Thursday, January 12, 2012

Behind the scenes

My father spent his life in retail and was passionate about things like going to a fashion show in New York and finding things that he could sell in his stores in northern Arizona.  They would arrive, he'd put an ad in the paper, make a display and people would come and buy the things that he planned for them to buy.  He loved it! 
I love what I do and I enjoy all of the equipment and services and artistry and other things that go into an event behind the scenes.  I'm kinda like my father, I enjoy seeing people come to an event and have the good time that we all planned for them to have.   
Setting up an LED screen behind the stage and some testing in progress. 
Somebody snapped a shot of me setting up some sound equip but it became a silhouette with the screen being tested.
"Recharge!" was the name of the event.  You can see my DJ workstation behind the pillar in the right of this shot.
I snapped this one just before the event was to begin.  Room is all set.  This event had 500 people but this venue holds about 800 for concerts and such.  The balcony on the right and behind my head has more space than is evident in this shot.  They are doing an expansion that will accommodate about 1500 soon.
 My friends- The Lisa Pressman Ensemble playing some great jazz for about 45 minutes.  I played most of the night before and after them. 
I love that I get to be the "face" of an event and people will often come and thank me for the good time that they had not realizing all of the various trades that made it happen but that did NOT get to be on stage to be recognized for it.  There's technical crews in sound and lighting, tables, chairs, linens, china, photography, flowers, caterers and it goes on and on. 

Here's another part that the guests don't see- the load out.  All of this stuff goes into road cases to go to another event on another day.