Ready. . . Or Not. . .

We usually spend a good chunk of time in the winter recovering from summer.  The rest of the time is spent prepping for the next summer.  It's been a never-ending cycle for the last 5 or 6 years.  I don't really remember what my summers and winters were like before that.  Anyway, this winter was a little different.  For some reason, I didn't recover from last summer.  I'm sure some of it has to do with age, some of it has to do with being busy over the winter with house projects and some of it has to do with the last couple of months being extra exhausting.  We also didn't really prep much for summer which means we have a few things hanging over our heads.  I have finally faced the fact that no matter how much or how little time we have and no matter how busy or slow business is, we are a very small company and it's impossible to get everything done.  IMPOSSIBLE.  It would be a little more feasible if we didn't actually, you know, have a life outside of the business but that just isn't the case.  I have a graduation to plan, a tween to get through the end of the school year, a never ending pile of laundry, bills to juggle, pets to care for. . . The list goes on and on and on just like it does for everyone. 

I didn't mean to go off on such a tangent because I really did have a point about prepping for our busy season.  For the most part, we don't have any big purchases or projects to be ready for our regular festivals (except for a few little things like building a new stage by June 10th, finishing up the cases we started last spring and completing the audio snake for our second system) so our main prep was getting our new (to us) Genie lift towers ready for our first festival of the season.  A few months ago, Rob took Zach and his dad on a big road trip to Missouri to pick up these lovely things:

Here are the links to Zach's Missouri slide shows which he finished a few weeks ago and I am just now getting around to posting:

Missouri Road Trip Part 1
Missouri Road Trip Part 2
Missouri Road Trip Part 3

Anyway, I didn't exactly think these were lovely things when Rob decided to purchase them but, like most of the items we have needed in the past for the business, I trusted his judgement and said, "Whatever you need to do. . . "  Turns out he needed to drive to Missouri to pick up 4 Genie Towers.  They are used but Rob trusted the former owner that they were in perfectly good shape and would work great.  The towers were unloaded from the trailer after the trip and took up residence in Rob's shop.  Rob cranked one of them up a few times to check it out and show it off but other than that, they didn't see the outside world until the day before they were loaded into the truck for the weekend festival so Rob and Zach could crank them up and clean them to ensure they would truly, actually work for the event.  Not that I didn't believe they would or anything. . .

It didn't take me long to really appreciate these lovely things.  See how low the truss sits on the tower?

 The whole "roof" is built this low to the ground instead of over our heads like we've done in the past. . .

Instead of putting it all together up at this height like we did last year. . . :

The truss and the canopy can be put on at a very comfortable height like this:

It made a huge difference in both the set up and the tear down.  The Genies worked great and I take back every bad thing I might have said or thought about them. . .

The festival was a two day Cinco De Mayo celebration on Saturday and Sunday. . .

The weather did not cooperate most of the time. . .

The first day ended a couple of hours early like this:

Sunday was a little bit better and the bands were pretty good. . .

This band was my favorite.  They had a great time and played very happy music.  They even made Rob smile. . .

Our set up was directly in front of a set of train tracks that was very well traveled.  Trains came by about every 30-45 minutes. . .

Day two only ended an hour early when this happened:

In spite of the weather and my weariness, the festival was an OK start to the season.  Our stage is solid, the Genie towers are going to make life easier and I think we do a pretty good job of keeping festivals running smoothly.  This marked the beginning of full weekends between now and the end of September, give or take, and there's no turning back now. . . Ready or not, here it comes. . .