Music for Deaf People
Wowee, the second year of my university life has definitely been eventful. Pretty much every assignment this year has been horrendous and honestly quite draining, but of course, there is one obvious exception which has completely saved my motivation and willpower to complete this degree.
Subwoofers seemed like an attainable but daunting goal when we first heard about it; since Winterland 2016 (remember that fun-filled experience?), in the first year, we were prepared to fill the concourse at the uni again with fun and interesting rides and attractions to bring in people from all around Wycombe. So when our lectures told us the success of Winterland had prompted a local charity, with a 23 Acre grass field, to try putting on their own music festival, and that they wanted us to work with them to make this the biggest event they’ve done yet.
What?
Winterland wasn’t the stressful failure I thought it was? External parties wanted to use our event management skills with their resources to put on another event? woo-wee.
So I've spoken on this all before but we were put into the four main management teams: Logistics, production, Talent and marketing. I started in logistics but was moved to help liaise with the Talent team and the stage manager and was eventually fully inducted into the production team and for the last few weeks leading up to the event I had become the second stage manager and had to make sure that everything was going to run smoothly within that department. really a lot of the work for the second stage had already been done and I was simply making sure that people still had the right information, such as the most updated versions of the stage times and besides that, I was helping other productions members, in whatever way I could.
(Subwoofers flyer)
SUBWOOFERS 2018 was amazing, it was easily my favourite assignment of the year; there were so few problems on the day and the sun was absolutely beaming. The expected stress was about in the morning, as still, some jobs had to be done from the day before, signs were to go up, traders and a few rides were still to arrive. And a most recent addition, 300 deck chairs had to be unloaded in front of the stage. I managed to arrive 15 minutes late as I woke up at 6:59AM and missed the coach at 7 and had to leap into a taxi.
So upon arriving we were quickly given jobs based on what still needed most urgently doing, regardless of their roles in the teams, (i’ll get back to this later buts it’s important) and the rest of the set up was fairly quickly done, which was good as the attendees were starting to arrive and the site was soon to open. deck chairs got unloaded, Herace fencing went up, queue systems were built, and then re-built as sections of ped barrier were stolen to quarantine the main stage and front-of-house booth. The only photo I have of myself on site is me helping the logistics team leader trying to put those really dodgy signs together, you know, those ones that have been around since bucks live was conceived? Those things are in dire condition...
(Oh look, it's me wow)
Being the second stage manager was probably the easiest thing I've done in my academic life. A quick comparison to Winterland here; when I was managing the second stage 1.5 years ago I overestimated my own knowledge and realised that I had severely over advertised myself, there were loads of things I hadn’t considered and had to make quick solutions. It was all very messy.
This time around though, I had at first decided to avoid production on this event, and see what I could do for the logistics team. However, things went as they did and I got pulled in by the “Production Gals” to sort out backline stuff and see that the second stage was up and running on time. Since Winterland, it was obvious that I had somewhat of a better idea of what would need to happen to make sure my stage would be a success.
There was one problem with this. The production team were too good. Every time I had an idea, a suggestion or a question that I thought hadn’t had much thought to it, I’d have about 4 people reassure me in harmony, about what has been done and how I shouldn’t have to worry about that specific aspect. Every time I was worried about something I’d simply mention it and my fears would be washed away by this angelic production choir. (Adrienne, the main stage manager, said “Don’t worry, we got this Michael” literally 3 times every meeting) My stage had a tent, power, all necessary backline, PA equipment and a flipping engineer before I even knew I was running it.
The day went so quickly I barely noticed, I had to make sure that my stage was on time with all its acts and there were no major disturbances to the lineup. In reality, about 80% of my stages’ artists either started or finished late, but due to the wonderful inexperience of the talent and production teams (in relation to solo artists), myself and the delegated engineer decided that the 20 minute changeover times were ludicrously overestimated and that we could be “flexible as fuck” with this lineup. this worked out nicely, and my stage stopped playing music before curfew, just for the record.
(Jack Little performing on the second stage at Subwoofers)
The biggest problem I faced all day was making sure artists got to the stage on time, I was constantly using the radio to contact the production office and see if the artists had arrived on site and that they were ready to be at my stage when needed. some artists made their own way and others couldn’t be found in time, but because the lineup was as flexible it was almost not an issue.
Dan was late, by the way.
The only artist who was also in our class turned up 10 minutes late for the only set he had been booked into; although it didn’t really matter because he could have almost doubled his set time without infringing on the artist following him. No one seems to know what he was doing when he was asked after, but he seemed to enjoy his stroll for about 100 yards across the main field before he arrived at my tent. He put on a good show though when he did go on. Everyone enjoyed Dan the Guitar.
The day rounded up quietly, my stage stopped playing music at exactly 5:40pm and we had a soft close up till 6pm, as I asked a nearby steward to close up the side of the tent one by one, encouraging people to leave. After a quick sweep of the tent for litter, I set the engineer free from my control and allowed him to de-construct all his equipment and pack it all down. I went back to the life of odd jobs, trading 21mm spanners with people and chatting back and forth on the radio helping find lost event staff and going on suntan lotion runs.
(Bucks Live Lettering)
Overall the day was pretty breezy, it went a LOT better than I ever expected it to, this being because there were many small and recurring problems leading up to the day as well as assumed bad reception by the public. Now the marketing team inevitably did a good job, and it can’t be denied that the sunny weather had a part to play in our turn out, but I was still sure that there were going to be quarrels and arguments between everyone, but it just didn’t happen. It was kushty, to say the least.
https://www.bucksherald.co.uk/news/picture-gallery-thousands-enjoy-fun-in-the-sun-at-saunderton-music-festival-which-has-a-woof-in-its-step-1-8494970
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/16211630.Thousands_flock_to_first_ever_family__deaf_and_dog_friendly_music_festival/