So, I bid on this gig — the sound, the lighting and the generator. It was a relatively large area with a wide stage backed by a waterfall. The client wanted to make the waterfall change in colors; he also wanted a followspot for a performer who goes into the audience. I took the initial meeting with a buddy who does amazing set design work and brings very cool ideas to the table, fitting every size budget including zero. I sent this client the old package price bid and he proceeded to cherry pick what he wanted and the prices. That usually only irritates me a little, but then I sent over a contract with the description “client didn’t take package, but took package pricing” written in bold font. Childish, but it made me feel better.
Wasting Time
Needless to say, we were soon in cheap-out mode, and so I made another trip to the venue with my lighting guy where we put together each look requested and the list of gear to achieve it. I sent this to the client, who responded in a conniption fit! All together, I was under the initial number we discussed, so I was very confused and told the client my logic of fitting everything in his budget. He acted like we never discussed a budget! But I double-checked with my set design buddy. It was definitely a little selective memory on my client’s side.
So, I made the umpteenth call with a little trepidation — remember, I had two trips to the venue invested myself, not to mention two other production pros. We started from scratch with me asking the client for the real, actual, genuine, authentic, honest-to-goodness factual number. I may not have used those words exactly, but this guy was starting to smell like a time waster.
Ah, then the real story comes out. He has another sound engineer who is much cheaper than I am. That will be an important part of our story. This was a showcase gig set up to sell the show to the property where the performance was taking place. Failing that, the client was doing a four-camera video shoot to edit and sell elsewhere.
So, I wind up dropping sound, and my company is now handling lighting and a generator, feeder cable and distro box setup. We are at 10% of my original budget. Basically using none of my stuff, and I have scheduled myself as the gear hump who gets to run a little, squinty lighting board on a tiny lighting system.
They Balk!
I do a take-away close: “I have minimized the gear and techs involved. If my price is still outside the range of your budget, I don’t believe we can accommodate your needs for this event. I appreciate the opportunity, please keep my fat, lazy heine in mind for the future.” As you can guess, you have to be ready to lose the client, and at this point, I was ready to lose, disembowel, eviscerate and wallop this guy.
As this was done by e-mail, he soon called and tongue-bathed my ego. I told him his deposit was late and to put it, and the signed contract, in the mail that day. We were a week out or so from the event and I was in big-man mode now.
The original guy, the set designer that I took to the site-review, is one of those guys who enjoys sharing the misery or at least putting up with my whining. We were enjoying the “fun” of dealing with this guy, who obviously has no production experience, when he called on the other line. I asked my buddy to “hold” with the old “speak of the devil.”
Annoyance Turns to Humor
There’s a point during every annoying gig where it just becomes funny. I don’t know if this just happens to me, but I find some requests laughable, to the point that I can’t hide the glee in my face or my voice!
“El Grande Nutbar” had called to see if Tuesday was good for us for a full dress rehearsal with production! Did I mention this was a one-off at a pool that gets used every day? I just couldn’t help myself — I started laughing right in his ear. I thought maybe he was joking, and it would have been a good joke, but 30 seconds into my guffawing I realized that I was the only one who got the joke.
Um, ah, awkward… “No,” I had to tell him, “Unless you want to double the budget, we won’t be out there on Tuesday.” Then he wanted just me to show up. Again, I told him that wouldn’t be happening. He did seem a little confused at my lack of donateable time for his event. And I was done explaining. “See you Saturday,” I said with my purest form of fake enthusiasm. I clicked over to my friend, explained the call and enjoyed his reaction for a full five minutes as well.
On to the gig! We arrived about 20 minutes early and started to load into an area where there were so many safety orange cables strewn about I thought the Irish Protestants must be doing the gig. We were going to be safe, underpowered, but safe!
As we all do, I had resolved to keep my head down and just do my job. But the sound engineer had the two wireless mics dropping out and getting hit on a pretty regular basis. And not getting hit a little, but whammed to the point that I jumped a few times as my ears began to hurt. The cathedral reverb overly awash on these mics really only became evident during the three hours where the MC made announcements. You have to admire a guy who has a mains rig set up with seven mismatched speakers and no EQ. The sound check of the monitors was proceeding with the Elvis tracks — and I didn’t know they made retro MP3s. The technique is apparently to be very loud and muffled, but what really put the icing on the cake was the vastly variable levels of the tracks with no learning curve from the sound guy.
A Horror Show
The results are horrifying, but maybe we are doing a horror show… Remember, I wasn’t here for the full dress rehearsal production check. The resort guests, average age of 60, looked like they might enjoy an obnoxiously loud, smeary performance. Oops, there goes the wireless again. Sorry, I jumped. I wouldn’t do anything about it, like change the channel or try and raise it — it should be fine by show time!
I was witness to this nightmare, which honestly made me feel better about my past sound screw-ups. There were two highlights of my day: the first being the scrawny, elderly guest who decided I was in charge and yelled at me for five minutes until the “producer” raced over. This guest was one of those strange people who doesn’t enjoy painful audio. My lighting guy on the followspot tower, with a perfect view and close enough to hear the verbal bashing, almost wet his pants as I was berated. The surrealness of the moment was awesome as my grin almost caused this gentleman to come to blows, drawing up the maximum of his brittle, jumbo-shrimp postured, 140-pound body to the point where I was concerned for his health.
The other highlight was the boss hugging me after the show, thanking me for my efforts. He also said, “well, I guess you get what you pay for” and “It was the worst sound ever.” Think he made a mistake going cheap? Do you think they got a gig or a video out of this? Did I badmouth the other sound guy? No. Did I earn the client’s respect and trust? Yes. Did I earn the client’s future business? Who knows…
Sergeant Schadenfreude says, “Keep it civil out there!” (Cue “Hill Street Blues” theme.)
