OK, here it comes again. As we approach the end of the year, I find myself with a tendency to get Serious. Sorry, it's a character defect that I continue to work on, to little avail.
While I want to review the year and take some time to reflect and be grateful, it is an insanely busy time of the year. Here at Timeless World Headquarters, we are up to three monthly magazines (FOH, PLSN and Stage Directions) plus the annual Event Production Directory. (By the way, that little reference guide that so many of us turn to in time of need is finally going electronic as well as print. That's good news — especially for those of you who spend significant time on the road — but it is a hellacious amount of work to get it into the new format.) Plus, I have a couple of side projects (including trying to front a large band again — just how stupid am I?) that make time even tighter. Add to that the general holiday craziness plus the fact that the last six weeks of the year bring my daughter's birthday (she just turned 16 — more worries for dad), Thanksgiving, my wife's birthday and Christmas. And I know I am far from alone.
I got a call from an FOH writer who owns a sound company the other day, and he said "I was trying to figure out why I was running around like such a maniac, and then I realized that I have 54 rentals or shows in the month of November." And things don't really heat up in Las Vegas until the rodeo gets here in early December.
But most of us in the live event audio world — regardless of the number of shows we do a year — can relate to that on at least some level. That's because, while all those millions of people are gathering for events like company Christmas parties, we are the ones who were there starting the night before, loading in a stage and a sound system and dealing with hotel riggers and other impossible personalities. Most of us will think about holiday shopping several times in the coming weeks — usually during a moment of calm during the storm of a gig, and the thought goes more like, "Crap, I still have to go out and buy presents. When do I have a day off?" (For a more humorous than dour take on all this, check out the "'Twas the Night Before Curtain" poem on page 20 — and if you know who wrote it, drop us a line, so we can give credit where it's due.)
Some of us get the rep for being anti-social because we don't show up for parties thrown by friends and family, and if we do it's a quick appearance. (Like the ones we make at the parties thrown by clients. Gotta make those. They're not parties. They're marketing.) But like the retailer who makes 20–40% of their sales in the next month, this is an important time of year for us to stay on top of business if we want to stay in business in '07.
All that being said, try to take a little time — even if it is at 3 a.m. after the gig, when you get home and everyone else is long asleep — to take a look at the last year. Note the high points and the low, and try to figure out how to not repeat the low ones. But most of all, be grateful that we get to do what we do. Yes, it is a crazy, cutthroat business. Yes, you work way too many hours for the money you make, and, yes, you are going to have to spend a chunk of that end-of-the-year windfall on new, highertech gear if you want to stay competitive. So what? We could still all be shuffling paper in some soul-killing office just waiting for that clock to click over to five (or more like six in these days of corporate "rightsizing").
Try this, just for kicks. The next time someone says something to you about how cool your job must be and how you get to go to shows and parties all the time, don't tell them about how much you've grown to dread shows and that a party for you is just more work. Don't tell them about the 16-hour days, the crazy clients or the gear that goes "kaboom" in the night.
Instead, take a second and picture yourself behind a desk doing something mindless, look the person in the eye and say, "Yeah, you're right. It's pretty cool."
