Mistakes (the honesty thread)

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

I have lots of others that I can't post on here for legal reasons

[Corabar Steve]

I have lots of others that I can't post on here for legal reasons

Or that the fourm censor would allow

[hammy]

Turning up a whole year early for a wedding....

Now that would have been a classic to have been a fly on the wall.

[soundtracker]

I turned up for a client meeting a fortnight ago, when they didn't show at 11.00am, I twigged that I was an hour early, when they didn't show at 12.00am I phoned home , my son took great delight in telling me that I was also a week early! DOH!

[Corabar Entertainment]

Quite a few moons ago (before everything was computerised and everything was still on paper) we had friends staying with us for a week or two, so, although at home, we were in holiday mode.

We were getting ready to go out for the night mid-week (it was my birthday), and purely by chance, I glanced at the calendar....

... and realised that we had a gig booked in that night that we'd completely forgotten about! (Booked yonks before, and we'd had no contact with them in the preceding weeks/months).

After a very quick change of clothes, and the kit being thrown in the van as quickly as possible, a very grumpy Steve headed off to do the gig, while the rest of us went off out for the night.

That was soooooooo close to being a disaster!

[soundtracker]

Quite a few moons ago (before everything was computerised and everything was still on paper) we had friends staying with us for a week or two, so, although at home, we were in holiday mode.

We were getting ready to go out for the night mid-week (it was my birthday), and purely by chance, I glanced at the calendar....

... and realised that we had a gig booked in that night that we'd completely forgotten about! (Booked yonks before, and we'd had no contact with them in the preceding weeks/months).

After a very quick change of clothes, and the kit being thrown in the van as quickly as possible, a very grumpy Steve headed off to do the gig, while the rest of us went off out for the night.

That was soooooooo close to being a disaster!

I got a bit closer than that! Back in the 70's when there were three of us (and I wasn't involved in bookings!) I had a frantic hammering on my front door at 7.30pm on a Saturday night, and opened it to my mate looking ashen faced, and telling me to get a shift on as we had a gig he had forgotten to put in the diary. We shot off to load the van and made it to the venue within 20 minutes, as we arrived three burly guys were carrying the juke box (which was huge) into the village hall, borrowed from a nearby pub! They gave us a bit of verbal, and we got in as quick as possible, and got set up. The Hall was full, and the whole time we were setting up, they all seemed to be glaring at us! The night was a total disaster, hardly any one danced all night, and we didn't get many requests even. At the end of the night the woman that had organised it came wandering over to have a chat, and immediately booked us for the same date for the following year! We were amazed that we had got away with it, that was 1977, and touch wood, it hasn't happened again since!

[DeckstarDeluxe]

The only mistakes I can recall are announcing the happy couple as Mr & Mrs Baker however Mr & Mrs Barker weren't impressed... (actually they joked about it thankfully)

Last year I was 20 minutes late for a client meeting however thankfully again they were ok about it. I did throw in free uplighting and never felt so bad about something in my life. They did vote for me for the Wedding awards that took place earlier this year so it ended ok but not an experience I'm going to repeat.

[Solitaire Events Ltd]

Oh, I got a first song wrong once too...

Right artist, wrong song.

Don't ask me how.

Luckily, they had a sense of humour and they were fine.

I however, wanted to be swallowed up by a big hole in the ground.

[Shakermaker Promotions]

About 3 or 4 years ago I had 3 Weddings in a row over Christmas. They were on 27th, 28th and 29th if I remember correctly.
At one of them (I can't remember which one), I said "Good Evening Ladies & Gents. Welcome to......" and said the name of the venue that I was at the night before! Everyone laughed which was good.

A couple of months back I had 2 gigs over the weekend that were having Photo Projection as an extra. Both were 40th birthdays and both for ladies. I labelled both folders on the Laptop with the names of the ladies and when it came to the night I got the wrong name for the wrong date so the Slideshow was playing and the lady came over and laughed and said "I don't know who those people are. They look very nice and all that but would it be ok to put my photos up?" - I nearly died of embarassment.

Last one (sorry), I drove to the wrong venue once for a booking. Not a big deal really but it was the fact that I arrived there just in time to get access as there had been a traffic accident and there was a huge tail-back. I walked into the venue relieved and went to reception to let them know I was there. They were confused because they said that they didn't have a function on. I thought the worst and thought I'd been mucked about so went back to the van to check the booking form and sure enough, I was in the wrong place. I had to endure the traffic again, arrived at the venue and they were still sat down eating so no'one knew any different. That was lucky!!

With reference to bookings etc, I don't tend to have any problems in that respect as I double, triple & quadruple check everything. I update my diary, outlook calender and also the calender on my I-phone too so there's no way I can forget something.

[funkymook]

My favourite was putting on track 17 disc 1 of a 2cd compilation - but of course it was track 17 of cd2 - not usually a disaster, but this was a song while the B&G left the reception under an arch of guests - so Rufus Thomas 'Walking The Dog' wan't really appropriate!

New (2nd hand) Satnav - input and saved the venue postcode the night before (it was somewhere on the coast). In the morning option came up for last destination entered, clicked OK and off I went.

Now my sense of direction is rubbish at the best of times but when I saw the signs to Alton Towers even I knew I wasn't heading towards the seaside!

It hadn't saved the night before and was taking the last journey the previous owner had done. To make it worse I only had the venue name on me, no address or postcode, and couldn't get a signal on my phone to call directory enquiries. So kept driving back the way I came - stopping whenever I could hoping to get a signal, eventually did, got the details entered it in and was on my way. Luckily even with my three hour detour I still had plenty of time to set-up (unfortunately I was also supposed to be there for the service as it was friends of mine - don't think they noticed though!).

Got the first dance wrong once - instead of Pulp's 'Something Changed' I put on 'Do You Remember The First Time?' (it was in my First Dance folder so must have had a mental block while I did it and got the wrong song stuck in my mind). Made a million times worse by not having 'Do You...' on the system I was using as my main play-out and I hadn't plugged in my back-up, so took me a few (very long) minutes to sort it - I still shudder about that one.