The pilgrimage

And so, with the sun high in the sky and long in the night, the pilgrimage began for hundreds - ney, thousands of those that rally to the banner of the flightless bird.

Yip its Parach … uhh… Festival One time. Now, while many of you may have been to one or other of these, very few will have experienced it quite the way I do, and it being a unique experience for me, I thought I would share my view of one of these things for your enjoyment.

For those that don’t know, I’m a Video guy – so in the context of Festival One and previously Parachute, this means that I run a video team. So, for me, my last full pilgrimage began about June. This started with an e-mail in which I did my very best to be clever, witty, ironic, and my normal awesome self. I sent this out to about 30 different people all of whom were previous crew or had, in the past year, expressed an interest in joining my team for the upcoming year. I received some definite yesses, quite a few maybes, and a few no’s.

Next was an e-mail to my boss, the HOD technical at parachute, in roughly July. This set up my expectations for the year (side note: after about March the previous event became last year and the one scheduled for the end of next Jan became this year.) I would be told what our stage would roughly look like, how many crew members I could get onsite and what my output would be: Projector, LED wall etc.

After I had worked out a rough crew, I would talk with my counterpart and fellow video guy about what sort of setup we wanted to produce, how many cameras we would run, and would we finally get to use that crane? And then the important part (roughly September) I would make up the T-shirts for that year. Previous designs included the Palladium incorporated, the Delux Mart, and the battle star palladium.

The t-shirts went to the t-shirt guy in Christchurch and would turn up around a week before festival.

In the mean time I would finalise my team, organise car passes, and wish everyone a very merry Christmas. About December, we would organise the roster for the weekend, trying to take into account the bands that everyone wanted to see and when they would get onsite lunch and dinner breaks, and the skill levels needed for different positions. (Once, we had to rejig the entire schedule at 3am on the Saturday morning. NOT FUN.)

A couple of changes here and there and we get to the week before, Wednesday. This is where the experience proper begins. Wednesday starts by driving out to site and seeing the changes made for the year, we would unpack and begin the setup process. Usually this involves shoulder mounting a camera and walking out to as far as we can go (dependent on the lens) and still get the shot that we need, then marking the ground and beginning the cable run. This takes about a day and at the same time we would setup backstage control.

At different times this has involved hard copper cable, Cat5 or network cable, fibre and even wireless. After setup is complete (usually mid-day Thursday), testing commences and this takes us through to the evening and the crew meeting.

This meeting at different times has been inspiring and boring but there is always ice-cream so that’s good. Afterwards, the fun begins.

Many people think that working backstage is great fun, that you get to meet all the artists, hang out, swap stories and generally have a good time. These people have never been backstage and working.

Backstage is a busy, noisy place that tolerates no fools. There is no great view of the stage and the sound coming from stage is absolutely awful.

My day starts at around 0700, I would get up at home, drag myself out of bed and get to site before 0800 to get some breakfast. Call time is about 0900 or 0930 depending on what is happening that day, and then the talking begins.

My job is to stare at a 40-inch screen about 2 feet away from me. This screen has up to 8 camera monitors as well as a preview and program monitor. I have to check that all of these shots are in focus, think about the shots I have, tell all the cameras what to do while choosing the shot that I want, choose the shot I want next, change the shot and keep coherent while talking to everyone and listening to problems that the camera ops may have, offering solutions and listening to the music.

I do all of this (music dependant) every three seconds or so.

When there are breaks, they have to be handled carefully, because we still need all of our cameras online and available; so for me, lunch, the first break of the day, is usually eaten while backing away from the mixing desk in the 5 or so minutes between acts. Then we continue through to dinner. Sometimes there may be a panel, which is a little easier to shoot, but after dinner usually come the rockier bands, and so more attention is required.

The bands finish up around midnight when we have a hard sound curfew. This is the best time of day. Because after the many cans of V, eating in-between bands and the bowls of lollies on the table, at Midnight we get the crew BBQ organised by one of the best men in Taranaki. This BBQ has become legend among the various crews that have been served by it. After the BBQ, depending on whose turn it is, my night ends in going home and falling in bed, hot, dusty and tired, that or sticking around for the movie to end and shutting down for the day at around 2am.

So that’s Friday. Saturday and Sunday run much the same way, and then there is Monday. Monday runs much the same until about midday when the show stops. Pack up starts very shortly thereafter and will finish for us at around 3pm. As a rule, we help sound and lighting get out, everyone helps everyone, and thus we all get out sooner. About 2pm there is often another round of ice-cream that comes about. After 3 we go home. If you travelled from Wellington, you might get to Taupo, but for me that’s where my experience ends. Until the next year at any rate…