Well, I guess there's only the last two days to update on.
It's kind of sad.
Wednesday we were back at the Ex-Hall, still working on the PRG boxes. We started the day at 8am as planned. We finally had the forklift we needed so we could stack things and make them fit. We started with the cable boxes - those things are heavy, but fit way better stacked. So the forklift got it done for us. Jarrod drove the forklift while the rest of us worked on getting the boxes in to place, lined up with each other, and made sure the wheels landed in the wheel cups so the boxes wouldn't roll off of each other during transportation.
All the stacking got done pretty quickly, so we had a little bit of down time until the first truck came, so Sean and I started working on the boxes that were missing things. Andy had a few things to drop off, so we were able to complete a few and we had to recount a few others and found some flaws in the count.
Then the truck came. But, when we planned for a truck 52 feet in length, 8.5ft in width and 94 inches tall...the truck wasn't actually that size. I guess there was already something packed in the truck, and the doors closed a foot or two inside what counted for the length of the truck. So we lost a lot of room. The three truck loads were already going to be tight squeeze, and we were already thinking we'd have to order another truck, so losing room on the first truck was not a good sign.
Although we had spent a bunch of time organizing the pack and planning out how all of the boxes would fix together, the plan was barely used. We packed all of the orchestra pieces in first, and then pulled the video material from the back of the plan and pushed it closer to the nose. Then came the cable crates and unit boxes and what not. We had one of the SP electricians come and drive the forklift while Chris and Katie were in the truck packing things in. Sean's and my job was to bring everything from the Ex-Hall to the loading dock and then help Amber (the SP) line everything up on the forklift. It took us an hour and 40 minutes to get the whole thing packed, but we got most of the boxes and everything on to the truck. There were a few unit boxes and some other small things that didn't fit, but it was better than we'd thought it would have been.
After that, we worked on reorganizing the second truck load that was to come in the morning and planned out the third truck, which would only be a half truck. We got two final drop offs - one from the Dock Street Theatre and one from the Memminger. They had a few complete boxes and a lot of boxes missing things, but what they were missing was not the things we had in out miscellaneous pile. We had to recount a few of the mult boxes and make sure the break ins and break out tallies were correct - and we found a few errors so that solved those problems. And then there was the case of the missing cable. We were missing a few Edison plugs and a few lengths of mult and DMX. and we had some extra mult. So Jarrod worked out a plan to reorganize where the extra things went, and then called Andy to make sure it was okay that some things weren't accounted for. Eventually, we just packed everything away and put some extra units in the unit boxes and reorganized the cable and called it complete. Odds are, the missing cable was just miscounted in to a box and so it wasn't accounted for in the paperwork or something. Eventually it would all make it back to PRG.
We were scheduled to have another truck come in in the afternoon, so we'd only have 2 trucks to do the next day. But it got canceled - the company didn't have a truck available to come do a pick up. So we spent the end of the evening stacking the new shipment and finished the boxes and generally cleaning up the ex-hall. We would be back in the next day at 8am, doing three truck loads. one at 8am, one at 11am, and one at 4pm. It was going to be a long day.
Or so we thought.
We got in at 8am. Everyone was dragging. But Jarrod was on the phone - and when he got off the phone, there were new plans to be set up. The 8am and the 11am trucks were nonexistent. They weren't coming. So we had to find new jobs to do, and luckily, there were jobs to be had.
Hello, more days as an SP. Though this day wasn't have as long and arduous as the other.
We started at the Memminger, helping them strike what was left of the production party we'd had there the night before. Katie and I gathered all the tales that had been put out - they 13 that had to be found and stacked in the van and taken back to the ex-hall. Then we had to take out the left over wine and beer, clean the coolers, clean the food trays - basic party clean up. It wasn't too terrible. After that, we were off to the production office to find more work.
Katie got commissioned to drive trucks back to the rental place all day. Sean stayed to help the office people strike the production office so it could return to being the Gaillard Green Room. Chris, Jarrod and I got the wonderful assignment of going to the shop and helping out the SPs.
