SRC Debrief

[Ehn Farad]

I was thinking that it would be a really good idea to debrief what went well and what didn't, and anything we learned from how things went for the Spring Racing Carnival. That way moving forward we could start to streamline things. I'd be really interested in hearing how you guys felt about how things went, and how we could improve things for next time, and what we were awesome at. I guess I'll start:

What went well

1. We had a huge volume of really great music ready to play. Fantastic.
2. Bri did an outstanding, outstanding job of organizing our lists for the different portions of our performances, coding them and setting up the parts lists.
3. Malvy and Raven did a fantastic job of keeping track of parts, and who still needed to sync up.
4. Kro did a great job of the between song banter, and it really flowed our set together well.
5. We looked amazing. Not just the outfits, but the way some of us were on horseback. Just really added a nice touch to the event.
6. We had a lot of alts and players in so that we had as many as a dozen or so musicians available at any given time.
7. We really had some amazing lyrics. I got a ton of tells from people complementing the lyrics.
8. We all handled ourselves extremely well through the stress, confusion and sometimes tedium of the event. I've seen groups completely melt down and argue and complain in situations like this, but we held up very well and never had a dark moment despite everything.

What didn't go quite as well

1. Some of us (myself included) took on way more than was probably advisable, so (speak for myself) I didn't have as much energy or patience as I would like to have had by the time we were up to play the main event.
2. Raven was forgotten on the outfit list, so I had to run back and grab it for her before the show.
3. There was too much moving around, which broke up our performance and divided the audience.
4. There was a lot of dead air, despite the fact that we had more material than we had time to play.
5. There were some communication issues, with messages going into the wrong channels, multiple people trying to talk to the organizers via various methods, and some confusion in that area.
6. There was some confusion around when we were supposed to do what, when we should start, where we should be, etc. and often no answer from the organizers on that.
7. We stuck too closely to our playlist when we could see the crowd was starting to thin and fade.

What we could do differently next time

1. If we are the main attraction/headliner at an event, we should try our best to keep our plates clear of other things.
2. I will come up with a new system for handling outfits to ensure that we all have them well in advance.
3. When we are playing an event, we need to be really proactive with the organizers ahead of time, so that we can state what we need in order for things to go smoothly, and point out any potential problems with what the organizers want from us. All of us saw the forum post where Bri outlined what Kiralynn wanted, but we didn't seem to have a lot of red flags about moving around that much with all of our alts, or the practicality of the layout. I think we should maybe be a bit more vigilant in the future and try to anticipate any issues with how the organizers are planning things to help them ensure things go more smoothly. Hindsight is 20/20, but we really should have seen the flaws in her plan and pointed them out early so that we could work with her to devise a better solution. As it stood, we ended up losing a lot of the crowd via delays and having to move around a lot.
4. The same goes for the dead air. As a band, I think it's our role to entertain the crowd and keep everyone engaged, and we lost opportunity after opportunity to do that. Dead air doesn't make Kiralynn look bad, it makes us look bad, because to the audience, they see a band all set up and waiting, and not playing, or taking forever to get a song or two off. They have no idea at all that Kiralynn hasn't given us a cue. If you look at it from a RP perspective, I think our oversight becomes a bit clearer. We could have been real showmen about it and given the audience updates on what was going on, why the delays, etc. and apologized. We could have taken initiative and thrown in some songs here and there to keep people lively and entertained while they were waiting. Someone else's organization/communication challenges should never reflect on our performance as a group.
5. From a communication perspective, I think we really should have one person dealing with the organizers, and conveying things back to the group. Someone who is very assertive and willing to push them politely but firmly if they are falling short, and set and enforce boundaries around what we are doing. Kiralynn was clearly stretched very thin, and we could have taken up the slack for her and kept the entertainment flowing without jeopardizing the elements she had pre-planned with us. I felt a bit embarrassed that audience members were stepping in and playing songs when there was a full band just sitting there doing nothing.
6. Again, we need to take the lead on our performances. That's what we should be best at. Organizers can bring us there, but that's only part of the battle. We need to keep audiences entertained and engaged, keep them updated on what is happening with the events and when to expect x or y to happen, that kind of thing. If an organizer falls short we need to step in and keep things going. It makes us look good, it makes the organizers look good, and most of all, it keeps the audience entertained. Organizers who know we are the kind of band that will make them look good and keep things running smoothly even in the midst of their own stress and organizational issues, will seek us out in the future and want us because they know they can rely on us to take the pressure off them and make the event awesome.
7. We need to be ready to change plans when circumstances change, and play things by ear so that we're always putting our best foot forward.

