A Crazy Couple of Days.

Saturday was a relatively quiet day - and that was a good thing, because it has been crazy since then and will still be crazy for the days to come!

Sunday, we spent a few hours in Danbury at the Crowne Plaza to set up for today's event - not truly crazy, but busy for a Sunday. Today, back in Danbury early to kick off the event and again later in the day to strike it. Additionally, we were at the Simsbury Inn to set up for the event that runs tomorrow through Thursday and spent some time in the workshop to further clean/organize it.

Tomorrow, we have an event at Hawthorne Inn bright and early to kick off the day followed by day 1 of the previously mentioned event in Simsbury...

...bored yet? Well, it sure isn't terribly exciting to write/read about, but it sure is exciting to experience.

For the Simsbury event, we are using 2 of our Sanyo projectors, 2 screens, QSC speakers, 4 wireless Shure mics - 2 lav and 2 handheld mics, a Mackie mixer, and 2 laptops feeding through a seamless switcher. At the Hawthorne Inn, the actual equipment being used is yet to be fully determined as this is the first event that we are doing at this site though not the first with the client. Apparently, 4AVNow is  the new AV source for the Hawthorne Inn! Tomorrow morning, we will find out whether we will be feeding the audio through the house sound system or using one of our sound systems. As such, we are using a Mackie mixer, Shure mics - 2 lavs and 2 HHs, and TASCAM recorders to record the presenters. If we don't use the house sound, we will be using Behringer speakers to broadcast the audio.

Meet and Greet

Well, this is certainly an experience... I am composing this post on my phone while I await the arrival of a client at a venue. It isn't the 'when,' it is the 'how' that is odd. I mean, typing a text message or Twitter post is one thing... Typing a whole comprehensive blog post is another animal.

At any rate, I am at Morton's Steakhouse after setting up the equipment - a screen, an InFocus LCD projector, a Shure lavaliere mic, and a QSC speaker - and waiting for the meet & greet. Meanwhile, in a land not TOO far away... another event is being setup.

 In Woodstock, at the Mansion at Bald Hill, another event is being set as I type...

- Intermission -

...and we're back. Although you didn't notice, my client arrived and we proceeded with the meet & greet...

So, also during that intermission, I received confirmation via text that the Woodstock event has been successfully setup. There, we are simply using a screen, projector, and remote. I won't bore you with the details. Besides, as my meet & greet is complete, I am going close this post to depart the venue.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

Alright, what does a soliloquy from Mac... - erm, The Scottish Play - have to do with audio-visual? OK, well, not much. It just seemed a fitting title to a post that mentions three different events scheduled to occur - of course - tomorrow.
Until I get to that point, however, I am going to mention today's events...

We had a site survey to kick off the day. Coming up next month, there is an event taking place at a local school's theater/auditorium (theater + the Scottish Play = another connection). The event planners (not the school) are calling on us to provide a projector and a screen for the event. As a result of the site survey, we will be using a rear-projection screen rather than shooting from the front at an extreme angle as they were originally calling for. While we have projectors that are capable of shooting from at least a 45 degree angle (as we've done in previous events), the site survey revealed that using rear projection is a much better option at this site. For this event, we'll use a 6K Sanyo projector and a Da-Lite Fast Fold screen.
After the survey, we had a quick strike of the lighting at the Simsbury Inn.
This evening, we had only one event to set, tech, and strike at Max's Tavern in Springfield, MA. This wasn't much of a set/tech/strike. All that was used was a laptop and a Logitech presenter. We hooked into the restaurant's flat screen so set and strike was really quick. Tech was relatively nonexistent but the client required that we be onsite during the presentation.
During the rest of the day, we did some (more) clean up in the workshop and had an equipment rental - a 60" flat screen, a TV stand, and some cables (VGA, HDMI, power) - picked up.

On to tomorrow... OK, thanks to my falling asleep while composing this post and waking up at 2 AM and completing it, 'tomorrow' is actually today and 'today' is officially yesterday. I am too tired to come up with a new title for this post. Besides, I like it too much to change it.
So, tomorrow morning we have an early event in New Haven. For this, we are setting up two Behringer speakers and a Countryman mic for the audio and nothing more than a screen for the video.
In the evening, we have two events one in Madison, the other in Old Saybrook. The Madison set is similar to New Haven - a screen, a Shure mic, and a QSC speaker - only this will be one speaker and a lavaliere mic. Old Saybrook only needs the video side - this one needs a projector (likely, a Panasonic) and a screen.

Fortunately, I am not the one scheduled to set the New Haven event so... back to sleep for me!