Behind the Scenes #2: Perry Grosshans, GM

Or, More Musing from Behind the Scenes of Opening Night.

Opening Night is not that stressful, really. It's only the weather which is the crap shoot. And tonight we rolled sevens!

Beautiful clear night, with a bit of breeze to keep most of the mosquitoes away, and warm, warm, warm like early Fall should be.

So, outside event at the Oodena Ceremonial Circle. Cool. Chairs for the audience will be the surrounding hillside and stairs. All we need is a sound system, a few chairs for the readers and greeters, and an extension of the lamp I brought for the podium. No problem.

The Forks maintenance guys arrive at 5:40 and proceed to tell me they've never set up the sound system before.

Heart does a little skip.

But then one says, "Wait, I think I remember Andrew showing me these cords here," and they proceed to plug and play. Thankfully, they get it working. Yay!

We string cords across and around the sacred central circle, set up the wobbly podium ("Yeah," the other says, "We're waiting for it to break to build a new one." Nice.) But it all looks great. The Forks guys pull through! Yay!

Bert Johnson, a friend of Charlene's, is a sound whiz and somehow turns some dials and makes the whole damn thing sound quite amazing and loud enough. Really great sound this year, thanks to Bert, and thanks to the five readers who literally ate the mic to talk into it.

After its over, everyone scatters, but I gotta stay to guard the system before the Forks guys can come back to clean up. It's over, but Lift Off has been achieved.

Tomorrow, I set up the Mainstage...I love it.