What we should keep doing moving forward

1. There is no question that Bri is the queen of handling our songlist and parts assignment. I am in awe.
2. We should definitely stick with the lyrics we've been doing. They are very popular and go over extremely well with the crowd. They really make our performances special.
3. The between set banter is also great and it helps to keep the flow of the shows going.
4. We should definitely try go into every show as prepared with a high volume of great material. It was great having more material than we needed. It gave us more options about how we could handle the flow of the event.
5. Despite how complex and multi-instrumented our songs tend to be, we seem to do a great job of making sure we are all in with our proper parts for each song. We should definitely keep that up. We're good at it.
6. We definitely have a good social dynamic in the group. We should definitely continue to foster that laid back, mature, patient dynamic because it's serving us well.
7. We should continue to build out alts and keep a lot of players at the ready. I personally plan on building out another musician for personal projects, who will be available as a second Jeb for shows.

These are just a few of the suggestions/thoughts I had. Overall I think we did outstandingly well given the challenges we faced. What do you guys think? Do you have anything to add to this?

[Briallan]

 

Well, where to start!  :)

 

First, thank you Rho for taking the time to compile this list. I think we learn a little from every concert we play, but this one was perhaps the most complex in terms of coordination that I can remember, and I agree that there is much we can learn from it.

 

I generally agree with Rho’s points … though in a few cases my perspective is a little different, and in a couple cases I have some additional things I would like to add. So it is just those issues I will discuss:

 

Even though we did have a huge volume of music ready (which was good, and allowed us to play extra music at times when there was some dead space that I didn’t anticipate), we ended up playing some of the more marginal tunes that I just had available as extras, and didn’t play some of the tunes in our main set that we had intended to play. This was cause I assumed that we would eventually play everything from our main set, which didn’t happen.

 

I think the major issue really was that I had in my mind that the event was going to go exactly the way Kiralynn and I discussed, and I wasn’t mentally prepared for the unforeseen events .. such as being asked to play a bunch of extra music at the start, and the fact that the crowd would thin that much (I sort of had in my mind the last event we did for Windy Acres, where we played nearly two hours and still have a substantial audience at the end  -- one reason that this didn’t happen at the SRC was that we had competition from other bands playing elsewhere). So generally I think the main lesson for me is when you are doing a complex event like this, we need to be prepared for lots of things going differently than the script you have in mind, and you need to be more alert than I was to changing conditions. Since I have to manage a lot of alts, often I am a little oblivious to what is happening, and  perhaps should delegate more tasks than I do – this has been brought up in the past, and I think we have made some progress, but clearly I didn’t notice a few important issues until Rho brought them up. So maybe one area we could delegate more is in having someone else be in charge of communication with the event organizer since am managing a lot of alts, for complex events such as this one anyway.

 

Moving around was something Kiralynn and I agreed on, and I agree it took some time, and in retrospect, probably we should not have done that. But another problem was my coordinating with Kiralynn on exactly when to start the Awards music piece (Chariot Race Music Long) … she said something at one point that confused me and I should have either just started playing or asked for more clarification rather than just standing there without doing anything and creating some dead space for a minute or two. Otherwise, we would have been ready to play in spite of moving around.

 

On  the issue of ‘keeping our plates clear’ … I maybe don’t agree that that is practical … for one thing, most people have RL things they need/want to do in addition to the game, and I think it is up to them to decide what events they do in game .. and that they need not give up other in-game activity just because we have a concert coming up (if I am understanding correctly that that is what you are suggesting). If we make that a requirement of being in the band, I am afraid we will end up with only 1 or 2 people in the band. I think what has been working for us is having everything ready and locked down early enough so that, when concert time arrives, people already know what they need to do and simply need to show up ½ hour or so before the event (earlier is nice if that’s possible). We have learned from previous concerts (such as Mardi Gras) that we need to do this, and we have been trying to implement this  .. for example, we started play-testing music for SRC as much as two months ago to avoid having to rush madly at the end to get everything in place).

