Good Gig, Bad Gig.

[Benny Smyth]

My gig last night was by far the worst of 2016.

I'm actually still at a loss for words. I'll report more tomorrow, but the word of the day is dumbfounded.

[stormproductions]

Ha, that's seriously impressive to have a confirmed booking that far in advance! How did they even know what date it would be?

My job last night was a 21st in a superb set up of 3 giant tipis linked together in a wonderful private parkland setting (2 for dining and 1 for dancing). I did a load of exterior lighting as the tents were set up in front of woodland, and then rigged 16 moving lights and a few other bits into the dance area, put the full sound system in with 4 x 18 inch JBL subs, and it looked and sounded great. Booked to between 3 and 4 am, took it through to 4 then during the last 'one more' track the main client appeared from nowhere having not seen him for at least a couple of hours to insist we did another hour. So it finished at 5, I got to bed at 7, and have been back onsite for a few hours this afternoon derigging it all.

By chance a Hercules and the Red Arrows flew in formation directly over the site both yesterday afternoon and today which was most cool, looks like they were just about to do a flypast at Farnborough.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Ha, that's seriously impressive to have a confirmed booking that far in advance! How did they even know what date it would be?

In the morning she asked for a card and also said she had 2 dates in mind (16th or 23rd March) and then obviously went home and checked the date. She's booked 23rd March 2019.

[Excalibur]

My gig last night was by far the worst of 2016.

.

Well in complete contrast, Benny, I had one of the best. The dance floor was rammed constantly, I got a ten minute standing ovation, a £50 tip, and twelve bookings on the back of it*.



* Not all of the above is wholly true. If only.................

Not a great weekend, had to pass Friday's gig due to family commitments, Saturday cancelled, leaving me with only a Sunday christening. Young Twinspin played a blinder, assisting in various ways at this one, mainly in keeping my spirits up.

Total interaction from guests in a four hour gig?

" Can you announce the buffet please"?

Was I ever glad when the club steward stopped it an hour early, to save me from further punishment.

[Casual77]

My gig last night was a bit of a mixed bag. I got a call about a week ago from the agency who I was working for last night saying that there was a change of plan. Instead of doing the wedding anniversary at the football club I support (a venue I was actually looking forward to playing) I was instead going to be doing a marquee gig at a local wildlife park. By Friday lunchtime the only info I had been given was that it was an African themed birthday party and I was to play a 2-hour set and wouldn't need any speakers or lights.

On Friday afternoon, I got a bit of extra information and suddenly it sounded like my kind of gig! It was a 40th birthday party for the CEO of the wildlife park and the music brief was that I was to play dance music ranging from 90s dance classics through to current pop dance, stopping off at early 2000s house music in between.

When I turned up at the venue it was clear no expense had been spared. There was a huge Marquee and catering tents, a full size fairground dodgems ride, about 30 grand's worth of Martin Rush Moving heads, Martin Rush Wizards, 4 Chauvet Geyser smoke machines in front of me and a professional lighting technician with a touch screen lighting desk the size of an average family car! Not my usual sort of gig then!

I did a brief sound check before the party started and everything sounded really good. What I didn't realise at that time was that the huge speakers on the stage belonged to the band who were playing before me and these would be removed before I started my set. What I was left with was some kind of sound system built into the roof lining of the marquee which sounded great on the dancefloor but was barely audible form where I was on the stage.

When my set started at about 10.45 I had five African drummers accompanying me, a break dancer, an attractive, scantily clad podium dancer bouncing around right in front of me and several zebra-costumed stilt walkers. I was told about the drummers being involved and asked to go for something big to start with which meant re-jigging the set I had planned. 'You've got the Love' was ditched in favour of the Safri Duo 'Played-A-Live' much to the delight of the African drummers who all knew the drum rhythms of that one well.

After the good start I soon realised that the gig wasn't going to go as well as I had hoped. I'd worked out what I considered to be a really good mixed 'club-style' set which ticked all the birthday boy's musical boxes, but it soon became apparent that doing perfect seamless mixes was almost impossible because I had no monitoring at all and I could barely hear the music despite only being about 5 metres away from the middle of the dance floor. Just to make matters worse, the guests had clearly not been informed of the music policy and were asking for BWitched and Guns and Roses by the time I was a just a few songs in. I ended up having to ditch my set list and moving quickly on to playing recent pop dance music to keep the majority happy. At least I managed to slip in 'My, My, My' by Armand van Helden which I was told was a favourite track and a must-play.

At 12.30 I finished playing and managed to collar the bloke whose birthday it was. He seemed more than happy with how it had gone and thanked me for my efforts. The events planner who had booked me also seemed suitably pleased but I was generally disappointed with it because I had such high hopes for the set and from my perspective it fell way short of what I was looking to do, largely due to the terrible sound monitoring. It wasn't helped further by the fact that the mic clarity was terrible so the announcements I had to make were barely audible and drowned out by the unavoidable feedback which must have made me look really amateur to the guests who would have assumed I was using my own equipment. On a plus note, it only took me five minutes to pack away my controller and be in the car driving home. I didn't miss having to set up and pack away all my gear but I'm not sure on balance that I don't prefer using my own equipment which I know and trust.

I'm back at the same place doing a wedding in a few weeks time and again won't be needed to take any equipment other than my play-out system. I really hope they take on board my monitoring comments and have something better in place for that one.

[CRAZY K]

I did a brief sound check before the party started and everything sounded really good. What I didn't realise at that time was that the huge speakers on the stage belonged to the band who were playing before me and these would be removed before I started my set. What I was left with was some kind of sound system built into the roof lining of the marquee which sounded great on the dancefloor but was barely audible form where I was on the stage.



