Blog: Tiny leadtimes benefit no one
Ian Grime, July 21, 2011
I’ve just returned from an event and witnessed what is starting to become the ‘norm’ – get into a venue at 6.00am, event starts at 9.00am. No time for any rehearsals, previewing video, debugging anything technical in the system…
The show goes ‘OK’. We haven’t had time to programme enough lighting states, a lavalier is dropping out slightly, some of the powerpoint is not great, but we haven’t had time to redesign any of it.
The client is happy at the end of the day, and I’ll get paid but my professional standards mean I don’t feel satisfied with the job. Any kind of ‘mistake’ reflects on the production company whether we’re to blame or not.
My question is this…Should Event Producers be more forceful in making clients understand the need for ‘suitable’ build up and rehearsal time? It’s normally all down to budget, and if we aren’t pushing for this, surely we are putting our own roles at risk, because we could be the next ‘casualty’ of a tight budget.
In the meantime, we’ve learnt to anticipate client needs – we travel with music stings and walk up music at the ready, spare storage drives and transfer devices, printers, laptops and the like..and all this is becoming ‘expected’ as part of the service.
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Couldnt agree more with all the sentiments: unfortunately it is the client booking the venue 9/10, and the agency just rolling over and accepting the given – add in an inexperienced management structure and then, as usual, its down to the experienced, tired, and worn-down crew to keep it together – lets not even mention safety issues with just how long crew have slept in advance, handling electrics, rigging, etc, to make these time-strangled cost-savings work. Technology may appear to save us, but cost-cutting will kill one of us – soon.
I’ve seen this trend too.. We usually get a call a couple days before the event with little room for a test to establish the venues ability to host a video conference.
I can understand if the keynote or guest speaker cant make it at short notice, but its a crime when everybody concerned knows there will be a live link and disallow a test before the event day.
Its true we do have a 100% record we have never lost one yet, but that said it does nothing for the nerves when we turn up to a venue on the day of the conference not knowing if the Ip or ISDN lines have been tested for video conferencing.
If your reputation depends on it just allow for a test day before the event at least then when we gain access 3 hours before the event we are fairly confident it will work!
Rant over,
Patrick
I can only but agree with the sentiments and observations made on this subject. Solutions can only involve an increase in crewing levels in order to achive such short term build times and clients made very aware of the consequences of such lead in times. As Mike Bell states it is only a matter of time before a tragedy ensues. However I would beleive that it is also the role of the agency to manage clients expectations and and to educate them as to the possible outcomes of such cost cutting exercises at all levels. Obvoiusly this would be an easier task when dealing with regular or contracted clients, but in these days of pitching with bottom line costs being the crieteira for success how many companies within our own industry have contributed to this scenario.
This is not uncommon in film production too. It tends to produce generic results. And pretty soon the audience will begin to notice as it all descends into cliché. http://youtu.be/YtGSXMuWMR4
Death by a thousand cuts, no wonder you’re not satisfied.
Totally agree Ian – the problem is trying to get the client to buy in to the ‘added value’ that professional AV companies are offering, compared to those who are more inclined to ‘take a risk’ and agree to do it at lower cost and shorter set-up times – and as Martin says above, there are a lot of companies out there who are doing it.
Not only that, but we’ve recently had to ‘no-bid’ on two opportunities where clients are looking for the cheapest solution. One was a webcast from a venue that had incredibly limited, open access bandwidth; the other where they really needed a VC solution, but decided to go the Skype route as it was cheaper!
Each time, despite raising our professional concerns about the solutions they were pursuing, they were able to find somebody who would take a chance and hope for the best.
If the client isn’t even concerned enough about a technical failure that could stop the show in it’s tracks, then it’s going to be even harder to convince them to spend extra on longer set-up times – particularly when you know that somebody else will be quoting for just what they ask for to win the business.