Back Stage

As some of you may know, I voluntarily provide design services for the Alumni Association of my alma mater, and last weekend, we organised a musical programme for the college reunion.

All of us had our tasklist – marketing, sponsorship, coordination with the other stakeholders, running around for prints… mine was the entire visual branding.

Having done branding, and much more, for an event in the past*, it didn’t appear to be that much work. The main challenge this time, though, was that I had to do it in addition to, and after my day job.

Initially a fun activity, designing all the collateral — the logo, poster, invitation card, backdrops and a souvenir mug — soon began looking more like a gigantic tortoise, moving painfully slowly, threatening to tuck itself inside a shell. With extremely short timelines, it was pretty much a sliding dive to the finish line.

On D-day too, there was a lot of activity. Registrations, sales counters, stage, back-stage, and audience management… all organizers had their stations.

My job was to stick around at the light and sound cubicle above the balcony of the auditorium.

It was déjà vu. In my previous event, too, I was stationed at the sound cubicle. It’s not a bad place to be, but it prevents one from interacting with new people. My regret the last time around was not having a picture of my post. This time, though, I made sure I corrected my mistake.

In the end, it wasn’t such a bad place to be, and in some ways turned out to be the best seat in the house. I had the freedom to click pictures, experiment with the camera’s settings, and listen to the entire performance — something my peers couldn’t.

I’m still not very comfortable with the camera, and in the poor light, it was very difficult to get a clean shot of this console. But it has a nice abstract feel to it, and seems apt for the entire event — the enormous effort involved before, and during the event made the past month and a half a complete blur.

* Event management can take its toll. Check out this incoherent aftermath of my past experience — and there’s a video too: Wimbledon Fever!

More blurry shots over at the Daily Post