Next Time I’ll Bring More Rope: Behind the Scenes (and Before the Crowds) at Big Dub Festival
–Written by Michael Hogan
On Wednesday, July 30, people were beginning to show up to Big Dub in droves, sitting outside the front gate at some ungodly hour of the morning. I was most certainly still asleep, though I couldn’t stay asleep for long, I had work to finish, and unfortunately I had to finish it before gates opened at two to let all those people in. That was the 5th day of my Big Dub adventure.
Of course, people started pouring in much earlier than two, and I was greeted by every single one of them as my team and I worked tirelessly to finish up our last major deco installation, which was blocking the main road down to the bottom camp (much to the disdain of Four Quarters management). Nearly every person that waited patiently as we cleared the road in periodic increments to let campers by made sure to shout from their car windows at us to let us know how good everything looked, and what a good job we were doing. This was quite brave of them; I was hot, sweaty, and had gone far too many days without a shower. I couldn’t have looked like anybody worth a kind word.
But everyone appreciated all our work regardless, and that felt really good. That made all the setbacks and frustration worth it. Not only seeing our finished product in the air and working, but having everyone else see it, and actively appreciate it; that made it worth the trouble.
I couldn’t help but recognize that all of those people were only seeing the closing stages of the process; they were only witnessing the proverbial tip of the inflatable iceberg. They knew it looked cool, and I’m sure they knew it must have been some work to get it all up there, but that effort was not a tangible, identifiable action. It was a concept, a theoretical portion of time that had passed, and remained in their mind for only a fleeting moment as they first passed underneath the almost complete structure.
They had no idea we had a potentially disastrous light bulb oversight, or a massive calamity with the rope, or how we had to improvise with just about every makeshift ‘tool’ that we used. And that’s okay. They didn’t need to know about all of that. They were there to enjoy the show, and only processed the decorations as an object requiring effort when they could see the effort being put in.
And it’s that forgotten side of things that I’m here to talk about, because most of us rarely take the time to note all the hard work that actually goes into making these festivals look presentable. So here’s a timeline of my set up experience from start to finish.
It’s important to note that this is only a small piece of the pie; countless staff members put in countless hours of hard work to make this happen. But it should provide some relative perspective, and hopefully an interesting look at a side of the festival experience that you have never seen before.
DAY 1 (Saturday, July 26th) – Running a Tad Late
8:24 am – Woke up before my alarm, ready to get going! Of course, when I say “ready,” I’m the exact opposite of that, in that I’m not even the slightest bit ready to go. Alright, well, time to get moving then.
10:12 am – But not before breakfast, obviously. Can’t skip the most important meal of the deal, especially when it’s banana chocolate chip French toast. I think it goes without saying that we still have accomplished nothing. We planned on leaving at 1. Yeah, I don’t think so.
1:50 pm – So here we are, 50 minutes after our original departure time, and we finally have the Penske loaded. Thank god. Okay, so we’re like 10% ready to go. Excellent.
4:32 pm – Home Depot, Starbucks, grocery shopping: check. Did we get everything we need? Well, mostly. But at least we’ve made progress, the time consuming stuff is mostly over at this point.
7:15 pm – Truck almost packed. Running a bit late, aren’t we?
9:10 pm – And here we go, on the road, finally. Only 8 hours late. Done better, done worse. I’m not complaining.
10:58 pm – Reached the hotel for the night, and I’m completely spent. I know it sounds like we just did a whole bunch of nothing today and ended up being 8 hours late, but in truth, we were going full speed nonstop from the moment we woke up. Once we’re up on the mountain, we will have very limited access to extra resources, so we have to make these trips count, and hopefully we did. Though I have a feeling this tardiness is setting the tone for the rest of the trip. Still not behind schedule yet though, so we’ll see what tomorrow holds. Hopefully it doesn’t hold any rain…
DAY 2 (Sunday, July 27th) – Soldering as Meditation
You know you’re there when you run out of road
8:20 am – Woke up before my alarm for the second day in a row. Something tells me this is the last time that’s going to happen during this trip. Got a little bit of time to kill before check out, and we actually can’t be on the mountain until 1. So I’m gonna get some planning and preparation done beforehand. It’s impossible to really plan everything, but at least I can get an idea. I’ve heard tell of a Sheetz though, so today will be a good day.
11:00 am – Everyone is up and moving. We are currently on a mission for “liquor & food”. The order of operations in that statement speaks volumes of our priorities. This week is gonna be rad.
11:47 am – Just pulled up at Four Quarters with everyone, ready to get to work. Not so fast though, first thing I did? Hung out with Seamus the dog, obviously. A man has to have his priorities.
12:10 pm – Check in is done, waivers are signed, wristbands given out with minimal trouble. However, the owners of Four Quarters asked for a staff list. What staff list? We’re off to a great start already.
1:00 pm – Yeah, already dirty. I’ve been at it for like 15 minutes. Also already gave up on wearing a shirt. I’ve settled into this whole mountain man thing shockingly well.
1:35 pm – Before we really got too ahead of ourselves, we decided to take a walk around the mountain. Sort of scouting out locations for deco, but mostly just to explore while no one else is here. I’m down by the swimming hole right now, checking out the spot that I’m going to be playing on Saturday. There are currently 80,000 undiscovered species of insects living on me.