When we got there they put us right to work. I started easy - just cleaning and bagging all the coolers that were coming back from the work sites. Then, I got to put them in a loft above the garage door. That was kind of fun. Tom picked up a flat on a fork lift, we loaded to coolers on, and then I got to ride it up to the loft and put everything away. I'm starting to get more and more used to heights. I've a long way to go before I'm totally comfortable, but I take a few more risks here and there (safe ones though).
After that, it was time to start loading trucks to send equipment back. Basically what we'd been doing at the ex-hall, but not PRG. We moved tons of truss from a storage car to the shop to the truck. We also had to push boxes of 1-ton motors from the shop on to the truck - meaning heavy equipment packed in to little boxes getting pushed up a pretty steep incline. It was all I could do not to let the box win and bowl me over on it's way back down the ramp. But with enough people working on it we had no difficulties like that. People were observant enough to realize when someone needed help controlling the massive amounts of weight we were working with.
About the time we were finishing that truck, another truck with wardrobe came to be unloaded. It was right before lunch, so everyone jumped right in, ready to get it done so we could all go to break. The carts were a lot heavier than I expected and I tried to push it down the load ramp, instead of pull it so i could be in front of it and stop it. So it went out of control and almost hit one of the other guys working on the unload. It was kind of scary, but no one got hurt. Just the carts got bumped around a bit. But I learned my lesson. Always push on the front side because the carts will roll themselves down the ramp and they just need you to control and stop them.
After that, it was time for lunch and then off to the Ex-Hall for the truck that got moved forward from 4pm to 2pm. Luckily, this truck was the proper size and had fold doors rather than the sliding door and we didn't lose any room at all. The pack went incredibly smoothly and we actually fit extra stuff in. We had Chris and Katie in the truck again, Jarrod calling, and me, Sean, Rebecca, and Andrew (the last two being extra SPs) loading from the ground while Amber drove the forklift. Everything works really nicely when you have a system and hard workers.
Once that was done, we headed over to the Memminger again. they were setting up chairs after having struck the rest of the theatre. The whole theatre is basically a HUGE black box. The risers for the seats an be set up anywhere and then seats then set up in any configuration, as the chairs and the feet are separate and just need to be set together. We had worked with the Memminger chairs at the Robinson, so once the TD there told us the pattern, I was able to help people put things together using the system we had developed there. Set one side and bring the foot up to the other leg and then set it, rather than trying to set both the legs in the feet on the ground. There was a minor issue with centering the chairs and getting the pattern right, but the TD and everyone eventually figured it out and we got rolling once again. Once it was all set, we just did clean up. We put the extra hardware away and worked on sweeping the floors and putting the theatre back to the way it had been before Spoleto had gotten there.
After that, though we really wanted to go back to the Ex-Hall and finish packing everything out, everyone was sent back to the shop. The offices and departments that had been spending the whole packing up were now having their trucks arrive at the shop to be unloaded. We had everything from printers and copiers to wooden desks still holding paperwork to boxes of electrics material. Everything needed to be sorted and put away in the proper places in the shop. A lot of things went in to storage cars, locked up until the next year when they would be needed again.
Eventually, Katie, Chris and I were sent back to the Ex-Hall to pack the extra boxes that didn't get shipped back to the PRG in to Robert's truck to be stored at the shop until the next week. We were sent with 3 or 4 other SPs in order to get it done, rather than being sent with Jarrod and having it called like the other packs we had been doing. Instead, Robert a few other SPs planned to take the heavier boxes and put them in the front, following with the medium weight and putting the lightest in the back. We had just spent the end of the last day making sure the pack would fit and then it was pulled completely out of order to be put in to Robert's truck. Everything still fit, it was just different. We had worked out a system with Jarrod and we all knew what was going on, but everything we'd worked out on our own was moot while working with the SPs because they had their own ideas on how to pack the truck and getting everything accomplished efficiently. Both ways worked.
