Friday 8th May 09 DMF

One of the main aims of the first day of the festival was to organise and transport equipment to the event areas.
Ben (from Jamin Events) organised and dispatched various sound and lighting equipment in preparation for the different bands and musicians playing later on in the day. Whilst doing this, he explained the different types of cables used for the various sound components. This helped me in that I felt more confident about knowing which cable or lead connected to which appliance. He also ran through the basic timetable for the musicians and events that he was engineering. I found it easier to cope knowing the times and basic set up for each event.
I did find that, even on the first day, there is a lot of heavy lifting and wheeling involved in being a sound technician! Especially as most of the equipment had to be carried or wheeled to the event areas, as Dartmouth was packed with people, so there was no chance in transporting  the equipment by car.

The atmosphere nearing the afternoons and evening's events was brilliant, it felt really good to be part of a team, setting up sound equipment for musicians and then hearing them play.

We did encounter some problems along the way, mostly during sound checks, (when musicans use the microphones and monitors to check sound levels). At times it was frustrating because we couldnt achieve the correct sound or the sound the musicians needed to hear.Ben explained that it is important that the sounf levels are accurate and plausible in order for the musicians or band to hear each other and themselves.  Also, one of the sound desks did not work properly so we had to stall the event momentarily whilst fetching another desk!

Mainly, for the first evening, I was watching how Ben set up the equipment and I remember thinking how important it must be to get it right. I found it confusing in someways as I was unsure which lead connected to what!? However, looking back I think i did learn whilst working, nevertheless in the future I think I would draw up the different leads, speakers, mixers and other sound equipment to revise and make sure I knew what I was plugging in, as this would also save some time and panic.  

For a lot of the evening events I took on the role of being a runner. Mainly running microphones and microphone stands to different venues in Dartmouth and then setting them up. This was quite fun and I enjoyed it simply because I couldnt mess it up and I got to hear loads of different music whilst at the venues. However, I think that if that was a permanent job I could get quite tired from running!