Often enough my work takes me abroad. And just when I thought I’d played a gig in every corner of the world, some band has found a new locale. There was a time when South America seemed like a distant land, an impossible place to do a proper show. But that’s in the past. Now I get to teach the locals how to do shows in lovely places like Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. There are two things that I feel are most important when planning a gig in a strange land: proper preparation and the proper attitude. You have to do extensive advance work and make your contacts weeks in advance of the gig. Don’t wait until a week before the show to tell some guy in Moscow that you require a certain console with four monitors. And be sure to keep a positive attitude and a smile at all times. Failure to do either of these will lead to miserable flailing and the possible loss of your mind right there on site.
The best way to approach a show in a faraway place is to go do a site survey and actually “walk the room” and check everything out first hand. Site surveys are great because they allow you to physically measure the room, figure out the best rigging points for your lights and scenery, sort any power issues, and then decide where to put the stage. I don’t know about the rest of the lighting world, but I am constantly booked. Finding time for flying to a foreign land to conduct a site survey is rarely an option.
Instead, I become best friends with the local promoter rep. I start out by exchanging pleasant e-mails assuring them that I am used to dealing with all kinds of scenarios as well as every kind of lighting fixture and console made. Then I make sure they have a copy of the lighting plot and an equipment list in front of them before I actually speak personally on the phone. They usually direct me to their vendors who eventually contact me.
You would be surprised at how many lighting companies all over the world employ someone who can speak English. Once I find out who this person is, I start corresponding. The first thing I like to do is get a list of truss and fixtures that are available at the time I will be there. Then I quickly compare that list to my plot and start editing. If there is something they cannot replicate (like a preferred media server) then I make plans to bring one with me.
My contact on the other side can help with the smooth transfer of gear through the local customs. Don’t try and bring your own consoles as excess baggage through border crossings in foreign lands. You will spend all your free time worrying about how you will get it back and to the gig on time. It once took me 72 hours and $2,000 to retrieve a Wholehog 2 from customs in South Africa. It is easy to get frustrated when dealing with locals. Sometimes, their way of doing things seems backwards. But if you blow up, they will really care less about helping you and everything will spiral downward from there. Remember, these people will be here laughing at you long after you’ve caught a flight home, and you may have to go back there sooner than you think.
Patience really is a virtue. If you think there’s nothing slower than a load-in at the Javitz Center, you have not played a one-off in Sicily, or rigged fixtures on bamboo truss with baling wire in the Philippines. Some sites take three days to load in a two-truss lighting system. And that’s only because you are there helping them patch everything correctly. Don’t get frustrated with the lighting techs in Romania. They just don’t have your experience. Instead, teach them the right way and let them hand this knowledge down to the next guy.
Shabby gear is often a factor, but it’s getting better all the time. And from my experience, more foreign lighting companies are maintaining their gear well. I did a show in Moscow last month. They had all 150 moving lights we spec’d. They even found me a Maxxyz console in good working condition, which was something I did not expect. Then the same show went to Tokyo the next week. The Japanese are always proud of doing things correctly. But in this case they couldn’t hold a candle to the Russians. The lights took forever to patch correctly and both consoles I got in Tokyo were broken.
I have done entire setups with Eastern European stagehands who don’t speak a word of English. I actually enjoy it. You demonstrate to one guy how to do some task, and then send him with four guys to do it. The best parts of the day consist of watching this guy you just taught berate his fellow workers in a tirade of foreign expletives while showing them the proper way to hang a lighting fixture.
Sometimes safety concerns can raise your eyebrows. Structures on which we would never think of hanging weight are found everywhere. I see saddle-backed trusses with broken welds all over the world. They don’t retire these to the scrap metal bin, they just use them to lift lighter objects like PA scrims.
Last month I did a dance show in the Bahamas on the beach. The locals constructed a stage with a 40-foot ground supported box truss structure — on sand — free standing. The locals told me they only use guy wires (with 55 gallon water drums) if they think it will be windy. We told them we thought it may get windy and we demanded they use them for safety. The next thing you know, there were four giant drums of water with ropes attached to the structure to act as ballast. Of course, they were located right in the front rows, giving the kids something to climb on.
A lighting designer should really have a good electrician with them for foreign shows. It should be someone they’ve worked with before. Third world countries will often have questionable power or generators that were not designed for concert applications. When something goes wrong, I don’t want to worry about finding a translator who can find the guy whose brother rented them his 40-year-old generator. I want to call my tech who I know will be all over the problem.
I also prefer to have my own guy figure out how my console should be patched. Carrying your own electrician will save you hours getting data to flow from the console to the lighting fixtures. Sixteen universes of DMX512 is not unusual for many touring shows these days, but in Kazakhstan, this is definitely way too much for the local lighting tech to figure out. I suggest you don’t go there without your electrician and a good attitude.
Nook Schoenfeld is a freelance lighting designer. He can be contacted at nschoenfeld@plsn.com.
