer as part of the dance school requirements. This volunteer may know what they are doing or they may not. Maybe 1 in 20 volunteers [probably closer to 1 in 50] has technical theatre experience, but that was probably 10 to 20 years ago. This task (and it’s something close to stage manager) may be so arduous and/or demanding that the individual changes from year to year, and there is little continuity and anything that is learned is lost. 

I think the havoc that can be created backstage (that is, offstage and in dressing rooms) is a function of how much responsibility is given to the children. There appear to be two approaches to this. In one case, each child’s parents are responsible for getting the child ready between numbers, so you have a high ratio of adults to children, but everyone is looking out for themselves, and in essence, no one is in charge of backstage/dressing rooms. In the other case, the children are responsible for themselves, they arrive with makeup on and the parents are in the audience (or maybe doing other duties). The dressing rooms are controlled/supervised by one or two adults per room, the children help each other and the kids know what numbers they are in and when they go on. Besides, at a certain age (5th or 6th grade), the children are old enough and know the procedures. The few adults help as needed (hair pieces and the like). And there is only one person to answer to in each room and the responsibility of that room is on that person. I think children in general are better behaved than we give them credit for, and (more importantly), I think a single adult in authority (in the dressing rooms, for example) is more effective than the parents. Kids know what they can get away with with Mom and Dad, but not with Mrs. Dressingroomfascist. 

Another level of problems arise during dress rehearsals if other siblings are present with parents in the audience. Occasionally, these kids are not well supervised, or quietly make a mess of the area that they are sitting in. Poorly supervised non-performing siblings have been our biggest problem.

Prior to the start of the rehearsal, we read the riot act to the kids and parents. This is list of Dos and Don’ts (and a lot of Don’ts). 

We’ve used a number of venues over the years. In most cases, someone from the venue is there at all times, if for no other than to run the lights and sound. But there were two cases where there were no venue staff present, though were available by phone. Still, we keep an eye on our people (we know who needs the most attention), we don’t move things that aren’t supposed to be moved, and we clean up after ourselves. Our goal is to leave nothing for the custodians to do. When we are done, I make a final walk through of the place and I’m the last one out.

As mentioned in another post, when a dance school has booked the facility, try to talk to the studio owner (or their technical representative, if they have one) ahead of time. Maybe they know what they need or want. At least by talking to someone you will get an idea about things will probably go. Let them know what you expect. Nowadays, the music is burned onto one or two CDs, which simplifies things. But in the old days, we had someone at the sound desk handing off the cassettes/CDs to the sound technician. 

I take the attitude that it’s a live performance and something will go wrong. With only one dress rehearsal, I am still amazed at how smoothly our shows go. In the end, it comes down to organization and communication.

[We “live off the land”, so to speak. The focus is on the dance, and to a certain extent, we just need the stage lit well and music playing when we need it. Anything else is gravy. There is limited time for rehearsal at the venue, and (regarding lighting) we often do not know what is available or readily available. We try to give the venue’s light technician the best information we can, but pretty much tell them it’s lights up or lights down, but if they have any ideas, we are all for it.]


Joe


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## kiwitechgirl (Jan 26, 2009)

Joe, your dance school sounds like one of the ones we welcomed back to our venue! We had an information pack (put together by the technical manager) that we used to send out to dance schools as they booked the venue. It was pretty comprehensive and explained what we provided, and also what we needed from them, and mostly the schools used these guidelines and we had no issues. It was just the odd one who chose to ignore the information we'd given them (see my earlier post!) that caused us problems. We didn't object to a lack of ideas about lighting - we had a comprehensive house rig which covered almost everything, but if the school wanted anything specific, and told us more than two minutes before starting the rehearsal, then we'd bend over backwards to make it happen for them. I have a distinct memory of spending quite some time up the tallescope focusing a seven-unit rainbow gobo on the cyc for a dance school! One thing that always amused me, though, was the way so many people would say to us "can you snap the lights to blue/green/red/whatever just before the end?" We got good at gently pointing out that we didn't know where the end was.....

Essentially, if schools were reasonable in their expectations, we'd go out of our way to help them; we had a school come through with some hired backdrops, and one of them was just awful - badly painted, too short for the venue and the paint was coming off it and spreading itself liberally across the stage. The teacher was a bit upset, because the cloth had been planned to be the backdrop to quite a large section of the show. We had an extensive collection of backcloths, and plenty of time up our sleeve, and so one of the other techs and I flicked through our cloth book, found something similar, and went climbing through the cloth store (which was a nasty job - very low ceiling so you hit your head and scraped your back), found what we were looking for, dragged it out and hung it up for her.


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## hwlights (Feb 2, 2009)

As an LD I really have a love-hate relationship with dance schools. As an artistic type, I really like to design and execute the lighting for dance shows because when you do it right it really looks great, but at the same time, I have had so many bad experiences with unprepared dance companies. We actually have two in our area and they fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. They are both clueless about tech things, but one of them is run by a woman who basically comes in and asks us to help her design the show and the other by people who view us as high school students and end up standing over our shoulders to "make sure we stay on track" (like they have any idea what is going on).

I agree with Kiwi in the last post. When schools are reasonable in what they expect from a high school theatre they are fine to work with. We always look forward to when the first company comes in for their recital and try to avoid the other like the plague. So the moral of the story is...if the techies like you, your show will go off much more easily than if you try to boss them around.

Also, Westlake, amen to dance gigs being the best way to make money in the theatre


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## DracoBengali86 (Mar 25, 2009)

Eboy87 said:


> That's because everyone knows how to do two jobs:
> 
> Theirs, and sound.



I think it's closer to these two jobs:

Theirs, and yours (no matter what it is).

As for using mp3 players, I don't mind it as long as it's charged. I was working a bruncheon that the chancelor was attending and they group hosting it had handed me an ipod for background music. They had the songs they wanted in a playlist, all the tracks were the same level, and everything was working fine...until the ipod died.

Aparently they hadn't bothered to charce the ipod for the event, or had it charged but managed to wear it down through personal use before it got to me. So anyway, there I am, a half hour into a four hour event and I have no sound. I found the guy that gave me the ipod and ask if he has any kind of backup. No such luck, but he does have a chager. It was one of those cheap little wall-worts, and I don't know what kind of luck any of you have had with those chargers, but the second I pluged in the ipod there was a terrible hum in the speakers. I swear it was at least half as loud as the music.

Now maybe none of the patrons would have noticed, but I wasn't about to have that hum in our system with the chancelor sitting in the room, I'd rather have no music at all. I unpluged the ipod & charger and handed it all back to the guy I got it from and pulled out the only CD I had with me. I think it happened to be Pirates of the Carribbean, so I put it in and just kept the volume low. Afterwards, I had people from the bruncheon complement me on the music I'd had. A couple of them even said it sounded familier but they couldn't remember from where.


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## Madeen (Apr 22, 2009)

This same sort of thing happened to me last semester during the performance of Our Town for the whole school. I was running the control booth on my own. Not hard, only 50 something light cues, some cd cues, would've had to do wireless mics too, but they were not working which should've been an omen. We used floor mics to compensate, and the controls for them were up in front of the stage. We have a fan that is programmed to come on at certain times during the day. I was told it had been adjusted to not come on during this performance. So, what happened?? It comes on 30 seconds into the performance. No one knows how to turn it off, so I am forced to sit in the sound booth contemplating suicide as english teacher after administrator after english teacher runs in to ask what I can do about the quiet mics. It didn't help that some of the coachs were already asleep in the audience (they're not theatre people). Seriously, one of them woke up at the end of the first Act, stood up, and started clapping... That was not a good day.


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