My show is broken

Ever have one of those nights where everything that can go wrong, does? Yeah, me too. Often. Fortunately for me, it's usually not related to the sound department. Tonight was a different story. The automation control unit to the front of house consoles decided it needed a nap, so the entire show had to be mixed entirely by hand. Now before I start getting flamed from all you guys out there, remember that our show has 200+ inputs, 50 of them being RF mics. This is no small feat, even with a working automation platform. So I lost my other deck sound to head downstairs and run the show on the Hertz stage, while Lane came upstairs to help our mixer manually mix the show. Thankfully, I didn't have many of my usual RF problems, but did have massive sweat outs, due to the fact that we went up 30 minutes late and everyone was stressed out.

Then, scenic motor control went all crappy, but got repaired fairly quickly. Electrics were having their own special hell, and I'm not going to EVEN discuss here what happened to Courtney in props. Suffice it to say, it was not pretty.

I'm sure if you've read this far, you're waiting for my rant. Well, here it goes....

If your stage manager informs you that sound is having issues, so it's very important to keep unnecessary backstage talking to a non-existent level, then DO that! In a situation like that, there is a good chance that your mic could still be open after your exit. Also, DO NOT ask your A-2 if your mic is live. She doesn't know, and is probably too busy unpatching open inputs to address it. She can not see what is happening out at FOH, only what is going on with RF. Same goes for your dresser. He has NO IDEA. So don't even ask. Just assume, just for one show, that you need to be on good behavior and do what we tell you.

Well, I'm home now, with a nice cocktail and a somewhat clean house. So I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my night.

Cheers!