(Incidentally, I've written this before reading anything on the Forum since last nights game. I'll head off now and read the deluge of "The other bloke was better!" posts.)
So. First game down for the presentation team of Landers and the Rev. Something that has left me absolutely drained today.
Its amazing that being without a rink shows just how much you at the mercy of outside forces. For obvious reasons, we weren't able to take over Deeside, especially as they had figure skating booked to use the ice until 6pm. Unfortunately, due to the large crowd, doors were due to open at 6pm to. This lead to us trying to do a soundcheck whilst people are making their way to their seats - so I'm busy reading out silly penalties "#87 for Sheffield, 2 minutes for being from Yorkshire" and hoping people don't notice too much.
We have pre-game production meeting about 1 hour before doors open. Ideally you want everybody there, just so that you can go through every aspect of the evening, not just music and announcing, but mascots, shoot the puck, post game MOM, interval entertainment. Where people are, when they are do on, when they are due off. Everything is as tightly scripted and stage-managed as possible, down to the exact minute. Not everyone was there at the time, so it led to confusion at times.
The ice dancers thing was down to a total lack of prep. We're left with a CD at almost literally the last minute with no idea of what sort of music it was, no idea where they were going to be and so on. To be fair, they didn't know what we wanted either - so lack of communication all round.
Shoot the Puck seemed to take 30 seconds and our bloke was rubbish :-). Apparently Rick plays for the Aardvarx, so I blame his coach on that one. For the bit I was most worried about, I ad-libbed OK so that helped a lot. Then into an interview which didn't work at all. (To be fair, how would you react if someone shoved a camera and a microphone in your face and started asking questions?)
Doing the job is funny, and scary and totally seat of the pants at times. I was doing one of the pre-prepared reads about tickets and it says at the end "...MAGS HAS THE DETAILS" and I'm midway through the sentence before realising I haven't the slightest clue where Mags is actually based for people to go to. Is she in the foyer? A room off to the side? She's been too busy with her prep, we've been too busy with ours.
I know that I was gabbling the words too fast. Its a combination of habit from doing standup, nervous energy, adrenalin, the need to react quickly to events and so on. Its damned hard work to have all this stuff going on around you and try to stay on an even keel. Do I need a read at the next break in play... No... Richard is cueing up tracks... watch game for a sec...how is the crowd feeling? Do I need to raise them?... shit....Penalty coming...dump the music... who is it on...away team, find the number... Richard finds the right jingle...watch the ref for the penalty....work out the time...work out the player... now suddenly slow it all down for an announcement. And you have no time to double check things. Its like a roller coaster, exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
If it sounds fairly harsh on myself, and the people in the stands didn't notice, then thats fair enough. Look at the forum for the last few weeks - everyone remembers the bad, the mistakes, the moments of confusing as information is confusing or missing - noone, and I mean no-one - has posted to say "you know what, that set of pages answered every single one of my questions." I'm no different - when gigging I remember the fluffed lines, the gag that didn't work and I never recall the applause for a great line and the lovely ad-lib. I set high expectations of myself and I'm damned if I'm not going to give this opportunity my best shot. I know Richard is the same - on the surface it might look like a laugh and a joke, and I'm boogie-ing away in full view, but underneath I know that if it takes a bit of a shouting session between people to get it right, then thats what it will take. It might be Richard shouting at me, it might be me shouting at him, it might be Neil shouting at both of us, it most likely it will be an innocent bystander in the wrong place at the wrong time. Its simly because we're passionate, determined and we care about getting it right.
The dancing? That is a method of getting the energy out of me, trying to relax. Diversion tactic, with the brain processing so much and adrenalin flying through my system, it has to come out somewhere. And if that means doing the YMCA in plain sight, then cool.
So if this sounds down, then it is because I think I wasn't good enough. Thats the way I am. Objective #1 for next week - Do better, the same as it will be for the next few games, hopefully 27+ until the end of the season. We did pretty well, I did OK. Some things worked, some didn't.
A lot of positives came from it - Richard and I know that we can work together properly, he can bark instructions at me and I'll do what is necessary. By the third period, we were clicking into place, faders up at the right points, mics on and off at the right points. We'll get to the point where we're controlling events, instead of reacting all the time. Which sounds odd in such an unpredictable game as hockey, but by the third it felt that I was getting the hang of it, penalties were running smoothly. The odd thing being that as we got it right off the ice, it went wrong for the team. I hope its not a yin/yang thing as the season progresses.
The irony is, of course, that we'll take three or four games to truly click into place. And by the time we nail it at Deeside and Ice Sheffield, we move into the Ice Dome and it will be time to learn all over again.
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Now I've had the chance to sit back and run a mental review of the game, I was going to post something very similar to Mike's essay above, but since he's beaten me to it, here's the potted version:
Things can only get better, and if the crowd only noticed a handful of the hiccups then that's a result as far as I'm concerned! It's a steep learning curve, for certain - the match night crew consisted of a first time annoucer, a first time director (also first-timing on the DJ position at the same time), two cameramen doing their first hockey game, a volunteer staff coming back after two seasons break, and a team owner doing his best to make sure everyone is happy and able to function.
As Mike has said, we had no soundcheck prior to doors open, and that's something we couldn't avoid. The ice dancers had the ice booked until 6pm and that's absolutely fine, no problem with them at all, but it did mean that we're soundchecking live. We didn't get the sound anywhere near right until in the second period, and that's down to Steve from Comtec jumping in and giving a well-needed hand on the technical side (cheers Steve!) Plus the Deeside PA isn't exactly state of the art, but we got sound out of it, so that's okay...
After a stress-packed event like a live show (which a game is, for us on the crew - the days of being a fan are long gone) it's very easy to dwell on the negatives, on everything that went wrong. Mike is critical of himself in his posting above, but from where I was sitting he was a real pro, nailing the announcements and handling the pressure better than I did when I was the one with the open mic in my hand last time out. I know that I can do better with the play-out system, a bit of reordering of the playlists and some technical work with the PA should allow us to put on a much smoother show next Sunday at Ice Sheffield.
We learned a lot from the Deeside game, now let's see if we can put it into practice and get the match night nailed.
If we still suck by Christmas, then we've got problems!
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