It was an all-day festival at a restaurant on the opposite side of town. The highlight of the day being a carnival and a reunion of the longtime house band from the restaurant.
They asked if they could pay to use our PA for the entire day, 6-7 acts. I discussed the need for power at the stage and the minimum requirements. Everything was agreed and set.
I arrive and find the flatbed trailer doubling as a stage. I look all around for my power. Nothing. I walk 200 yards to the other side of the restaurant to find the bank of outlets next to the karaoke stage – the electrician set up the wrong stage.
The owner – who was not happy from the minute I walked up and said hello – was aware, but didn't want to fix the problem and told me to deal with it. (It seems he knew the error but was worried about other problems.) I was forced to use three or four of the restaurant's orange extension cords and run the 100 feet or so from the building – squeaking by with a circuit for the MT 3600 on the subs and FOH, sharing the 2400 & 1200 on another, and the band on the third.
Fast forward to my employer's appearance and the main reason the people were coming. He gets into the first song when I hear weird stuff, so I go to investigate. My circuit dedicated to the MID/HI amplifiers seems to be very unhappy. I follow the extension cord (!!) to find the note and tape over the shared outlet removed. Someone has plugged something into my circuit. I yank it out, take the cable out, and throw it far away.
As I am walking back to the stage my female singer is yelling and waving her arms while laughing: I have unplugged one of those jumpy-bouncy tents with 15 or so kids inside. They are screaming and running towards the slowly-dissolving door to the tent.
I quickly scrambled to find another circuit before I smothered the frightened kids to death. Made my way through the rest of the set and the house band's set when my FOH FX units started flickering and shutting off. I pulled the plug on the event and the owner – drunk at this point – was trying to start a fight with me for ruining his festival.
– Rob Flaherty, Indianapolis, Ind.