Once it was all packed in, we followed the truck back to the shop to unload everything was had just packed it to it. There was one scary moment when we noticed that we had packed all of the heavy cable crates in to the right side of the truck, causing to sit a little lopsided. When Robert drove around the corner, I swear the truck almost tipped. Chris and Robert said they were scared about it too while they were driving. So that's another good lesson to know...plan your packs to they sit evenly across the truck and it sits flat on it's tires and on the road, rather than being crooked.
But the truck got to the shop safely and was unloaded quickly. We fork lifted most of the boxes out of it rather than pushing them down the steep load ramp - but we did attempt a few. It took four people to do it while keeping the boxes under control. 2 at the front and 2 at the back. Everyone was extremely careful because the boxes were so heavy - one wrong step could cause an out of control box followed by a lot of damage and injuries.
Once the truck was unloaded, many people were simply working on organizing everything in the shop. The rest of us with less knowledge of where things went, were left to sweep the floors and make everything look nice and clean. Tedious work because of all the dust, dirt, and sawdust in the shop - but it had to be done and we all wanted to go home so we worked pretty hard.
Once the shop was clean...we were released for good. Out of contract.
All of the theatres had been struck that day or a few days in advance. The last thing to put together was the shop - the head quarters of the festival besides the offices. All the equipment needed to be stored properly so it would last through to the next year and everything needed to be clean so it would remain in good shape. It took everyone who was left at the festival working together in order to get it done in a timely fashion and we were all eager to help and go home.
The final release was incredible and so worth it. We all knew we'd worked hard and we had all learned and grown so much. No one really wanted to leave and go home, but everyone was relieved to be able to shut their alarms off and not go to work in the morning. We were all ready to kick back and relax in the beauty of Charleston.
This whole experience has been incredible and I am so glad that I did it. I am so much more confident in my work as an electrician and I can't wait to start working back at SVSU and start applying everything I have learned.
I have met so many cool people and wonderful contacts and connections that I can use in the future--it's been real. I will miss everyone and everything down here in South Carolina, and I can't wait to come back.
It's kind of sad.
Wednesday we were back at the Ex-Hall, still working on the PRG boxes. We started the day at 8am as planned. We finally had the forklift we needed so we could stack things and make them fit. We started with the cable boxes - those things are heavy, but fit way better stacked. So the forklift got it done for us. Jarrod drove the forklift while the rest of us worked on getting the boxes in to place, lined up with each other, and made sure the wheels landed in the wheel cups so the boxes wouldn't roll off of each other during transportation.
All the stacking got done pretty quickly, so we had a little bit of down time until the first truck came, so Sean and I started working on the boxes that were missing things. Andy had a few things to drop off, so we were able to complete a few and we had to recount a few others and found some flaws in the count.
Then the truck came. But, when we planned for a truck 52 feet in length, 8.5ft in width and 94 inches tall...the truck wasn't actually that size. I guess there was already something packed in the truck, and the doors closed a foot or two inside what counted for the length of the truck. So we lost a lot of room. The three truck loads were already going to be tight squeeze, and we were already thinking we'd have to order another truck, so losing room on the first truck was not a good sign.
Although we had spent a bunch of time organizing the pack and planning out how all of the boxes would fix together, the plan was barely used. We packed all of the orchestra pieces in first, and then pulled the video material from the back of the plan and pushed it closer to the nose. Then came the cable crates and unit boxes and what not. We had one of the SP electricians come and drive the forklift while Chris and Katie were in the truck packing things in. Sean's and my job was to bring everything from the Ex-Hall to the loading dock and then help Amber (the SP) line everything up on the forklift. It took us an hour and 40 minutes to get the whole thing packed, but we got most of the boxes and everything on to the truck. There were a few unit boxes and some other small things that didn't fit, but it was better than we'd thought it would have been.
