Backstage

Now Then...

So, where was I now?.. Ah yes, I was swamped with work, and I had finally just fixed my truck... Allow me to sum up the time between then, and now...

Imagine if you will, working 15 - 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for over a month straight, and overall, the month before that we ran around 12 hours a day, 7 days, with a couple holidays thrown in... You might imagine that to be somewhat tiring, and you would in fact be correct!.. Naturally it should never have come to that extreme, but somehow it always seems to go like that for some reason... The reason you ask?.. Well let me note a few of the highlights...

Over half the set, better than 40, 14' tall flats warped irretrievably over one night, and we had to rebuild them. This is an entire post of its own regarding materials....

Over half the moulding for the set was built incorrectly by one particular idiot I hired, and shall never hire again...

All of the upholstery had to be carefully ripped off and the base boards cut down, and then reupholstered due to a miscommunication someplace...

All of the custom tables we had made had to be reinforced after we got them in and stained when we learned that the shop had only glued the legs on as a result of one leg falling completely off.

All the speaker grills had to be re-cut for the tables as we failed to think about the material curving a bit, so they were re-cut, and stiff-back bends put on them.

The fabric coverings on the giant cubby units became an issue when we couldn't get the correct fabric in time, the alternate material was an absolute nightmare to work with, and the supplier was geologically slow. (and that's being generous...)

One of my carpenters was getting sicker by the day, and was committed elsewhere at night... He toughed it out to the end, but nobody has heard from him since then, and he isn't returning calls... We're all getting worried way beyond an employer... Two more days and we're going hunting for him, which will be tough since nobody knows where he actually lives...

We got kicked out of the paint space we had arranged for, which complicated things to say the least... We eventually found another space, but it was right down to the wire...

The client changed the finish treatment after everything was stained, so we had to re-do everything that was done...

Now, that was all before we put the scenery on the 3 trucks... I'll get in to what went on down there in another post that will cure insomnia... The kicker on all this was, once we were swimming with sharks regarding this show, we got contacted by the Brits we did a show for in the fall, and they had 2 shows during the time we were in Florida with this huge beast... Somehow, we managed it all... That however is another post...

Posted by Backstage at February 15, 2006 09:07 PM | TrackBack