Wedding Bands: set lengths and playing times

p90fool

My favourite was a 3pm soundcheck for a 9pm start at a hotel 45 miles away, with a wedding planner who said "Set all your gear up on that stage and do your soundcheck, then take all your gear down and store it under that little trestle table over there until it's time to play". 

I don't expect punters or brides to understand how stupid and pointless that is, but I expect professional wedding planners to. 

Danny1969

I did a huge corporate event once at the Hilton in Mayfair, Gazette thieving bastards Estate Awards hosted by Jimmy Carr. We park the van in the loading bay, then we gotta load all the gear into the service lift which leads to the kitchen. Then we gotta lug all the gear through the longest kitchen I've ever seen in my life, then into a hallway and then into the grand ball room which can accommodate 900 people seated .... the place is massive. So I speak to the head honcho of the huge multi media company as we are gonna patch into the 42 speaker array they have put round the ball room and he says you have to set up on the stage, soundcheck and then remove everything so Jimmy has a free stage!!

Given the choice of lugging everything through all that twice I decide we don't need a soundcheck and we bugger off to the green room only to be been warned an hour later that if I didn't remove the van from the loading bay they would consider it a threat and call the bomb squad out

I took this pic of the drummer and bass player carrying the desk at Rowlands Castle Golf club doing a wedding gig ... bands not allowed to use the lift ... that's for members only, bands gotta lug all the gear up the fire escape  .... thanks a bunch !!

ESBlonde

@Danny1969 yes similar stories abound. Did a local(ish) corn exchange date for some Rugby club annual bun fight. One tiny service lift and the caterers take 45 mins getting all thier clutter up before we can even start!!! Looking at that photo reminds me of an incedent where a wet Icy cast iron fire escape had me hanging of for dear life watching a 4x12 slide effortlessly to the bottom. Everything else went out the long walk to the front stairs after that!

RocknRollDave

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

EricTheWeary

RocknRollDave said:

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

Smoking regulations have made this worse, even if it's freezing there's people hovvering around outside the doors having a fag and putting the world to rights, seemingly surprised that the gear for a five piece band needs more than one trip out to the cars. 

Danny1969

RocknRollDave said:

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

Lol yeah
And carrying a heavy speaker you politely ask the man \ women holding a glass and smoking a fag who is talking loudly and blocking the exit ... "Scuse me can I get by" .... 2 mins later with the other speaker "scuse me can I get by ?"  ..... 2 minutes later they are back in the centre of the exit and you think FFS can't you see a pattern developing here !!!!    

RocknRollDave

EricTheWeary said:

RocknRollDave said:

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

Smoking regulations have made this worse, even if it's freezing there's people hovvering around outside the doors having a fag and putting the world to rights, seemingly surprised that the gear for a five piece band needs more than one trip out to the cars. 

Danny1969 said:

RocknRollDave said:

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

Lol yeah
And carrying a heavy speaker you politely ask the man \ women holding a glass and smoking a fag who is talking loudly and blocking the exit ... "Scuse me can I get by" .... 2 mins later with the other speaker "scuse me can I get by ?"  ..... 2 minutes later they are back in the centre of the exit and you think FFS can't you see a pattern developing here !!!!    

Absofrikkinlutely, gents.

I hate people, me.

failed_astronaut

Danny1969 said:

I did a huge corporate event once at the Hilton in Mayfair, Gazette thieving bastards Estate Awards hosted by Jimmy Carr. We park the van in the loading bay, then we gotta load all the gear into the service lift which leads to the kitchen. Then we gotta lug all the gear through the longest kitchen I've ever seen in my life, then into a hallway and then into the grand ball room which can accommodate 900 people seated .... the place is massive. So I speak to the head honcho of the huge multi media company as we are gonna patch into the 42 speaker array they have put round the ball room and he says you have to set up on the stage, soundcheck and then remove everything so Jimmy has a free stage!!

Given the choice of lugging everything through all that twice I decide we don't need a soundcheck and we bugger off to the green room only to be been warned an hour later that if I didn't remove the van from the loading bay they would consider it a threat and call the bomb squad out

I took this pic of the drummer and bass player carrying the desk at Rowlands Castle Golf club doing a wedding gig ... bands not allowed to use the lift ... that's for members only, bands gotta lug all the gear up the fire escape  .... thanks a bunch !!

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck that.

But then again £££

ElectroDan

Had to laugh reading @Danny1969 's tale about the Hilton. I remember it well. It must have cost an extra £100 between parking and Congestion charges, and that carry...
Massive hall though. The raffle prize at the gig was a car and it was on a plinth inside the room... a few floors up!

Grunfeld

ElectroDan said:

The raffle prize at the gig was a car and it was on a plinth inside the room... a few floors up!

Some poor sods probably had to lunk it up the outside fire escape!

vasselmeyer

RocknRollDave said:

Quick question: When you are lugging heavy gear down four flights of stairs at 00:30 and people are leaving the venue, and you ask, politely and repeatedly if people could excuse you to get past...Do you think they ever effing well DO?!

I find that sticking the corner of a flight case into their knees or a quick dead leg with a hard guitar case often encourages them to either move or to hold to door open for you next time.

frictionfraction

Once did a corporate event for a pig farmers centenary celebrations - 3pm set up..  8pm start.  Good news was we could drive the vehicles up to the venue.  The bad news was it was a pig sty that had been "cleaned up" for the occasion.  
Outside the event had not had the "clean up". Result everything smelt of pig crap for weeks afterwards.  To add insult to injury the speeches over ran. We started playing at 10:30 in a building literally dripping with condensation. We didn't even get offered any of the gig roast!