I'm back at the same place doing a wedding in a few weeks time and again won't be needed to take any equipment other than my play-out system. I really hope they take on board my monitoring comments and have something better in place for that one.

Sorry to hear this--Overhead directional speakers strike again--I hate those .........g things.

They probably have sound resrictions problems---the ony explanation--I would be very careful to find out whats involved before you get made to look like a like I did a few years ago.( At a Wedding) never never again.

Potential to spoil a Wedding--you might need to consider warning the clients to protect your reputation --and your pocket

Or taking your own kit of course.

[Casual77]

Sorry to hear this--Overhead directional speakers strike again--I hate those .........g things.

They probably have sound resrictions problems---the ony explanation--I would be very careful to find out whats involved before you get made to look like a like I did a few years ago.( At a Wedding) never never again.

I've heard from relatives out that way that there have been complaints from local residents about the noise which would explain the restrictions. It was my first experience of one of these systems though and it certainly wasn't a favourable one!

About three songs into my set I jumped off the stage and moved to the middle of the dancefloor to see how it sounded from there. I was amazed at how loud and crisp it sounded compared to the muffled sound I could hear on the stage only a few metres away. When you throw into the mix I was pretty much blinded by the copious amounts of haze and the barrage of super bright wash lights behind me I could barely see or hear anything to give me any feedback that things were going well or otherwise. Considering the tens of thousands of pounds worth of gear there I'm sure I could have done as good if not better job with my own equipment. Oh well... At least they paid me well!

[CRAZY K]

I've heard from relatives out that way that there have been complaints from local residents about the noise which would explain the restrictions. It was my first experience of one of these systems though and it certainly wasn't a favourable one!

About three songs into my set I jumped off the stage and moved to the middle of the dancefloor to see how it sounded from there. I was amazed at how loud and crisp it sounded compared to the muffled sound I could hear on the stage only a few metres away. When you throw into the mix I was pretty much blinded by the copious amounts of haze and the barrage of super bright wash lights behind me I could barely see or hear anything to give me any feedback that things were going well or otherwise. Considering the tens of thousands of pounds worth of gear there I'm sure I could have done as good if not better job with my own equipment. Oh well... At least they paid me well!

Yup as suspected--if you have been reading on here recently I think Justin has had this problem?

All I can say is---imagine having to do my job--instructing Dancing all round the room and having to use the mike extensively

Just be careful you dont get a Bridezilla who is not happy with your microphone work

[Benny Smyth]

My gig last night was by far the worst of 2016.

I'm actually still at a loss for words. I'll report more tomorrow, but the word of the day is dumbfounded.

Yup. Still dumbfounded.

Due to arrive at 6pm for a 7pm start. I turn up at 5:45pm to find the venue staff already turning the room round. Turns out that all the speeches were completed within 10 minutes. The only alcohol that's been served all day is one bottle of Corona - the rest have been soft drinks. Righto...

So we set up and get music playing. All the guests are outside, and I do a quick head count - about 45. I look at my job sheet as I'm sure I was told that there would be many more. After looking, I see that they were expecting 150. Compare notes with the venue, and expected numbers are pretty much the same. B&G have paid for an extra 65 people for the buffet, so some people haven't turned up. Well hopefully there'll be an influx of guests coming in.

There wasn't. I reckon a max of another 30 arrived.

Timings were supposed to be 7pm start, first dance at 8 and the father/daughter dance after the evening food at 9:30. I get told by venue staff that a load of taxis have been ordered for 9pm, so I have a chat with the bride and suggest doing the F/D dance immediately after the first dance so people won't miss it.

First dance is bought forward to 7:30. I think that the venue were sensing that there was no atmosphere, so maybe it's better to kick things off now. So there I go with my introduction...and I get a pretty decent reaction from the crowd. Certainly much better than I was expecting. Whey hey - looks like we may have a good night after all. So first dance done, F/D dance done and then...practically everyone leaves the room.

And that was that. People still in the venue but with the exception of a smattering of dancers, it was like I wasn't even there. At 9pm, a lot of people left. At 11:30, the B&G got in a taxi and left and I'm booked until 1. I'm now in two minds - go home or keep playing. I decide to take down as much as I can, but keep the sound on. Ministry of Sound: Sunset Soul gets played (well I am just background music after all, so what's the point?) and I start taking down my lighting, packing away headphones and mics, power to the laptops packed away. One sub and top packed away as well. Essentially, I slowly packed away as much as I could do leaving the music on. As soon as I got to the point where I had to shut down the music, I turned it all off. I was home and in bed by 1 completely dumbfounded.

There was no feedback from anyone. Couple of requests dutifully played, but nothing else. Nobody telling me I'm rubbish (in fact, those I did speak to were relatively nice people), and I couldn't even read anything from their body language. Like I said, it was like I wasn't there. Apparently the bar took £500 all day.

I've said this to a few people about Saturday night and I'll say it again (and I promise that this is not a sick joke or an exaggeration): I sat with my mom for 27 hours straight at a Marie Curie hospice until she passed away, and that gig was very reminiscent of it. The knowledge that we all know the inevitable ending to this, and it's just a case of waiting around until the final breath.

Never known anything like it.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

Shame you had a gig like that Benny but as you know and as you would say too, it does happen from time to time. It doesn't make it any easier to stomach but I guess it's just one of those things and there's not a lot we can do about it.

The fact you continued to do the job and provide (background) music whilst packing down rather than just shutting off shows that you are professional and care what people think (even though it looked like they weren't bothered what was going on).
You could have easily just said "Sod it" and packed up there and then, cutting the music etc but I know I would've done what you did and probably others on here would've too (I have done in the past).

Forget that one and move on to the next! (it WILL be better!).