The show was awesome and surprisingly the admin side went very well. For the first time that I can remember I actually sat down and watched a good part of each show. Thank you to everyone who made the show such a great success this year! Now where to start with the details???
Friday morning – got all the stuff together and went to the venue. The venue was beautiful and looked great with the rig in the air and the stage. I got Hailey and Mrs. Hagel setup with the registration process and groups started to show up shortly after I got them running. We put Travis to work doing odd jobs and Riley and I started working on going through the packets for the next day. There were no major problems this year, in fact I can’t think of anything really worth mentioning.
Of course we had the problems with the groups and many of them not showing up. I think we had 22 groups for NCR and 25 for finals – not quite what I was hoping for. Even worse was the attendance… 800 for NCR and 1400 for finals! Really not quite what I was hoping for.
It looks like we’re going to come in with a loss on the show of around $7-10k. We won’t know until the final numbers come in from JCP sometime this week and we get the rest of the bills from the others. Of course, I’m not happy about loosing the money, but it could have been a lot worse. No one got hurt and nothing got broken. Almost everyone had a great time and that is well worth it. Of course, we now have to figure out how to take care of yet another debt, but I think we can handle it and can deal with it through the show next year. Now it’s time to start working on that next show so we’re not trying to play catchup the last three months like we were this year.
There were some great performances this year as with every year and I actually got to watch them. Riley and I sat in the back row of the chairs on the floor and watched most of the show Friday. I only had to get up a couple times to take care of things and all was great. It was great having Riley there to help me out and keep me company… well worth the bouquet of roses it cost me and maybe some money when we make some! She doesn’t think that she helped at all, but she kept me sane and helped do a lot of the little things. Her sister and mom did an excellent job with registration which is what saved me the most of the work.
Batch did an excellent job on the lighting as usual, although I hear he wasn’t too happy when his Hog III crashed in the middle of the show. I sure didn’t notice it. Chad ran sound and while he looked stressed he did a great job and I don’t even think I’m deaf yet. Pyro took care of the stage while David handled the backstage area. Nate and Rande helped Pyro out on stage and made sure that everyone was in their spots at the right time. It may not have been the best job in the world for all those guys, but they did it well and I greatly appreciate it. It means a lot to me to put your heart and soul into something when you’re getting no compensation in return – at least not anytime soon! Pyro also make a great looking program and school spirit award along with everything else… Tina did her normal thing with the judges… I think a lot of judging changes are going to come around this year. We’ve been talking with the kids online about some changes to the jduges themselves and to the judging criteria. Travis Hagel and Tynen Pitcher did great on spots – even though the spot was like three times bigger than Travis! I hope he had fun. Thanks to Batch for all the work on the website and putting up with me constantly changing things on it! CJ – thanks for stepping up and MCing the show for us. You were awesome, but you’re so fired for saying the “Pepsi” finals! CJ, your buddy Mikey did a great job too. And of course to everyone else that I’m forgetting right now… I love you all!
Friday night Riley got the idea of going to the Cheesecake Factory, and mom actually approved a special exception to the crazy diet. Only problem was, by the time we got done, it was really late and they were all really tired so they ended up going home cheesecakeless. However, it sounded like such a good idea that the rest of us ended up going without them. I got my strawberry lemonade and boston cream cheesecake, I was happy, but Riley has never been there and that is a tragedy! The piece of cheesecake was about all I had to eat all day Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday! (Brenda brought me food both nights, but I didn’t get through it before I had to run and take care of something. Thanks though!)
Saturday was pretty much the same. Travis brought in his Xbox to play on during the downtime which of course brought Nate in to play and Riley had to take a turn or two too. During the second half of the show, I don’t know what got into Riley and Hailey, but they were practically bouncing off the walls, but it was hilarious! I think it was the highlight of the show. From Hailey and Riley trying to get me onto Juice Plus, to Hailey throwing water at me, the security guard in the elevator, the gymnastics and dancing around in the office to everything else… it was just funny! I love those girls… They made the evening. Much more entertaining than the airbands themselves. Next year, I think we should sell tickets to see them perform their craziness on stage! I’d pay!
We made a mess in the production office that took a while to get cleaned up. The Hagels were home before I even had half of my truck loaded! We finally got out of there around 1:15. I took pyro home and then got home about 2:30 myself. I went to bed, but couldn’t sleep for about 30 minutes.
Thirty minutes later I was up and out of bed to go to the Easter sunrise service at the Grand Tradition. Richie was late which meant that the two guys who got no sleep had to basically set everything up on our own! The show went well – the speakers sounded great. They were our sidefills/monitors from airbands and they became the mains for this event… How funny is that? We packed it all up about 8:30 and I came home to sleep till about 1:30 when Riley got me out of bed with her instant messages telling me to sleep… That didn’t happen.
I ended up talking with her and others online – and catching up on the message board until 4:30 when I took a shower before Easter dinner. The food was so good. It was great to have a home-cooked meal, but I could barely eat any of it cause I’d gotten used to having no food. After dinner it was more of the forums and then off to bed.
Today Bouse and I took the gear back to PPSL from the Easter gig, returned the copier/printer that I bought for airbands (and then discovered didn’t work on a Mac) and then went to lunch at Chad’s. It was nice to sit back and relax for a while, although we still talked business and I talked with Riley most of the time. I also finally talked to her dad today about the video screen. It sounds like he found a new company that is making screens a lot cheaper than Da-Lite. I’ve emailed them about becoming a dealer, so we’ll see what they have to say. I’ve got to figure out some other stuff for him, and probably just stop by to see the install in person.
I got through some of the requests for judging comments from the shows and have tried to keep up with the message boards, but it just isn’t happening.
Riley gave me a bunch of new music which I’ve been having fun listening to. She’s turned me onto Hawk Nelson, Relient K and FM Static. They’re all awesome. She also gave me a bunch of other good music which may grow on me. I’m glad someone finally gave me something new to listen to cause the other stuff was getting old…. Amazing how with 8000 songs, there is still nothing to listen to!
. . .
I can’t really think of what else to say. I love you all. Thank you for your hard work and dedication. May God Bless you and be with you at all times. May I be as kind to you as you have been to me. In the name of Jesus Christ – Amen!
And a HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Larilyn tomorrow! Now I’m off to watch a movie and go to bed as I have to take Rande to the airport at 4 in the morning! Good night and God Bless!
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