What is an acceptable level of backup for suppliers?

[Excalibur]

Inspired by the high jinks between Benny and his tog friend. We were taking Good Gig, Bad Gig too far off topic there, so let's have a new thread. It's not restricted to our good friends the Photographers, it encompasses all suppliers at all functions.

Let's have your tales of when the wheels fell off, and we can discuss what constitutes adequate backup.

I had an " interesting " gig once with a rodeo bull included. The Bull was installed, plugged in, switched on, and all the power went off in our part of the venue!! I'm fairly sure it was an earth leakage fault tripping the system.

The client was not a happy bunny, and the night was going downhill fast, but the Bull Handlers had backup. Off they went for a generator, brought it back, fired it up outside, and ran a cable in. Crisis averted. Only way they could have done better would have been to have the genny in the van before they left for the gig.

Over to you folks, what have you seen?

[ppentertainments]

Singer who had a dodgy xlr lead - and no spare.
He was using a passive setup, jack leads etc so couldn't even 'steal' one from anywhere else.
Venue didn't have one, but I had about 6 spare in total in the van. As he was a bit of a and thought he was the be all and end all to the wedding, I made him sweat until a few minutes before he started till one 'appeared'.

Did I get a thank you and some paper with the queens head on, gracing my hand afterward ? - nope, he just dumped the lead in a corner.

Almost as bad a when there was a DJ in a different room to me who asked to borrow a mic because he never brings one and was amazed at the groom asking for one to make a speech. Had a cheapo I lent him, didn't realise he finished an hour before me and had disappeared with said microphone by the time I finished

[Nakatomi]

I remember doing a joint 40th birthday party when an exasperated photobooth operator came in to ask me to see if anyone had a DSLR with them. I quirked 'oh what happened to your backup camera?' only to be met with a death stare from him. They ended up giving the customer a full refund.

My own backup has only ever needed to be brought into action once & resulted in only a very slight loss in music. The main playout locked up in an audio loop during 'Get Lucky' (therefore nobody was dancing) & the backup brought quickly in. I wouldn't care but it was a gig where Mike from Phase One was there as a guest with his family. I dunno if anybody even noticed cos it was during buffet time I think. That Micron booth doesn't lend itself to hosting two laptops

[Daryll]

we had a singer at my local club , well a singer minus microphone , I had a night off , so I offered for a lift back to my place ( only half a mile), a SM58 (wired) and a 10m XLR , she of course agreed , got a few pints out of it , but I thought it common sense to bring a back up mic , if I had not have been there , there would have been a deathly silence.....

Daryll

[rth_discos]

My attitude towards backup has been "if this failed, can the party continue".

So, for example, I have 2 x Evox 8. That means, if one fails, the other continues. There's still music. Plus, if I'm doing an all-day wedding, I also have a pair of Maui 5 with me. If I had a passive system, I'd be taking a second amp with me.

My mixer is probably the biggest "risk" as everything runs through that. So I have a small usb soundcard that has a mic input on it, that can get me through the night if need be.

I also take 2 x wired mics and 2 x playout laptops (I even have the backup laptop playing the first dance at the same time as the main one, just in case).

Lighting is less important. As I have 2 of each fixture, if one fails, it's not the end of the world.

Equally, any cables can be easily swapped, as I carry plenty of spare XLRs and IEC cables. I also have some spare 4 ways and extension cables.

On reflection, one thing I don't have is a second *very long* extension cable (50m).

One thing I've considered, is a battery powered speaker to leave in the van. In the highly unlikely event of a complete power cut, I'd get a good 3 hours off the laptop battery, and I've got battery powered uplighters that I can set to sound to light. How much of a hero would I be to also have a battery powered speaker ready to go...

But the logistics (ensuring it's charged etc) along with the very slim risk of this happening means I've not yet executed this. Probably something I should consider for marquee weddings, when the power is at greater risk of failing...

[Imagine]

My attitude towards backup has been "if this failed, can the party continue".

My attitude exactly (which incidentally is why I purchased the Maui 28s over and above the new DB system which is a single point of failure)

My mixer is probably the biggest "risk" as everything runs through that. So I have a small usb soundcard that has a mic input on it, that can get me through the night if need be.

I had this conversation a while ago. I have a Denon MC6000 in one flight case, and a VMS4.1 in another, both connected via a little Berhinger mixer into the PA. That said, now I have the Maui's with the Bluetooth capability, I'm looking into ways of doing that in an efficient way should the main laptop/mixer fail (i.e. beam the VDJ output from laptop 2 direct to Bluetooth just to keep things going).

One thing I've considered, is a battery powered speaker to leave in the van. In the highly unlikely event of a complete power cut, I'd get a good 3 hours off the laptop battery, and I've got battery powered uplighters that I can set to sound to light. How much of a hero would I be to also have a battery powered speaker ready to go...

Yup - me too. In fact I had one bride and groom so paranoid a little while ago about the power going that I took along a UPS battery just to keep things ticking over should the worse happen.

And then it occurred to me....a power cut killing my output is the least of their problems in that scenario. The bar will stop functioning (electric tills and pumps)