So, we played our first festival-show and it was quite an experience. I really mean that: we learned a lot. We had lots of fun, it was very educational and very cool.
Normally in theaters
We normally play theaters, meaning that we more or less have the stage for our selves. And that the stage is in one piece. And in theaters there is enough time to get the stage ready for the show. Test the microphones and such. In Other words: theater is a controlled environment. How different a festival is.
I have played circus-festivals with EATERS, but there I always shared a huge stage with one other act. We had 30 minutes between acts and no big setups for live music. That was the experience I brought along.
A different kind of festival
In Winterswijk it was different. It was primarily a music-festival, with a few different acts like DJ’s or our theater/circus-act. On paper it looked that we had all the space in the world. The stage was 8 x 5M meaning there was a lot of space for tricks on my 19” and I could do some heavy stuff on a Giraffe. In other words: it promised to be a regular show.
But reality proved differently. We shared the stage with a drumkit, a piano, a dj booth, a lot of speakers, microphones and cables. Manageable with a 19” trick unicycle, but very difficult for a Giraffe. And as a bonus we were playing on a stage that consisted of two parts with a metal ramp in between. Not the ideal surface for mounting a Giraffe. The idea alone that I could crash into that shiny white drumkit made me quite anxious.
We had 15 minutes build-up time, during which we have to carry our stuff around the DJ’s. It was quite a puzzel to get our props in the right position without damaging cables and such. With the festival stage crew we pushed the instruments as far to the back as possible. We couldn’t do a lot with the cables and the speakers, so we had to wing that. The Giraffe act was on that stage as scary as we imagined given the 20 square centimeters I had to mount it, but I survived and didn’t crash into the drumkit.
It was a great experience and the benefit-festival raised quite a lot of money for cultural eduacation. Really, really cool.
