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This will be an ongoing insight of what it is like as a technician at the Edinburgh Fringe. From our first week to our last, these will be an inside look at what happens behind the scenes that most people don’t get even a glimpse of.
As we received our next email for Monday and the meeting place, we were back and ready to go at all of it again. This time though, we weren’t preparing the venues from scratch and luckily more technicians were joining us this morning. After some more introductions, we proceeded to one of the venues and had a short lecture from some of the higher-ups of the Do’s and Do-Not’s of the Fringe. Then, we got a rough idea of which venues we would most likely be in for the run of the Fringe and off we went in our separate directions to make these venues a reality.
The week progressed steadily with the venues slowly coming along. The noticeable differences were finally taking place as we turned a university hall into a completely different looking space with raked seating. About halfway through this week, other noticeable differences were also starting to appear such as who on the team could begin to handle the stress of the Fringe and the authority that is needed to ensure crews keep at pace. A word of advice to incoming technicians from all over the world, stopping in the middle of work for a BeReal moment is highly unprofessional.
Cables were scattered across practically every floor of every venue as we continued through the week, trying to get everything ready for Friday. See, Friday was a special day. It was the safety check day, so everything had to be nearly perfect. Friday was also the day that the companies running the entire Fringe invited all of their technical teams out for drinks that evening, to help morale and so everyone had a chance to meet opposing views from other companies. As the safety inspection came (we passed!) drinks were quickly had at the end of a long week at the appropriate pub just down the road. Technicians from every company came out, though we mostly stayed at our respective tables with other technicians we had already come to form a bond with and knew. Some did brave the adventure of going to another company’s tables after a few drinks in them.
Over the weekend, the last minute touches were going into venues so we could have tech week start (hopefully) without a hitch. This is of course being beyond optimistic, as it is called hell week for a reason. At the Fringe, most shows have about 4 hours for teching their performances. As technicians, it is our job to make their dreams come to life and make everything they envisioned about it a reality. Most of the time we are able to do just that, sometimes more. Sometimes though, we have to be the bad guy and explain why we can’t always make dreams come true.
Janine has always been a part of music and performing. The first show that inspired her to go into theatre was the Velveteen Rabbit which she saw as a child, and Drew works to keep that magic alive in her work. When Drew was accepted into an internship program for audio engineering at a recording studio, she jumped at the opportunity. That was at the start of 2020, and so much has happened since then, both in her career and in the world. Since then, Drew has taken several opportunities to work at recording studios, concerts, festivals, and even large theatres while spending some time on tour. Drew's favorite by far though, has been the chance to work on Broadways and West End shows, as this was a dream come true. Drew is honoured to get to share these experiences from being inside the entertainment industry.
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