WORKING IN SHOWBIZ – A CONTINUING CX SERIES

THE TOSSPOT SYNDROME

One of the confounding things about our irregular shift work is not just the feast or famine – showdays mean busy, no work means zero – but also that we are forced into ‘instant’ teams. My final day in live production started great, I was the production manager at an outdoor concert. I met the PA crew, lighties and then the stage guy. But wait – he was just delivering the gear. The actual stage tech was running late.

When he arrived, he was utterly obnoxious. I asked him to sign off the Workplace Health and Safety Plan, “why would I sign YOUR plan?” he snarled. I explain we are on a council gig; we are all signing the plan. He scribbles with an angry flourish and turns away.

Guy was beyond painful, demanded catering knowing we didn’t have any, spoke down about the production company whom I represented, and attempted to make my life difficult all day. I fed him, out of my own pocket, since it looked like he had zero supplies with him.

We got through. Afterwards I called the backline mob to report him. They were aghast; “you should have called us on the day so we could replace him”. But it would not have been practical. It was my job to deal with him, which I did. In the 1980s it would have been a binary transaction: be obnoxious, get a punch in the snout. We don’t do that now.

A show is a team game and we have to work together as best we can, so be ready to deal with all kinds of personalities. The cretinous tosspots are still out there occasionally, and it can help to better understand why. Generally, they can’t be that way all the time, or they won’t get a gig. Chances are something bad has come their way.

I did a Fringe Festival in 2023 where the stage manager was very hard to handle – brittle, demanding, shouty, and borderline unreasonable. With the benefit of age and experience I was fine, but eventually after three weeks things came to a head when she stopped my soundcheck to yell at me because it was too loud! You never, ever interrupt a soundcheck with artists on stage in that way.

She got reported to management.

I did a casual gig in 2023 and made a mistake on the mic patch, we were under crazy pressure to set up for a soundcheck. I realized that channels 1 – 25 were patched right, but I had dropped two, so 26 – 43 were out. I reported to the artist’s sound guy, who freaked out and started yelling at us! My colleague decided to repatch at the stage patch bay rather than the drop boxes on stage, and mistook the drop box numbering which threw the problem further out.

The short story is I didn’t get invited back for more work at that venue, I guess someone needed to blame someone, and after all, it was my mistake! That’s the hard and fast nature of our industry. You will get yelled at. It isn’t personal. You may get blackballed.

Another memorable venue from 2022 was where the Production Manager was also the house lighting tech, and he seemed to find it necessary to pull all-nighters programming on the grandMA. Which made him irrational through fatigue. Or possibly drugs. He was just plain unprofessional, making last minute demands which should have been sorted hours or days earlier.

My best advice? Handle things as best you can, be prepared to rationally detail any problem to those up the chain, and be prepared to walk away if nothing is to be done. Life is too short to endure toxic workplaces.

Next month: Getting a job