Beerfest 2016 - P.E
This year I have the honour to mix the Songscape Oompah Band at TOPS Beerfest in P.E!
Short story: I learned so much from this event and figured out an entire mixing desk from scratch on the spot - very exhilerating!
Long(er) story: We arrived in P.E and I was very curious to see what the vibe would be on Day 1; it turned out that Day 1 was pretty much the most stressful in terms of working out what worked best.
As I mentioned, I hadn't used the LS9 up till this day and went into the gig with the attitude "this shoudn't be too hard" - Weeelllll, that was very optimistic and I'm glad that I downloaded the Manual the day before and went through some of the key features during the flight. I thought I was prepared enough. I arrived at the tent and we pretty much dived straight into sound-check and I was like "Alllrightyyyy then" I ended up tweaking for the rest of the night and was only happy towards the end of the first night, when I had figured out all the EQs, FX and properly sending to the Delay Stacks.
I need to clarify "end of the night" because essentially what happened is that the East Coast was hit by a storm front of winds up to 100km/h!! The whole scaffolding was swinging left and right and shaking vehemently...I was standing under a beam so I was ready to dart as soon as one thing fell.
This lead to the managing staff having to call off the show early because legally you aren't allowed to continue an event when the wind speed exceeds a certain strength. So we all huddled to the Van and drove back to the Hotel.
I slept about 3 hours because I had a snoring room-mate.
Lessons learned: Be prepared 1: learn your mixing desks beforehand. Be prepared 2: Pack good Earplugs
Day 2:
There was so much Drama the following day because we were meant to play 2 sets (5 hours each) but because of the weather situation the organizers decided to call off the first show.
The evening set on Day 2 went a lot better because I could refine the sound even more and had to stress less about setting things up. The Beertent was a lot more packed and everyone was having a good time - definitely mission accomplished! I also managed to save the Desk Settings on a USB stick for when I use the LS9 for the next Beerfest gig. Which should hopefully transfer fairly well!
Overall it was a lot of fun and although I didn't get much sleep I met some cool people and learned a lot!