After that, we worked on reorganizing the second truck load that was to come in the morning and planned out the third truck, which would only be a half truck. We got two final drop offs - one from the Dock Street Theatre and one from the Memminger. They had a few complete boxes and a lot of boxes missing things, but what they were missing was not the things we had in out miscellaneous pile. We had to recount a few of the mult boxes and make sure the break ins and break out tallies were correct - and we found a few errors so that solved those problems. And then there was the case of the missing cable. We were missing a few Edison plugs and a few lengths of mult and DMX. and we had some extra mult. So Jarrod worked out a plan to reorganize where the extra things went, and then called Andy to make sure it was okay that some things weren't accounted for. Eventually, we just packed everything away and put some extra units in the unit boxes and reorganized the cable and called it complete. Odds are, the missing cable was just miscounted in to a box and so it wasn't accounted for in the paperwork or something. Eventually it would all make it back to PRG.
We were scheduled to have another truck come in in the afternoon, so we'd only have 2 trucks to do the next day. But it got canceled - the company didn't have a truck available to come do a pick up. So we spent the end of the evening stacking the new shipment and finished the boxes and generally cleaning up the ex-hall. We would be back in the next day at 8am, doing three truck loads. one at 8am, one at 11am, and one at 4pm. It was going to be a long day.
Or so we thought.
We got in at 8am. Everyone was dragging. But Jarrod was on the phone - and when he got off the phone, there were new plans to be set up. The 8am and the 11am trucks were nonexistent. They weren't coming. So we had to find new jobs to do, and luckily, there were jobs to be had.
Hello, more days as an SP. Though this day wasn't have as long and arduous as the other.
We started at the Memminger, helping them strike what was left of the production party we'd had there the night before. Katie and I gathered all the tales that had been put out - they 13 that had to be found and stacked in the van and taken back to the ex-hall. Then we had to take out the left over wine and beer, clean the coolers, clean the food trays - basic party clean up. It wasn't too terrible. After that, we were off to the production office to find more work.
Katie got commissioned to drive trucks back to the rental place all day. Sean stayed to help the office people strike the production office so it could return to being the Gaillard Green Room. Chris, Jarrod and I got the wonderful assignment of going to the shop and helping out the SPs.
When we got there they put us right to work. I started easy - just cleaning and bagging all the coolers that were coming back from the work sites. Then, I got to put them in a loft above the garage door. That was kind of fun. Tom picked up a flat on a fork lift, we loaded to coolers on, and then I got to ride it up to the loft and put everything away. I'm starting to get more and more used to heights. I've a long way to go before I'm totally comfortable, but I take a few more risks here and there (safe ones though).
After that, it was time to start loading trucks to send equipment back. Basically what we'd been doing at the ex-hall, but not PRG. We moved tons of truss from a storage car to the shop to the truck. We also had to push boxes of 1-ton motors from the shop on to the truck - meaning heavy equipment packed in to little boxes getting pushed up a pretty steep incline. It was all I could do not to let the box win and bowl me over on it's way back down the ramp. But with enough people working on it we had no difficulties like that. People were observant enough to realize when someone needed help controlling the massive amounts of weight we were working with.
About the time we were finishing that truck, another truck with wardrobe came to be unloaded. It was right before lunch, so everyone jumped right in, ready to get it done so we could all go to break. The carts were a lot heavier than I expected and I tried to push it down the load ramp, instead of pull it so i could be in front of it and stop it. So it went out of control and almost hit one of the other guys working on the unload. It was kind of scary, but no one got hurt. Just the carts got bumped around a bit. But I learned my lesson. Always push on the front side because the carts will roll themselves down the ramp and they just need you to control and stop them.
After that, it was time for lunch and then off to the Ex-Hall for the truck that got moved forward from 4pm to 2pm. Luckily, this truck was the proper size and had fold doors rather than the sliding door and we didn't lose any room at all. The pack went incredibly smoothly and we actually fit extra stuff in. We had Chris and Katie in the truck again, Jarrod calling, and me, Sean, Rebecca, and Andrew (the last two being extra SPs) loading from the ground while Amber drove the forklift. Everything works really nicely when you have a system and hard workers.