 

[Briallan]

Well one more thing... I agree we should be happy with what we accomplished ... anytime you have a complex event not everything is going to go 100% right (which is something I have also discussed with Kiralynn, who does a lot of these kind of events, and so has maybe a better perspective in some ways) .. I do want us to learn from mistakes and keep the 'parts not going right' to a minimum, but perfection is probably something that is not going to happen ... or maybe a better way of putting it is that the cost of reaching perfection might be too high given that this is a recreation for people and not a job. Which is something I have to remind myself of periodically :)

[Malvy]

GDPR#3463094

[Ehn Farad]

I agree, it's not a job, nor should it feel like one at any point. And people should definitely retain 100% control over what they do and when. I should perhaps have emphasized that these are points I had in mind as advice and learning to help us enjoy events more, not as rules or anything resembling that.

For example, for myself I was doing all that Sore Thumbs stuff, plus a bunch of other things, and when IRL started taking over a lot of my time that put a lot of pressure on my ability to execute everything as well as I would have liked. In retrospect I don't think I would take on extra stuff on the same day as a band performance, unless the band performance was a really short set in a really casual setting or something. If someone was considering doing that and asked for my advice, I'd say, "I personally don't recommend that." but in the end I would want them to feel completely free to do whatever they want.

I also agree that perfection is impossible and an unwise thing to try to attain. It would just add stress and turn things into a job when we are all here to just have fun. I'm not advocating for that type of approach, I personally play the game to escape from day-to-day stress so it would be a bit ironic for me to play the game and have it become a source of stress! But I just naturally do gravitate towards trying to do a better job of things, improving how I handle situations and that sort of thing so that's where my head is always at. Please don't anyone feel any obligation to take on that headspace if it isn't comfortable for you.

I think it is fair to say that most of what went wrong was out of our control, and that's just bound to happen from time to time. We can't control how other people communicate with us, we can't control how other people's events are organized, we can't control how everything falls into place or when things go wrong. In the end the only thing we have any control over is how we respond to all of those things. And if we have a plan ahead of time, it just makes it easier because we already know what to do, or who will handle it.

I agree, Bri - you already do so much and run so many alts, it's only fair one of us takes on some of the tasks. I'm here to support the band or help you in any way that is needed. I would love to help out by dealing with the organizers and keeping things flowing communication-wise, keeping you updated, etc. so you can focus on Band Leader stuff. I've got a lot of event organizing experience IRL. I was an artist manager for several years (for musicians and bands), and organized an annual 3-day music festival in Vancouver, so I think I'd be able to communicate with organizers in a way they'd connect with. Anything else I can do, please let me know.

A lot of that kind of stuff comes naturally to me, so it doesn't feel like work at all. I actually enjoy it. If anything, I feel more comfortable with it than other things such as organizing the playlists and parts like you do, Bri! That is a Herculean task that I feel tense just imagining trying to do.

I also want to emphasize because maybe my feedback kind of dampened that a bit - we were exceptionally well-prepared and did a fantastic job. I credit most of that to Bri and her great leadership.

[Briallan]

Well thank you! As I said, I did learn a lot from the experience and I too would like to use that learning to help make our band better.

I think having you take over the event organization (and coordination with event organizers when we appear at events that we don't organize ourselves) would be a great idea -- each of us has different skills and interests and I would like to take advantage of that as much as possible!

[Ice Weasel]

Huge, multi-segment events like this one are... "difficult" is really way to light a word. Frankly, I've seen a few peeks of the inner workings of even things like Fincin's Geenfields festival, and wouldn't take it on for a bet. And that, Fincin only had to deal with the band-leaders, not dozens of riders, multiple locations... I can't begin to picture what it's like to try to mount a Carnival event like this. And I say that as a retired professional. I spent decades performing, running stages, designing entire productions and events... I will certify that the Carnivals, especially the multi-venue ones, would make me run screaming into the woods to hide. There are far too many individuals adding seasoning to the stew.

