We’re working on a corporate meeting for Yamaha this week. We have done this show for quite a few years. We started on Monday by loading in some gear and hanging soft goods. I was working on the carps crew for the day. On Tuesday we loaded in video equipment. I am working mostly as a liaison to the visiting video crew. I enjoy working with Jason the video engineer for Yamaha. He has been coming here for many years – before he worked for Yamaha he was with The Salvation Army. The meeting has a lot of pre-recorded content, videos and PowerPoint. They also record video and audio of the event, for which there are five PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom) remote controlled cameras.
Wednesday is the actual event. First the employees will visit for the corporate meeting where the big wigs of the company will go over the numbers for last year’s sales in the different departments and present new products on stage. And there are testimonials from end customers and dealers. Ducky is working as the A2 today, placing lav mics on presenters and handing out handheld mics to people going on stage- which there are a lot of.
A band of employees plays a set of cover tunes and then everyone will go to the lobby and courtyards to have dinner.
After dinner is the headline entetainer. Tonight the guest band is one sponsored by Yamaha, a performer named Avery Sunshine.
Avery was here in 2019 for another event that Yamaha presented. Back then there were other performers with her, (Sheléa, and Grace Kelly) and a big band full of horns. Tonight should be a great show as Avery is a skilled musician and performer.
Her 2019 performance was incredible. Tonight she is here with her own band to sing and play keyboards.
The show went great, however there was one mishap near the end. The band was playing, and the bass player got a bit over enthusiastic and decided to walk downstage. I was standing next to the monitor desk with Kerry when he suddenly started yelling, “DI, DI, DI!”. I immediately looked over at the bass player and saw that the DI box, which connects the bass guitar to the bass amplifier and the audio desks, had fallen off the top of the amp and was hanging in the air! If it had became unplugged the bass guitar would fail, and it also will make a huge exploding sound through every speaker, and maybe blow them up. I ran out onto stage and held the DI in my hands until the bassist noticed what was going on and came back upstage. Everyone in the band thanked me after the show. Good thing Kerry saw that so quickly! One more disaster mitigated.
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