What we dun last weekend - no sailing involved!

I put up a brief posting about our activities at the IWA National Waterways Festival the other day, now First Mate Rik has uploaded some decent photos (unlike my rubbish ones) so here's some more detail ...

Rik and I first met in 2004 in damp and drizzly Burton-upon-Trent in a marquee in a field by a sports hall where we lashed together a PA system out of whatever bits and pieces we could beg steal or borrow off the bloke supplying the public address equipment. It worked pretty well! Nearly a decade later and it's a very different ball game as we now use all our own equipment and we're a lot more sophiticated ... well a bit more sophisticated anyway!

About half past seven in the morning, we start with a bare venue - the stage has been built and the tables put in place the previous day by the site crew from Waterways Recovery Group (like us, all volunteers)

Our job now is to turn this from a bare shell into an entertainment venue capable of hosting theatrical performances, seminars and live music and we've got less than 8 hours to do it!



The rostrum at the opposite end of the marquee








The load in underway - all the equipment is unloaded from the van and stacked in three separate "piles", audio (PA), lighting and stage/set

By lunchtime, we're well on the way with the job. The set around the stage is built of a combination of scaff pole, ladder truss, wire and theatrical drapes and took me two years to perfect. It looks a lot more expensive than it actually is!

A.B. Mark (a.k.a. Ladder Monkey) and I rigged all the flown clamps and wiring

The girls - Barbara, Jane, Heather and Shelagh - do the time consuming task of hanging and tidying the drapery better'n I've ever managed to do it!

Meanwhile Rik has all but completed the audio installation and Tony, assisted by Peter, is well on the way to building the front of house lighting bar and installing the stage lighting


Following the quiz the previous evening (yes, we were ready!), the following morning saw the venue in seminar mode

Meanwhile at the other end of the site we had a second outdoor venue to set up and take down each day


Most days this venue ran with our small 300W PA but for Sunday morning it needed a lot more oomph so we installed be bigger rig temporarily before moving it back up to the main marquee ready for the evening - an 18 hour day in 30 odd degrees, and we do this for fun???

 I still get roped into performing on occasions, twice this year with Barbara of Braunston Pickle fame as a scratch fill in act.

Meanwhile my mate Tony is a picture of concentration as he runs the lighting show from two controllers and a laptop!

The Saturday night headline band - a great act called Wired

It was more of the same on Sunday culminating with the closing performance by Phoenix Jazz on the main stage. Due to ridiculous conditions imposed by the local authority, they had to be off the stage by 10:00pm.

That did have one advantage - we got to start breaking down a whole two hours earlier than usual! By bedtime the drapery was all down and out and a lot of the cabling had been pulled

The next day it was down and out! Everything down and then everything out. However, nothing goes into the back of the van until everything has been sorted into the relevant "heaps". This time it's kit that is stored at our house, kit that is stored at Tony and Shelaghs' and Riks' kit. Only then can we start loading the van

And there it all was ... gone

All that remained was a final tidy up removing any rubbish we'd inadvertently left behind and one last "idiot check" to make sure no small items of kit had been overlooked

All done and dusted by late afternoon

One day in, three days operating, one day out - although some of the crew were on site the previous afternoon to set up our camping and we didn't leave until lunchtime the following day so it was actually a seven day exercise in total by the time you allow for loading and unloading the van etc. at the other end

All photos by and copyright Rik Green

The event was the IWA National Waterways Festival 2013 at Cassiobury Park, Watford

The 2014 IWA festival is expected to be held the first weekend of July in Stratford-upon-Avon (see www.waterways.org.uk for details)

Festival Sound & Light is a co-operative and association of (almost) like minded individuals who come together to provide entertainment technical support at charity events 

And now ... it's back to sailing! Jane and I are off from next weekend for ten days or so. Undecided where we're going as yet but Tollesbury is on the agenda to check out the saltings moorings for a second time as we're increasingly keen on the idea of moving there