Okay.. now, that said, there was a big communication disconnect, but I'm not certain where any "fault" was. In part, I think it was a problem of expectations. Kiralynn had a rather laid-back attitude to the music and, what was to her, the auxiliary parts of the day. For Windy Acres, the races were the key component, the thing the whole day was for. For us (and other performers), it's really easy to be focused on our part, and not a bigger picture.  Add to that what others have said here about plans going loopy (Remember, a military maxim is: "No plans survive contact with the enemy"; in event coordination, time and random chance are the enemy, and they are met before the first spoken "Welcome!".)  

I always consider that events require some things "backstage":

• Robust Planning
• Efficient Communication
• Flexibility Under Pressure

The overall plan should be aware of the plans of each component. And the best events have the performer or technician with the slightest role being completely aware of the overall plan.  If this weren't something we do for fun, if it were "real-world", I'd push hard to have everything we are involved in nailed down, plan-wise, a week out, at minimum. We don't need things in the game that we do in real life, like dress rehearsals, mainly because they aren't practical. But outside the game, most all performing arts do dress rehearsals to bring all production elements together so the producer and directors can see everything interact. It ALWAYS points out something overlooked or unintended. So, first dress rehearsals are usually scheduled a week or more from the "hard opening night". Just to give time to adjust and tweak things.  Again, it isn't practical for the game, but the more planning is set ahead of time, the better off we all are.

On communication: Theirs and ours, maybe. I remarked at one point that what Kiralynn needed was a good, firm-handed stage manager. Stage Manager is a role in the real world, armed with a stopwatch, a clipboard of lists and cues and timetables, and a headset that reaches everyone backstage and in the technical booth. I would probably suggest to Kira that she run the overall show, and do her announcing and so on, but each venue have a Stage Manager with control of that location; One person to monitor the progress of the overall festival, communicate directly with performers at that location, be available for questions and clarifications, and have authority to alter plans on the fly. It's simply too much for one person to do everything, no matter the good intentions. I think Kiralynn does an incredibly masterful job, given the realities. I just think she makes it too hard on herself, and being spread thin leads to issues with sub-groups trying to understand their parts, and any timing problems that arise. A good Stage Manager "broadcasts" on the intercom circuits: "Ten minutes to XYZ...", "Five minutes to XYZ, performers to their places, please...", "Two minutes to XYZ... Warning on Start. Departments check in..." (Usually a "role call" is done, each group indicating "Ready" with their department name)... 'Opening Cue, XYZ, and.... Go!". (The final "go" starts the act.) 

As for Flexibility, bad things will happen. Segments will go over allotted times. Griefers will cause delays. There are more reasons for changes on the fly than can be listed. The glitches and timing variances roll downhill to the end of the day, too.  By the time the evening concert started, we were far over an hour late. But that's not really so odd. The biggest thing that contributes to good flexibility is communication (again).

Add to all that the performance anxiety that can hit folks. None of the "problems" of the day were really that huge, but in the moment, when you are worried about your small part of the whole, it can seem that you are abandoned, thrown under the bus that is going to leave without you in your seat because you missed the boarding call somehow.  That's all natural, really.  Tempers shorten, nerves jangle, panic ratchets from mild to total... all part of those moments before the show. Add that we can converse during a show where th audience can't see it... well, that tends to magnify the nerves part, especially in an information/communication vacuum.  

To me, it all boils down to:

• We're here to have fun. If it stops being fun, what's the point?
• Plans are lovely things that die horribly just before the curtain goes up.
• Doing our part to be prepared as early as is practical is important.
• Having to adjust things on the fly should be expected.
• You can't "pull" communication, you have to take what you get.
• We never know what the "cue caller" is going through: 20 Tells a minute? I can't imagine the chaos.
• One the show starts, all that matters is doing our best. Our best is pretty darned good.
• The audience never sees the hair-tearing, nail-biting, nerves-on-fire that happens on the other side of the curtain.
• In the end, the audience's perception of the show is the only meaningful thing.

