August 7-8 Friday and Saturday, Stage Set Up In The Park (and The Egyptian). . .

I'm writing this post on Monday morning, August 24th after a physically exhausting weekend. For the next two days, if I have my way, I'll be sitting in my house trying to recover from this busy summer where there still doesn't seem to be much of an end in sight. Hopefully I'll even have a chance to get up-to-date on my blog!!!

This post marks the beginning of 3 weeks of back-to-back-to-back shows where we were double-booked most of the time and set up a stage and canopy a total of 5 times (we used it 3 times in June, 1 time in July and will use it 6 times in August). The stage set up is not only time consuming but takes a huge amount of physical labor and usually includes 2 or 3 days of audio work before we take it all down again. These pictures are from an event that we set up for but didn't actually have to attend or provide anything else for. Kurt brought Hailey and Hayden and the 4 kids had a great time hanging out (and working!!) at the park.

It was a very rainy day so we spent half the day soaking wet waiting for the rain to let up enough for us to set up. I don't remember a lot about it but I know I was tired and crabby. . .

I realize this is a picture of porta-potties. One of my least favorite parts of this business for me is the fact that porta-pots are sometimes the only option. I hate porta-pots. Ick. . .

Once the skies cleared up a bit things got easier and I got less crabby. . .

Plus, the kids always cheer me up. . .

It's hard to be in a bad mood when these kids are around. . .

I turned my camera over to Hailey while we finished up the stage and, as always, she took some great pictures:

Once the rain stopped the actual set up only took about 4 hours, but the unpredictable weather made it an all day ordeal. We decided not to crank up the lift stands until morning just in case the rain picked up again. . .

SATURDAY A.M.

It rained all night and most of the morning but the show must go on. We were back at the park before 8 a.m. to add the finishing touches and to crank it up so Ric could set up his audio for the two-day festival. Since this was a beer-fest, one of the first things to be loaded onto the stage was a keg. Glad I had my camera handy for this shot:

(too bad the keg hadn't been tapped yet. . . )


After I draped the stage and helped crank it up, I enjoyed sitting back and watching other people work . . .

And, yes, I would rather fly our speakers off the truss any day rather than lift these giant speakers up onto scaffolding!!!

Even though it's a huge amount of work, there's always a bit of satisfaction when everything is up and looking good. . .

This is Ric. He used to run sound for the band Rob was in back in the late 80's. He was one of the first case customers we had when we started the business and he has supported us through the years even though we've become his competition.

It kind of cracks me up that there are jump-houses at a beer fest. . .

It was nice to walk away from it all knowing that we didn't have to be responsible for anything else!!!

I don't remember much about the rest of that day but I'm sure it included paperwork. Kurt ended up working at The Egyptian for the next couple of days on a show that needed a little (or a lot!) of help . . .