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I’m working in Edinburgh, the festival season is approaching, various venues are starting to open up to provide a space for other festivals to be held. I sit here on a sunny afternoon in a beer garden in one of these venues while gigs are happening in purpose built tents.
A group of people walk past all dressed in black, various things hang from their belts, they are obviously the crew, also hanging around their neck is a lanyard with a pass for the venue.
This venue was a park a few weeks ago and with some construction, road cases of gear and a container or two of tents and festoon lighting and the usual blood, sweat, tears and a few soggy socks (as it’s not always sunny in Scotland) this park has turned into a lively venue.
These guys and gals who built this are those who couldn’t walk with this confidence in high school, they were hanging out in the local hall or theatre hidden away from the popular crowd because they were into something that wasn’t necessarily cool. They have made a career out of that thing they were interested in, some of them have traveled all over the world to build and run festival venues.
They have found their people, their tribe, those that “get” them. The bonds and friendships formed in that short period of intense work will last a long time.
For some a life time for others the length of the festival or at least until the next festival.
There will be the inevitable hook ups of different ones as well, sometimes even the multiple swaps, the intensive nature of festivals creates a bubble that everyone lives in and what might take years to evolve in the outside world, can take a matter of days or hours in the festival bubble to occur.
But right now they can walk with confidence, they are the popular kids, they have a lanyard that will get them into all the cool and hidden places in the venue, that is, the power of the lanyard.
The Time After: Dealing With Post Show Blues
After completing her BA (Design for Theatre and TV) at Charles Sturt University in 1999, Alycia Stanley was given a fantastic introduction to the rigours of setting up outdoor events in all weather conditions when she landed her first role at the Croc Festival, staged in remote Australian outback locations. Continuing her work on large-scale events, Alycia worked on the Australia Day events in Hyde Park in Sydney specializing in event operations and logistics coordinating many different components from signage to radios. In early 2009, Alycia decided she wanted to work on the Vancouver Winter Olympics, so she set off for Vancouver a few months ahead of the Games and scored a job working as part of the Logistics team in the Ceremonies venue. This was Alycia’s first ‘Games’ experience and the start of her life of “tables and chairs”. This led to working on more ‘Games’ such as the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India and Glasgow and the Olympic Games in London and European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan. Alycia has also worked on large-scale arts events such as the Edinburgh Fringe and Sydney Festival. Alycia currently works in Logistics for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.
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