ComEnts

So, I think I posted a bit about Screwball Cabaret a while back. I can't remember what I said but we're entering period which is probably familiar to all promoters, the "Oh my god what the hell are we doing" period. The looming reality of potential financial losses combined with the detail required to organise such a complicated night can be fairly stressful. What with load in times, soundchecks, left handed drummers, security, numbers, venue capacity, riders, visuals, kit share, bar staff, overflow rooms, tech specs, wireless mic frequency conflicts etc. etc. etc. On the plus side loads of people seem excited by the line-up and say they are coming which is great to hear.

It'll all come together on the night and it'll be great, but that doesn't mean you don't sometimes stress about things before hand. Last time we were pretty well prepared, we thought, but on the actual day everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. The bands all got stuck in festival traffic. Doors were at 8 and I think we didn't have a full band there until 6:30. Then the power amp for the main stage monitors broke about 45 minutes before doors. And various other things I won't bore you with. The problems and subsequent soundcheck pressures meant we ended up swapping the stage times around on the night several times. Luckily Paul from Plug'n'Play who was there on the night is an absolute legend who really knows his stuff and we got everything sorted. This time we've learnt from that and are/will be even more prepared. Plus we've learnt from what mistakes we made last time. Still. Best to worry in advance, sort things and have a stress free evening.

There are four of us organising this Screwball, Rob, Jim, Helen and Me. Rob and Jim are doing the sound on a stage each. Helen's in charge of the door and I'm the main stage roadie/stage manager and general backstage manager. Rob, Jim and Helen's roles basically tie them to fixed positions in the venue on the night so I'm normally the person who has to run around fixing any problems. I think I've covered everything I've thought of so far. So it's just all the things I haven't thought of or can't control I've got to worry about.

What I really love about working with those guys is that we're all really laid back easy going people who enjoy life and have a laugh together but when it comes down to it we're all prepared to absolutely work our arses off to get things sorted. Paul at Plug'n'Play was the same.

The irony is, if we all do our jobs well the audience will have absolutely no idea how hard we've all worked. It happened last time, we had so many disasters but to the crowd it was a lovely slick gig with loads of great music. Perfect. That's my aim again this time, to make it all look really easy and slick to the crowd and make it be comfortable, relaxed and a pleasure to play for the bands. Fingers crossed.

Oh and the review that I mentioned yesterday is up on josaka.