It's another Shutdown Monday. (Sing that to the tune of the Prince/Bangles song.) Will it ever end? We've been assured back payment through legislation signed all the way through......but damn!
I finished with another Star of Texas Tattoo Art Revival tattoo convention at the Long Center this last weekend. It's three days of fairly brutal work, most of it mental. This year's went pretty smoothly, although there was time drama and a bit of sound drama. More on that in a bit.
I've been involved with the convention since its inception, in 2002, leading to the first one in 2003. I've known the creator/head honcho since 1995, and she had been talking about doing one in Austin for a couple of years before actually throwing down and making it happen. My initial involvement was only in creating and maintaining the website. That website still exists, although it's been modified much over the years. For a while, Head Honcho had five conventions going in five different cities, so the website expanded greatly. It's a website that's looking creaky now, as most folks have moved to content management systems to streamline content and make websites look like everybody else's (i.e. boring). Still, it's functional, easy to navigate, and yet, I'm slowly working on replacing this website with one built in WordPress. Work for later.
Over time, HH decided she wanted to add entertainment to attract more customers, so she asked Michelle to start performing bellydance in conjunction with the convention. So, when the Austin convention was still at the Red Lion hotel, Michelle performed in adjoining areas. Bands would also perform in areas away from the main floor, but that idea became less attractive after a while. Other acts began to be brought in, specifically sideshow acts. For quite a while, a guy named Chris Longo did the announcing at the convention, and I always thought he was rather good. He knew a lot about the tattoo world and could always fill up time with interesting stories. I would always show up and talk to folks I knew at the convention and just hang out in general, but I had no specific job at the time.
I can't remember what year it was, but HH asked if I would be the announcer for the next convention. I told her I'd like to, but I really knew very little about the tattoo world (basing that rationale on the previous announcer). She said that doesn't matter.....give it a go! So I did. Around the same time, or maybe it was the next year, she realized she really needed someone to wrangle the performing talent, and I got that job as well. I wasn't quite a stage manager at the time, but that's what I became. So now, however many years later, I find myself the website maintainer, convention announcer, and stage manager for all the entertainment. It's a lot, but I always pull it off somehow. And with very limited/creaky equipment.
So, 2019's convention went fairly well overall. There were a couple sticky areas, but we plowed through. I'll try to give a basic rundown of what I do.
I get to the convention floor on Friday about opening time, grab the wireless hall microphone (courtesy of the Long Center), and begin setup of the entertainment stage. Our stage setup is pretty basic and doesn't take too long to accomplish. We have two sets of preset LED lights, so I put those downstage left and right. We have a simple four-channel PA (an old one of mine; it's being replaced for next year) and two speakers with that. Pretty simple. I usually make hall announcements every 30 minutes or so on Friday, and then when I can on Saturday and Sunday (more on that later).
Announcements usually consist of what entertainment we have for the evening, details about the convention (we have a Kids Area, after party info, tattoo contest categories and where to sign up, Tattooed Gloves boxing info, etc.), and "notices" (we found your credit card, phone, etc.). It's harder than it sounds, as none of this is written out, and I pretty much wing it each time I turn the mic on.
Entertainment runs Friday and Saturday nights, and Sunday late afternoon. This last one had Michelle doing bellydance, the Jigglewatts Burlesque troupe (who've done this about seven years now), the Lizard Man sideshow (he's going on seven or eight now), Altercation Punk comedy (first time), and the Divas of Illusion drag show (third time for them). On Friday night, we always have plenty of time for entertainment, because it's the first thing hitting the stage. Saturday and Sunday are different stories. We have tattoo contests both days, and we hold them on the entertainment stage, beginning at 2:00. And the amount of time the contests take is highly variable, due to the uncertainty of number of contestants, how long the judges will take looking over the pieces, etc. What this means is both Saturday and Sunday could get way behind timewise and become a major headache for your poor stage manager. In other words, if the contests run overtime, then that is likely to push the entertainment later, and well....people can become unhappy quickly.
And we had a big case of that on Saturday this year. Now, over the years, we have streamlined the contests to run pretty smoothly. I'm the announcer for the contests, and I'll call people to line up and get ready to go on stage. They'll go up there, show the work to the judges, and then exit to get their picture taken. The last few years, we've had our trophy presenter really step up to the plate and help out tremendously in not only keeping contestants wrangled but in signing up late entries (we usually have a ton of those, and once you've opened that possibility, everybody seems to want to sign up as late as possible). So, imagine you're sitting there for several hours, calling up contestants and info about what they're showing, coming up with your own ever-so-witty asides, occasionally switching to the wireless hall mic to announce something in there, having people interrupt you to ask you questions while you're trying to do all this.....well, it's a mess sometimes, but it's kind of a fun mess, I have to admit. Once the contests are over, it's time to strike stuff from the stage and get everything ready (music, lights, etc.) for the entertainment. Saturday.....uh.....
So, this year, Saturday was loaded with contestants. I mean, loaded. And to make matters shorter timewise, we had added comedy to the slate of entertainment, so that meant another 30 minutes was taken up. Not good. We'll have to change that next year, no doubt. This year, the entertainment to begin at 6:00 began at 7:00. That's not a good thing to do to performers who may have gigs elsewhere they have to get to. And a couple of the Jigglewatts performers on Saturday had to leave for other commitments, so I let them go on first, followed by Michelle. Which was a good thing, too, as I had Michelle scheduled first for some reason each day. The bad thing about starting as late as we did was that the audience had dried up significantly by the time Michelle had finished. There was most definitely a smaller crowd on Saturday than we had on Friday, and that's never the case. Friday is usually our slow night. This time, it was the entertainment portion's best audience. Weird. But understandable. I think we should have the comedy on Friday only, if we're going to do it next year, that's for certain. Or trade it for something else on Saturday. The drag show was not happy with the lateness of their slot on Saturday, and I can't blame 'em. It's tough when, as stage manager, you're the face of the entertainment machinery, but you have absolutely no control over the clock.
Sunday was better. We had time for everything, but a sound snafu happened during Michelle's performance. The music suddenly "went out" toward the end of her performance, due to, I think, the main volume having a dirty pot. The PA being used incorporates a PA head that I bought in 1988, if that tells you anything about what I'm working with here. The aux RCA inputs on the front feed directly into the main channel, so I can only control the music volume on whatever device it's coming from. After some scrambling, I got the music back on in about a minute, and Michelle, to her credit, jumped back up and finished her number. She was a trooper, for sure. I do have HH convinced we need a new PA before next year, and I'm shopping for one now.
So, that's about it to report about this year's tattoo convention. Other than Saturday's lateness (and we still got to the Tattoo of the Day contest only 25 minutes late, by some small miracle), everything went fairly smoothly. Next year, the convention is in a larger hall, so that should be interesting, and I hope, better.
End the shutdown!
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