Behind the Scenes #3: Perry Grosshans, GM

Or, More More More Behind the Scenes at THIN AIR Day 2

Well, we've had Lift Off and now we're in orbit!

Up early this morning to get to MTYP. The next three hours are rush, rush, rush, pray, pray, pray, as I wait for furniture, water, glasses, linens, wine and a fridge to arrive. We hang banners, and drap cloths, and pin skirts for tables, and arrange, arrange, arrange.

It's school event, very entertaining and fun, except that every now and then Ken's lapel mic sounds like a horde of bats is flying over him (really, no fooling...squealing little bats...weird but somewhat fitting).

But that's Day One - little bugs. Eventually Chris C the Tech Guy figures it out: the cordless mic is sharing the same frequency as the cordless mics in another rehearsal room. Fixed.

At the Mainstage tonight, a bunch of little blips and blurps: no quarters for change at the bar (begging people for change); No books for the draw (borrowed them from McNally); Charlene forgetting to mention the surveys and to direct people where to put the finished ones...and really, no designated place FOR them! We still managed to gather a bunch (thanks to all who filled them out), and tomorrow we'll designate a place for finished ones.

All in all, nothing to destroy the Festival, but all those little first night bumps you try to plan for...but can't.

Oh, and Tavia parking in the wrong spot and getting towed, and I had to go and rescue her and Genni Gunn from the U of Wpg and go get her car from the impound lot. Really - hard to plan for that.

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.

Behind the Scenes #1: Perry Grosshans, GM

It's the day before. Loading Day. We pack up what we need from the office, and get the Hospitality Suite ready for the hordes of volunteers and writers to start taking over the space.

Everything seems in order. Everything seems in place. And this is when the momentary panic sets in...

"Did we dot the i's and cross the t's? Or did we dot the t's and cross the i's!?!"

(Perry and Charlene Diehl at the THIN AIR press conference Sept. 3.)

That, I guess, is also the the "fun" part of the job: waiting for those little bumps, those hidden crevices, those sudden disasters that you have absolutely no way to prepare for. But that's why you make sure everything else is working, so that when something unknown does pop up, you can totally devote your time to fixing it, and fixing it quickly.

The first couple of days of Festival Week is usually like that for me. I try to enjoy as much as I can, but I'm never settled in until about day 3. By then, the whole thing has it's own momentum, and really, any little bumps that crop up will be washed away by the flood of preparations.

Charlene Diehl compares our festival to a swan - it's graceful and beautiful to the eye, gliding across the water effortlessly, while underneathe the legs are paddling like crap to keep the whole thing up and going!

Yup. We're the legs. And I'll be running like crap for the first couple of days to make sure it all looks graceful and beautiful.