Once that was done, we headed over to the Memminger again. they were setting up chairs after having struck the rest of the theatre. The whole theatre is basically a HUGE black box. The risers for the seats an be set up anywhere and then seats then set up in any configuration, as the chairs and the feet are separate and just need to be set together. We had worked with the Memminger chairs at the Robinson, so once the TD there told us the pattern, I was able to help people put things together using the system we had developed there. Set one side and bring the foot up to the other leg and then set it, rather than trying to set both the legs in the feet on the ground. There was a minor issue with centering the chairs and getting the pattern right, but the TD and everyone eventually figured it out and we got rolling once again. Once it was all set, we just did clean up. We put the extra hardware away and worked on sweeping the floors and putting the theatre back to the way it had been before Spoleto had gotten there.
After that, though we really wanted to go back to the Ex-Hall and finish packing everything out, everyone was sent back to the shop. The offices and departments that had been spending the whole packing up were now having their trucks arrive at the shop to be unloaded. We had everything from printers and copiers to wooden desks still holding paperwork to boxes of electrics material. Everything needed to be sorted and put away in the proper places in the shop. A lot of things went in to storage cars, locked up until the next year when they would be needed again.
Eventually, Katie, Chris and I were sent back to the Ex-Hall to pack the extra boxes that didn't get shipped back to the PRG in to Robert's truck to be stored at the shop until the next week. We were sent with 3 or 4 other SPs in order to get it done, rather than being sent with Jarrod and having it called like the other packs we had been doing. Instead, Robert a few other SPs planned to take the heavier boxes and put them in the front, following with the medium weight and putting the lightest in the back. We had just spent the end of the last day making sure the pack would fit and then it was pulled completely out of order to be put in to Robert's truck. Everything still fit, it was just different. We had worked out a system with Jarrod and we all knew what was going on, but everything we'd worked out on our own was moot while working with the SPs because they had their own ideas on how to pack the truck and getting everything accomplished efficiently. Both ways worked.
Once it was all packed in, we followed the truck back to the shop to unload everything was had just packed it to it. There was one scary moment when we noticed that we had packed all of the heavy cable crates in to the right side of the truck, causing to sit a little lopsided. When Robert drove around the corner, I swear the truck almost tipped. Chris and Robert said they were scared about it too while they were driving. So that's another good lesson to know...plan your packs to they sit evenly across the truck and it sits flat on it's tires and on the road, rather than being crooked.
But the truck got to the shop safely and was unloaded quickly. We fork lifted most of the boxes out of it rather than pushing them down the steep load ramp - but we did attempt a few. It took four people to do it while keeping the boxes under control. 2 at the front and 2 at the back. Everyone was extremely careful because the boxes were so heavy - one wrong step could cause an out of control box followed by a lot of damage and injuries.
Once the truck was unloaded, many people were simply working on organizing everything in the shop. The rest of us with less knowledge of where things went, were left to sweep the floors and make everything look nice and clean. Tedious work because of all the dust, dirt, and sawdust in the shop - but it had to be done and we all wanted to go home so we worked pretty hard.
Once the shop was clean...we were released for good. Out of contract.
All of the theatres had been struck that day or a few days in advance. The last thing to put together was the shop - the head quarters of the festival besides the offices. All the equipment needed to be stored properly so it would last through to the next year and everything needed to be clean so it would remain in good shape. It took everyone who was left at the festival working together in order to get it done in a timely fashion and we were all eager to help and go home.
The final release was incredible and so worth it. We all knew we'd worked hard and we had all learned and grown so much. No one really wanted to leave and go home, but everyone was relieved to be able to shut their alarms off and not go to work in the morning. We were all ready to kick back and relax in the beauty of Charleston.
This whole experience has been incredible and I am so glad that I did it. I am so much more confident in my work as an electrician and I can't wait to start working back at SVSU and start applying everything I have learned.
I have met so many cool people and wonderful contacts and connections that I can use in the future--it's been real. I will miss everyone and everything down here in South Carolina, and I can't wait to come back.
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