DAMAGED ROAD CASES
The list of necessary gear ( beyond the full arena concert PA , drive rack , and Smaart analyzer ) was long and varied : a power distro that had L21-30 outputs to power up our stage audio system ; a quad Cat-6 snake cable for our FOH console ; a full set of 30 tall and 30 short boom mic stands ; all of the NL4 speaker cable for our tour monitors and side fills ; RF antenna paddles and BNC cabling ; two hardwired IEM packs ; a few monitor system interconnect cables such as BNC jumpers and stage rack-to-monitor amp rack cables ; and a small mic kit for one of the support bands . We sent our list to Sound Art and the waiting game began … We didn ’ t know when the local gear would arrive or even which sound system it would be .
The daily schedule for this tour was typical for arenas : chalk the floor at 7:30 a . m ., load in lighting at 8 a . m ., load in sound closer to 9 a . m ., set up and try to cut the local
hands before 1 p . m . at the five-hour mark , tune the PA system by 2 p . m ., band soundchecks through the afternoon , then open the doors at 6 p . m .
The schedule for this day was going to be “ make it up as you go ,” but fortunately for the tour , the other three trucks were at the venue a little after 9 a . m . for load-in to begin . The lighting system was unloaded and set up as usual , which kept the local crew busy for a while . A little over an hour later , the venue riggers were looking to see what was needed for audio rigging but since I didn ’ t know which system was coming , I couldn ’ t tell them anything definitive . The riggers understood our plight but it was obvious that they would be happier when the last show points were rigged and they could go home for the day . At around 11:30 a . m ., the first of two trucks from Sound Art arrived and I learned that we would be flying an Electro-Voice XLC
32 PROFESSIONAL SOUND