I tend to offer to help others a lot in their concerts, mainly because it takes very little to do so. I'd probably want to attend the show, so what is loading a set list into songbook, and watching raid-chat for my part so I can cue it up? No pressure, really, and it takes my mind off the lyrics I'm writing, the long song I'm having trouble with... It's relaxing, and is fairly simple, and it builds friendships with people who are in a bind. I'm not a mercenary guy, but I can imagine that these favors collect a bit, so if I need help sometime, there are people ready and willing. Did I over-commit to the weekend? Yeah, probably. But, coming to help Abby when she had the rug yanked out from under on Friday, playing for Lilikate (at two venues during the day) when she found herself short on players due to RL vacations, all that I added to the full plate of Remediators/Sore Thumbs, I'd do it again without question. 

We weren't alone on being upset at the communication. Abby had been asked to play for one hour, as she understood it. Everything else was improv out of her standing set lists. With five alts. She had to go when she did, her schedule thrown by the late start and the longer-than-understood set time. That we could re-organize the Thumbs sets meant a lot to her, as she really would have had to go when she did, even having agreed to help us with the music.  Things cascade.  Still, having a few days out of the heat of the moment, I think Kiralynn did a masterful job; it isn't easy herding cats, and double-hard when all the cats ask questions or simply comment to you, all at once and continuously. LOL... 

Oh, the things we do for fun.... 

 

[Ehn Farad]

I agree, Kiralynn did an amazing, amazing job. The carnival was a great event that came off really well, and it seems she did much of it single-handedly. I admire the breadth and scope of what she achieved with it. As someone who loves organizing events, I find it inspiring that she managed to do such a great job of essentially pulling off a fully fledged in-game rodeo, complete with all the events and activities one would expect at such an event.

I would be horrified if my comments about communication/organization came across as a condemnation of her in any way. I have nothing but the highest respect and admiration for her, and I'm sympathetic to her situation and sympathetic to the fact that we were a marginal part of her day. I think that by any objective standard she did an amazing job.

Similarly, I can't over-emphasize that I'm coming from a place of wanting to make things smoother and easier and more fun, not from one of wanting to stifle how others experience things. Like I said, if any of this doesn't appeal to you or comes across in anything other than a comfortable way, please disregard it.

[Malvy]

GDPR#3463094

[Ice Weasel]

Heh.. put the length and ramble of my post above to writing while on my first cup of coffee. Not saying that I tend to pontificate, but some in my family have offered to buy me a tall, peaked white hat. 

I'm not meaning to disparage any of what has been said... I have a tendency to try to advocate for the hidden side, not meaning that the observations are without merit. I've found that sometimes it's easy for me to judge and comment from inside my bubble, so I try always to pull the focus back to objective distances.  

The second or even third cup of coffee usually removes some communicative fog for/from me, too. 

Anyway, this is a worthy topic, don't let me mire it, unintentionally or not.

[Ehn Farad]

Heh, I hear you. I tend to take that position myself, because I think a vast majority of people - totally understandably - approach things from a position of unawareness or privilege when discussing things impacting other people, and it's really easy to unintentionally disregard how others are experiencing something. "Walk a mile in someone else's shoes" and all that. Perhaps I could have framed my original post with that in mind to avoid any confusion about intent. I really wanted to focus on us and not make things about anyone else.

The bottom line of what much of my post is about is, it is best if we operate almost entirely independently of what is happening around us, with a "the show must go on" mentality so that if anything goes sideways we will not be as affected. It's the headspace I usually come from when doing any task - I'm a naturally independent person and like to feel that whatever else is going on around me, I am in control of my own stuff. Like I said, we did a great job and it's hard to talk about what could be learned without appearing to dampen that. The very last thing I want to do is downplay or diminish what was accomplished by all. I think it's every bit as valuable to celebrate accomplishments as it is to debrief. But debriefing just comes naturally to me (perhaps sadly, more naturally than celebrating does in many cases). It's something I always do in my personal life when I'm doing something that I hope to do again. The better I am at something, the more fun I have. I thinks pretty human.

