Workshop Bloopers –
They Happen to All of Us
by Zarifa Sa’id

 

Having recently successfully completed a workshop that I privately have called "the workshop from Hell" due to all the little things that went wrong and had to be fixed, the subject of what can go wrong no matter how much you plan has been on my mind. I’ve compared notes with some other friends who have produced workshops and thought you all might be interested to know what can tax the mind and serenity of your workshop producer. If you produce workshops or are thinking about it, this is yet another reminder that your main function as manager may be trouble shooting. This is where the creativity comes in - figuring out at the last minute, under stress how to make something work in some other way than you had planned it in the first place!

 

My first introduction to bloopers was with Master of Ceremonies. I had a boyfriend at that time who fancied himself quite a speaker. He rented a blue tux and listened indulgently as I tried to tip him on how to pronounce names. I then cringed as he announced Troupe X doing a Beeleeedi dance. In that same show, I had smartly determined that I could solve all sound problems by hiring a professional to bring in and run the equipment. In those days some people still used reel to reel tape recorders. He brought the requisite equipment. When the group who was to use the reel to reel tape was ready, they and I stood frozen in horror at the chipmunk like sound that emanated from the tape player. It seems there were two speeds in reel to reel players - he had one and she had the other. After a moment’s horror, my MC friend announced a short break due to technical problems. I went out into the audience to beg a couple of performers to go on early and rearranged the order of the program. In the meantime, the performer’s husband went across town to bring their reel to reel. All went fine after that. Little was I to know that this was the precursor of things to come over the next twenty years or so of producing workshops.

 

Weather - it can confound you in many ways. While still in the Washington area, I planned a workshop for March 1. I sponsored Phaedra of New York. March 1 was ahead of all the other events planned for the Spring and too late for snow in the Washington area. Hah! I had a great turnout. I had actually broken even by the time we opened for the class on Saturday. I had not sold many show tickets in advance, but expected a good turn out and therefore thought I might actually clear a little money. By 2pm that day the weather forecast was for snow. By 4pm the snow was falling and by 6pm there were blizzard conditions. We elected not to cancel the show as most of the performers were at the workshop and therefore somewhat trapped. One group that had not come to the workshop, however, arrived by tow truck. When we opened that night, one member of the audience arrived by cross country skies - there was little moving on the roads in the way of traffic! Those of us there enjoyed a great show and the camaraderie that comes with shared emergency conditions. And I did not clear a penny since there were no ticket purchases at the door.

 

Well, I solved the snow problem. I moved to Florida. The second year I was here, I sponsored Aziz. I watched the weather forecasts with a certain amount of smugness. It won’t snow in Florida! Smug, that is, until on the Friday preceding the workshop Lucy of Scherezade Imports called me on her cell phone from a plane waiting in the snow in Richmond and uncertain of whether she would be able to take off. This made me wake up - Aziz had to transfer in Atlanta. I called him frantically and we talked about contingency plans. How he could be rerouted at the last minute if it looked like the East coast would shut down. Well the airlines put him on the flight to Atlanta. I chewed my nails for hours wondering who could teach a morning class if he couldn’t make it until Saturday afternoon. Well, he was able to get on the last plane out of Atlanta before they closed the airport for the next 24 hours. The entire East coast north of Florida was shut down in blizzard conditions. I guess you can’t move far enough away!

 

A friend of mine, Chandra, had an interesting experience. She had arranged a workshop to be held in a school where she taught weekly classes. Because there was plenty of space, she had not limited attendance. On Saturday morning there was a very nice turnout – all except for the custodian with the keys, who didn’t show! There was nothing to do but troop over to her house and have the workshop in her much smaller basement studio. She was lucky she had at least that alternative.

 

Then there was the show here in Gainesville where the halogen stage lights I had burned out and sent a jolt through the electric system which fried my sound system. This was at the beginning of the Friday night show. The sound people and I all stood around the sound equipment, scratched our heads, smelled the burned electrical parts and said "yep, looks like it’s dead all right". We took a break, sent someone out for a boom box and finished the show with that for a sound system. Everyone took it in stride, but it gave me some tense moments. And the next day I went to a sound store and bought a used amplifier which gave better sound anyway.

 

Finally, there was the recent workshop which had so much go wrong. Thank goodness I had taken my own advice to delegate and had two very competent people to run the registration and the shows. That left me free to troubleshoot. Possibly it all started when I heard from folks that the post office had not delivered their flyers. Then two of the teachers scheduled their flights to arrive in the middle of some of the planned activities. It was a four-day event. Habiba was scheduled to arrive in the middle of the welcome party on Wednesday night and Suzanna had scheduled her flight to arrive in the middle of the Thursday night show (she was not scheduled to perform until Saturday). In the end it didn’t matter as both planes were hours late and I ended up at the airport at midnight both nights. The welcome party was attended mostly by mosquitos - make a note, no pool parties in July in North Florida! I never heard from the technical person that I had thought would set up the lights and sound system. I had to learn how to set up the lights and get help from Faye Austin’s companion to set up the light trees. That was an empowering experience, since in over twenty years of producing workshops, I have never set up my own equipment. In addition, in the process of getting the sound worked out, I bought a brand new PA system. I also helped set it up so I now know something about that end of the business. People said it was the best sound they had heard at a workshop. Then the caterer called and said he would not deliver lunches on Thursday. Then I entered the storage room that we use for a dressing room and found it filled to the ceiling with boxes of ceiling tiles for a planned renovation of the main hall. Then the next day the caterer called again and canceled on all the rest of the lunches for the weekend. Then the Saturday night programs were printed wrong and I spent Saturday morning helping the printer tear out the middle sheet and insert a new one. While none of this showed to the participants (except they occasionally wondered where I was!), it certainly ran me ragged getting everything to work out.

 

So these are some of the kinds of things that can happen. Each time you plan for everything you can think of, especially those problems that have occurred in the past. But each time there is something new that goes wrong. It makes you wonder whether sponsors are stress addicts?

 

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