Not done one of these for a while.
My busiest weekend of the year (and long may it remain that way)
Saturday afternoon I was covering a baby disco for my brother in the local town hall. I've done it before and it's great fun and they set up the lights so a minimal rig is required. Contract is for 1-3 (as it always it) I turn up at noon, set up by quarter past, nip out for a coffee and I'm back at quarter to 1 with a bit of background music going on. In comes the hall manager
"ok so we'll start taking the tickets at half past 1."
me: "eh? I'm booked from 1 to 3..."
"are you sure? it's 2 to 4 we've put on the flyers"
I pull out the contract...
"oh that's strange, well we're on from 2 to 4 and sold out!"
Not much I could really do was there (barring stopping halfway through and packing up ) she came back later and said she'd checked the books and it was always 2 until 4 (which is either wrong on their part or a lie)
Quite miffed because it meant I was going home, chucking the rest of the stuff in the motor and shooting off to my wedding via mcd's instead of getting a decent dinner.
Wedding was good. Strangely laid out venue - bar in a separate room away to my left, VERY tight table set up (the most I've ever seen in here) between the bar and dancefloor and then me tucked away in a wee alcove out of sight and mind for the most part. The seating meant it was hard to entice a lot of folk up to dance because they literally had to barge past other people but we managed OK. good feedback from bride and groom and my bottle of hot tub prossecco was well enjoyed when I got home.
Sunday was a communion. I don't do many of them because of my price but this was literally down the road (I counted - 24 seconds from leaving my drive way to pulling up at the venue ) and again a minimal rig needed.
1 until half 5. Loads of daft games - I try to keep things interesting so they can get a wee bit convoluted and heard some guy who was on the beers mutter "Christ, just do musical statues" under his breath while I was explaining one game to the kids which kind of peed me off but at the price I charge, I think the clients appreciate that it's not just a party by numbers thing. The kids loved it, they were impeccably behaved throughout, the adults got a chance to boogie later on, I threw in some ceilidh and everyone went home knackered, I was up the road, finished my dinner and in the pub with a well deserved pint less than half an hour after playing my last song
That's me for a few weeks now after a cancellation came in. Getting all my meetings in order for between now and my honeymoon at the end of June so it's worked out quite well admin wise.