I agree that being available for other people is important, and I hope to make myself available in this type of capacity as well. Like you said, playing songs is not a taxing task and if it takes a load off of someone else, so much the better. I don't care what else I have going on, if there's a time when I can step in and help someone I will. When I was talking about "clearing one's plate" I'm talking more about the Sore Thumbs stuff, or anything that really involves a lot of effort, thought and preparation. I'm glad I did it, it was fun and went over surprisingly well with the crowd, but I could do a whole debrief on that too. LOL I would have liked to have had more rehearsals many days in advance, and have been more prepared all round. If I were to take something like that on again during a time when there are other things going on, I'd get the legwork done a lot earlier. I vastly underestimated how much time and effort it would take to create those performances. I still think it was pretty awesome, though! I'm definitely going to do more with the Sore Thumbs and I hope you guys would like to as well, if I solemnly swear to be more prepared with the material moving forward.

[Ice Weasel]

heh.. fair enough, all round.

I understand about "the show must go on",  but I come from the opposite viewpoint. Well, maybe an oblique angle anyway.

Sure, we need to be ready to respond to the situation, but we can't really take the initiative from an event organizer. I would equate that organizer with a Producer in modern performing arts. If we had forged ahead without being green-lighted, there are a few results: The voices in the audience calling for music would be happy. Something happening outside our earshot may have been damaged. The event host may have been appreciative or angry (and we had no way of knowing at that moment which).  When I saw Harperella playing fanfares and flourishes, I figured that (maybe on the LMB channel or another one we didn't have access to, maybe even Tells) Kira asked her to do it, or she stepped in as LMB officer. Yeah, it was frustrating for us to stand there, but we can't know what they are talking about in their Kin channels, or some other odd channel. If our contact was relegated to "Backstage" then that's were we needed to watch.

Ultimately, people know (especially when the audience is so many musicians in their own right) that we are waiting on a cue.  They won't think less of us for waiting. There's a fine line between "being proactive" and "mutiny". LOL  I guess I err on the side of caution. I can see the argument for forging ahead, but I think there is equal argument for waiting, no matter how frustrating.   The damned thing is, neither choice is "right" in an information vacuum. 

It would have been great to get "Wait, there's a problem... hold until given a cue", or a "Can't talk, just go when condition X is status Y".  Again, that's something a Stage Manager would do, even if there is a lively "discussion" happening among the producer, director, and others. If there was chatter, the chatterers couldn't take the time to keep us informed. 

Maybe, barring a Stage Manager, a decision tree would be good. A simple flow chart showing when to go, and when to hold. But that's something to be negotiated with the organizer, and once the event starts, the (pardon, I can't help it) horse has left the gate.

[Ehn Farad]

I am by no means advocating that we just blast ahead with our own agenda, heedless of the event organizer's plans. That would very quickly get us removed from invite lists. Not something I would ever approve of let alone suggest.

What I am proposing is an overall approach to events that puts us in more of a proactive role, and takes care of possible issues from as many angles as possible:

1. We approach events with an eye for what might not flow well or work well for us, and address any red flags with the organizers well in advance. In the case of the SRC, we might have questioned the wisdom of getting the band to move around as much as we were asked to, or maybe we could have suggested that only a few of us go to the gate and the rest stay back at the house, that sort of thing. Working with the organizers during the planning stages to help organize around any potential problems.
2. We discuss contingency plans with event organizers ahead of time, so that we know the core things that we need cues for, and under which circumstances it would be appropriate to step in and deviate slightly from the plan. In the case of the SRC, if we had advance permission from her to fill in the gaps if things get quiet or drag on a bit (which I'm sure we could have easily gotten), it would be a non-issue. Just because she wanted us playing certain songs at certain times doesn't mean she didn't want us playing other songs in between. If we have a "what if things go wrong" discussion ahead of time then we can avoid confusion.
3. We don't fall out of RP/immersion during the events surrounding a performance. I think there is no way Rho would have stood for so long without addressing the restless audience in some way. I would assume the same of other band members' characters. Kro, your jumping in and hosting an impromptu open mic earlier in the day is a good example.
4. We get a clear sense of what the organizer's overall goals for the event are, what they want to see from us and what they don't want to see from us, so that we know where our boundaries lie.

