Sound n' Sight

Choose An Event Production Team that Has Your Back

The following is a guest blog article by Tahira Endean. If you are interested in guest blogging for Sound n' Sight, please read my guest blogging guidelines . And if you have any thoughts, please comment below. Tahira and I both would love to hear what you have to say!

One of the most fantastic things about events is the inherent collaboration required for success. I am reminded of this often when on site, and have several great recent examples where our partners, particularly our technical partners have simply rocked it.

What It REALLY Takes to Produce an Event

Here is a reality clients rarely consider. Your event is three hours or three days long. As the Event Producer, It will take between 65 and 350 hours to plan this event, from initial concept through the final paperwork and compiling all the details with each of the suppliers who will make it happen.  

For every supplier it will take them each a number of hours to schedule the equipment, staffing and transportation required for their portion of the event. It will take us between 1 and 8 hours to get to the venue, and then 5 – 36 hours to set it up depending on the size and complexity, load in access and set times available at the venue. 

This does not happen in eight hour days, it happens when it needs to and often incurs very long days to accommodate the set and strike times allocated when the venue was booked / available.
 
It is rare to have a good load in with clear access where you load straight off the truck and into the room you are using, with no interference. It is much more common to have one loading bay you are sharing with all the other deliveries, both for your event and the daily operations of the venue you are in; there are often elevators that hold two road cases when you have a 53’ trailer(s) full to load in; or in the case of some of our events this summer on the top of the mountain where a gondola is the only access and you can load every second to third gondola as you are sharing these with the people accessing the mountaintop.
 
On a very simple show, let’s consider this schedule. Presume that the equipment is pulled on a Tuesday, loaded onto the trucks and the team is home for dinner. Wednesday the crew call is for 6am, so you are up at 430 to go to work. You load in the trucks, drive to the venue, taking two hours for example. You then spend two hours unloading the truck(s) and rolling the gear in on the generally not fantastic route.

'You may have a sandwich sitting on a road case'

It then takes six hours to set up, so it is now 4pm. You are balancing setting staging, seating, scenic elements, projection, sound and lighting in a seamless and integrated fashion that sets the stage through thoughtful design for maximum impact and learning.

You may have eaten breakfast in the truck and depending on if you are in a union venue or not; using the requisite crew, you may also have had a mandatory lunch break, or you may have had a sandwich sitting on a road case. So assuming lunch it is now 5pm and you have been up for over 12 hours. That is about the time the producer brings the client into the room where they want to make sure everything works, test their slides and have an impromptu rehearsal, but of course we don’t mind and we make it happen.
 
Inevitably there are changes to be made – usually this is the time, depending on the scale of the show and the amount of pre-production that the on-site techs have put into the show that the edits begin, as it is often the first or second time perhaps the presenters have actually spent time with the material they are presenting.

So the editing begins and can be anywhere from a couple of hours to overnight. Now, if we had a team of robots on site with us, this would be simple. But we don’t – we have talented, hard – working, highly dedicated human beings who care deeply about the success of every single show they work on. So they stay, and they get it done, and surprisingly, they don’t complain.
 
After what is never enough sleep, they are back for the next 7am rehearsal, sometimes with coffee available if someone thought to order it or there is a nearby shop open, sometimes just with water. Still, they run the show like the professionals they are all day, and at 4pm when the delegates go for their break, the reset for the evening event begins.

Perhaps this includes reprogramming the lights, reworking the awards presentation as the clients change the order and the script on site, greeting the band and doing a sound check and negotiating ladders and lifts among the tables and chairs that are being dropped for the dinner which the décor / scenic crew is madly rushing to set before the 6:30pm reception and 7pm doors for dinner.Once the doors open, the show continues and dining, awards and dancing go on until midnight, or if they are having a really good time, 1 or 2am.

Naturally the client has questioned the cost of production, particularly the labour so you have run a tight show with an equally tight team.  This same team then will be back at 7am for the next morning’s call, run a show all day and then if this is the last day, now say Friday, they will finish the sessions, strike immediately following the sessions as the venue has another group moving in at midnight, load the trucks, drive home, unload the trucks, store all the gear back in its proper locations, and get ready to do it all again.  

A Team That Has Your Back

Technology is the backbone of content delivery, and while the message is critical, if the technology distracts rather than supports the message it is all for naught. Having a team that has your back and that will deliver no matter what it takes is what makes us stand out from our competition.

As the producer, ensure when you are choosing your partner, that you choose a group who understands the meaning of TEAM, who will partner with you from the beginning to choose the methods that will best support the format of your content being delivered and will send the team on site that will work with you to create memorable and relevant events. While staying within the allocated budget, and ideally without surprises wrought by poor planning post event.  

As the end client, when you choose your producer, ensure it is someone who knows how to work with not only your technology partners, but who understands how to listen to your objectives and combine technology, décor, food and beverage, logistics, venues, transportation and all the pieces that will support your success with each and every meeting.
 
Then bring on the right team and have some fun as you work the long hours and longer days required for successful events to happen time and time again!
 

Tahira Endean, CMP has produced events with amazing teams of technical experts around the world and currently enjoys producing events primarily in Western Canada with a crack team of professionals who always, always, always get it right.

(Show photos courtesy of Icon Presentations)

If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing to the RSS feed for Sound n' Sight.