I was recently in Dallas, TX (actually a suburb called Frisco) for a show at the FC Soccer Stadium Pizza Hut Park. This 20,000+ seated stadium was absolutely gorgeous and couldn't have been a better venue for an outdoor show with the Flatts themselves. Although Mother Nature sure tried to make us worker even harder. In the middle of the day they measured the temp on the field---115 degrees! We kicked off the morning at 6:30A with buses and trucks rolling in. We did a quick walk through of the venue and talked about some last minute issues that had to be sorted out. Everything throughout the day rolled along smoothly and really couldn't have gone any better. For this one I was so terrified that I knew I just needed to let it go and do my thing. Walking into a new venue can be extremely daunting..but working with this band has had it's horror stories. So I was ready for a double whammy. The venue was fantastic to work with, totally organized and have a good feeling we'll (or I should I (: ) will be back soon. The band's production manager was phenomenal which made the day go so well.
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| Loading in equipment to the stage |
The funniest story of the day all revolved around one item: a baby pool. The production manager came in telling me a story of how a baby pool appeared at their show the night before. They expected for it to be loaded into a packed truck with the water still in it. There was no room in the trailer so he just left it there. We joked and laughed about for a few minutes and then magically a couple of hours later one of those big, blue plastic pools showed up right outside the production office. The manager asked me if there was a hose they could use to fill it up. I had to disconnect the hose from where the caterers were washing dishes and therefor the pool needs to be filled right away. These guys were busy arguing over more important things, like where the band was going to play basketball. So I filled the pool up. Keep in mind it's 115 degrees outside and I'm dragging a 100ft black, industrial, dirty hose from one spot to the next to avoid having to drag a filled pool instead. Turns out that the pool is for Joe Don's (one of the RF members) baby. Over the next few hours everyone passes by that pool..at this point I'm convinced someone's going to end up jumping in. But alas, no one ever used the pool...not even the baby. The frustration of the baby pool continued. The things we do for entertainers!
The show went one with just a few glitches...of course things no one in the audience would know. We had some big gaps in the seating on the floor. Instead of having the guys looking out and seeing the open spots we moved folks from the back of the floor up to fill in those seats. The spotlights that were ordered were not strong enough to make the throw from their location to the stage. They were pretty much useless but they worked the lights on the stage so you could still see them from afar.
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| 2.5 hour load out and tear down of chairs...amazing! |
After the show, we got the payments settled and I was about to crash! I was starving because I hadn't gotten to eat dinner so I went rummaging through the production office. They had left over Whataburger (yay!) and cotton candy. What a healthy dinner! I was in the dressing room area talking with security when Gary (the lead singer) came out and nearly attacked me to get to the cotton candy. Needless to say he won that fight. Finally after every person on the tour (about 100 folks) had their shower the bus started rolling out. You know it's almost over when you see this....
After a 22hour day...I could not have been happier to get back to the hotel and take a shower. =)
Hope to be back in Frisco soon and working with the fine folks of Pizza Hut Park!
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| This is one of my favorite signs in Texas |
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