As you pointed out, we were only one small part of a busy day for her. As such, no one is ever going to be as interested, attentive and on top of what we should be doing as we are. We could have put ourselves at her disposal in this regard. If I were to approach it from scratch myself, I might have even asked for her to let us take on full responsibility for organizing that segment of the day, working closely with her and/or Harperella.

Being proactive doesn't just make our lives easier. It makes an organizer's life easier. That is, in fact, a big part of the goal for me. Not every organizer is going to have the best sense of what will work and what won't, and it's our opportunity to consult and advise, to help things go as smoothly as possible for them.

For example, when someone is hiring me for communications work, in most cases they are hiring me because they are not experts in that area. If I don't take the lead on the communications aspects of a project, and instead wait for the client to tell me what they want, then they are not going to get the best bang for their buck. The client just doesn't have the expertise and experience that I do in knowing what will work best to reach the audiences they are trying to reach, nor will they have the understanding of how I work or what I need from them to fully make the most of what I have to offer. Even when they do have expertise in the area, often my project is only one portion of a much bigger picture they are trying to handle, and they simply don't have the time or resources to dedicate themselves to the communications strategy and execution on the level that I can. When I take on a project I always work in a very consultative, proactive capacity with a client, and ultimately take the lead on the areas where I am best suited for that role. This means that I am not constantly on hold waiting for them to deal with project management issues, or deal with things that are beyond their skillset, and I'm able to work fairly independently while still meeting their goals.

This is the kind of approach I'd like to take with dealing with organizers - collaborative and consultative. Regardless of what approach we take, it's important that we make sure there is one point person who takes the main role in handling the organizational bits with organizers, to avoid crossover, gaps or confusion. As I said I would like to take on that role unless anyone disagrees.

[Ice Weasel]

I'd agree, with the emphasis on decision-tree contingency lists, and the understanding of the goals, etc., of the organizer.

As for the open mic thing... LOL... you'd be amazed the number of times people just stare at one another during those. It's always a "break the ice, then ask someone to play", and then the flow starts.  I'm just a ham, and have a few hundred things in my solo kit. More than that, counting stuff other people converted over the years. 

One of the things I talked to Raventrick about... I think I'll start a project with duets, trios, and maybe up to 4 or 5 part things that can sit in "Open Mic" folders on Dropbox.  It's hard to do anything with one another at the spur of the moment. Something like that would be good to share around, and could help cover the "uh... can you play something while we address an issue?" requests. 

We've talked in the past of having more "in the bag" tunes ready, but we haven't really distributed them. I know I talk a lot about other bands, but many have "standard songbooks"... where each member of the kin/group/band has those in Songbook, in a spare folder, ready to call up.

Another trick is the Raid Channel calling of the tune and parts. For example, during the LBC show I guested at, Trom would use the Raid Channel (actually via a Lyrical file, which is brilliant!):

/ra Ma Belle Amie {Ma_Belle_Amie7 3:16}
/ra Bred=Hp Trom=Cl Orl=Th Tot=Fl Chuk=Hn Pal=Dr Kro=Lt/Vocals

and

/ra El Paso {7_ElPaso_Multi 4:42}
/ra Fin=Lt1 Trom=Lt2 Orl=Th Sho=Lt3 Chuk=Hn Pal=Dr2 Kro=Dr1

So each player knew which file to sync, and which part.

Announced when Trom wanted people to start sync-ing for the next song. I've seen the same system from Lilikate for Creatures and Andune, and have been told it comes from Green Hill Music Society, an early music kin/band in the game. (Trom mentions joining them early; He and Bredouille were playing duets before the "sync" command was in the system. They were on a LAN (room-mates? co-workers?) and synced their play manually, with out-of-game voice cues. That's just NUTS! LOL)

Anyway, seems like a good system. Easy to replace a missing player on the fly, too.

[Ehn Farad]

I would love to help build a shared repertoire of songs with varying numbers of parts. I love playing, and I love helping people out, so if you or anyone you know is ever in need of another player, keep me in mind. Even if I'm not in-game I can be reached via email and if I'm available would be able to hop in on fairly short notice.

I love that system for communicating songs and parts. Man, it's crazy to think of syncing before the system we have today. Pretty impressive.