Tourblog

1st Day: Friday, June 8

Getting There

There is an end to the waiting. For weeks on end you’ve been working your fingers to the bone for the event; everyone always seems to know better than you and neither could nor would admit to any wrongdoings on their part. So anyway, D-day has arrived and we are doing pre-airport/Budapest flight last-checks.

The ‘final check’ has a bright side, and a dark side. The sunny side being that you can fix up any last-minute emergencies. The fact that you tend to forget something more important in the process is the DARK side. Off to the local, friendly bank it is to grab enough cash to pay all the artists after the show – if they show that is. And so we come to the biggest paranoia of an event organiser: the place is packed out, the atmosphere is just right and Mista or Missus Star-Performer is not in the mood to leave the hotel room. What do you do? – A couple of deep breaths, and just get on with it.

At the bank counter I always ask myself why the employees need to make this ominous phone call, whereby they look very inconspicuously conspicuous, before they pull the money out. Are they calling their superiors to ask for permission or is it a secret hotline to figures of the underworld that a sizable sum of money is about to be made available outside the doors? You just don’t know. Anyway, money strapped to the chest – nicely accentuating the burgeoning bulge already there – Taxi! And see ya later.

At the airport the lawyer is assimilated into the travel group and after all his weapon-like possessions and potential explosive liquids have been taken off him (flown a thousand times, still has learned nothing), we are off to Budapest.

Three hours later we sit in the hotel lobby in Buda having been ripped off for the umpteenth time from local cab drivers and can add the survival of another two flights to our stat-sheet.

2nd Day: Saturday, June 9

Showtime

The morning of the show is, in a word, special. You wake up virtually still in the middle of night, bathed in sweat and nightmare-traumatised with a very strong conviction that you have overslept and already missed the party. After a few seconds of familiarising yourself, you reality-check and know that today between 150 to 300 problems will need to be solved. Hit the showers and off to the venue.

The stage is already set up and grim-faced workers are wildly loitering about the place whilst exuding a kind of ‘I’m sticking to the routine because I have seen and done it ALL’-vibe. In the production office everyone is glued to their laptop and solving problems, the main activity at events. There are no artists to be seen anywhere, something which an experienced event planner just manages to suppress somehow.

The beauty of it is that the doors have to be opened at some point, so that mostly 3 to 5 seconds before the Doors Open call a decision is made that the venue is ready, everything is in its place and ready to go. The masses pour in, get drunk, scream and let themselves be hammered with the loudest possible kind of music, until the point where calling the doctor has no use as the eardrums are past the point of no return and there’s nothing worth saving.

Now to the subject of the headlining act: To arrive on time to the venue contradicts the whole concept of being a headlining act, not to even mention being on stage even close to the right time. Once they bring themselves to leave the comfort of the hotel, the backstage area needs to must be cornered off, speak, everybody out. Hectic flares up, the great artist is nigh. Rumours fly of how arrogant, bitchy and difficult Kelis actually is supposed be. Always the same. Then she turns the corner, is super-friendly, checks with the organisers that everything is ok, is modest and is – yes – punctually on stage, pulls off a super-performance that is far beyond worth it. That is when it becomes clear again why a headlining act is called a headlining act. Not only because they cost more, but because the entertainment value is also at the very highest level.

After the show everyone is in the best possible mood. The audience is blown away, and so are the VIPs, though as respected VIP one must always appear half-bored so the enthusiasm is curbed a little.

The production team raise their glasses in satisfaction and make cheers to a successful evening. I could suck down a few brewskis myself but being a stuffed toy makes this difficult.

3rd Day: Sunday, June 10

Homeward Bound

After-show is pre-show. With a hint of hangover it’s back on the plane home. A day’s break, lick the wounds and then back on the road to Barcelona, Sónar Festival.