1:58 pm – We have no ladder tall enough to hang anything. This is an interesting development.
2:20 pm – Our Penske truck is roughly the same size as the ladder we do not have. #lifehack
3:31 pm – I just spent the last half hour untangling extension chords. Feelin’ like a rockstar already. I’m also thinking it might be a good idea to horde some of these extension cords; by the time gates open, these things will be worth their weight in gold. I should hold a Hunger Games for extra extension cords, or something. But perhaps it’s too early in the trip to start being an asshole. I’ll just leave them alone. Which is a mistake, I know I’m gonna have to go Katniss on this shit later.
It certainly doesn’t help that all of them are orange
3:36 pm – Now that I’ve decided to hold off on my death Olympics idea, I’m going to work on rewiring one of the inflatables. This one has been with us for several shows, and somehow the wiring and light sockets got crushed along the way. So I have to re-solder everything, and replace the 2 light sockets. Apparently, finding a place to plug in my soldering iron on a mountain is tricky, the power in our cabin cannot handle anything with a heating element. I hope the power on the stages can. Time to find out.
4:23 pm – That wasn’t so bad. All fixed. Well, hopefully anyway. We forgot to buy light bulbs, naturally, so I’ll have to wait until someone coming tomorrow brings those to actually test it out. BUT the motor is fully operational again, so at least I’ve got that going for me.
4:56 pm – Ok it’s definitely gonna rain, which will more or less end this day. It’s supposed to storm all day tomorrow too, so we can’t hang any big inflatables then either. Hopefully the weather forecast is wrong; we’ll have to see how things look in the morning. If that does happen though, it’s going to put us way behind schedule. We’ll deal with it, but it’ll be interesting.
8:09 pm – Rain has officially started, so we’re done for the day. Overall not a bad day’s work though. We’ve got a good idea of what needs to be done, and I repaired just about everything that needs to be fixed. Now we’re just waiting on Mother Nature to make up her mind about this rain, and then it just comes down to seeing what else goes wrong.
??? – I have now found out that they turn off the generator for the cabin at night. I did not know this. It’s exactly as dark as it is when I close my eyes. Also, phone is dead. I have no idea what I’m writing right now.
DAY 3 (Monday, July 28th) – Rain or Naw?
Our wonderfully multi-purpose truck/stand-in ladder
10:00 am – Well it’s absolutely gorgeous out, so much for that rain. Saying that is probably going to come back to haunt me, but it sure doesn’t look like it right now. Whatever, gonna continue working until I have to eat my words.
10:10 am – Today’s weapons of choice: a potato cannon for making tie points. Oh, and a Penske truck for a ladder. We’re clearly professionals here. Fun fact though, the potato cannon is actually a commonly used tool for such jobs. The Penske truck? Not so much.
10:52 am – Surprise of the day: exposed edges on corrugated roofing are very sharp. Sharp enough to cut a rope. Much like the rope we were using to hang the 9 ft inflatable moon over by the pavilion. Alright, take 2.
11:17 am – After those minor setbacks, and a second attempt that involved a bit more care and finesse, the moon is up. Last year it took all day, so we’re way ahead of schedule. Though I don’t like to get myself get comfortable with the idea of being ahead of schedule. Things always have a way of balancing themselves out in the end.
11:34 am – Again, it’s fucking gorgeous out. So much for that rain.
12:10 pm – We still have some tweaking to do on the moon, and we have to put in the lightbulbs and run electrical, but at least it’s up. So we’re going to move on to the big installations and go back to finish it up later. Time to see how this Penske truck ladder works out.
12:15 pm – Confession: I’m terrified of heights. Like, unreasonably so.
1:56 pm – Well, bad news, the potato cannon is out of C02. Remember how I said things always have a way of balancing themselves out? That’s what just happened. Until we come up with a better idea, it’s time to tie a rock to a string and see if I can make it where it needs to go. I can’t, I can tell you that right now.
2:08 pm – Yup, still afraid of heights
3:55 pm – Thanks to a bit of creative thing, we have spent the past 2 hours using a fucking fire rope dart to toss the rope 40 feet up a tree to make an anchor point. Mission finally accomplished. And by that I mean we have a single anchor point, so we’re not even close to being done, but we’re heading in the right direction. Now to do one more before I beer myself to sleep. Hopefully this one will be easier.
4:46 pm – It is indeed not easier.
5:35 pm – The two most wonderful people came with a ladder and set it up in the most sketchy way possible on the tree, then climbed 20 ft up it, and another 20 ft up dead branches to put the rope over the anchor point for us. I had a panic attack while all this was happening, but it’s done.
5:36 pm – Break time over. Time to repair some lights.
6:12 pm – Tiny gauge copper shielded wire is hard to solder. Have a few marks from that one, but it’s another thing done and checked off the to-do list.
8:42 pm – This is definitely not any easier. And now it’s very rapidly getting dark. Yelled at a few people that I shouldn’t have. Yeah, it’s getting to be the end of this workday; my mood is getting shitty, and my aim is getting shittier.
9:15 pm – Standing up on top of the Penske truck celebrating finally getting the last line of this installation up. It’s been a long and productive day, and tomorrow should be even better. One more line to go up tomorrow, a few auxiliary lines, but the hard work is (mostly) over. I think.
11:52 pm – The truest test of faith in oneself is peeing into a pitch-black porta-potty in the middle of the night.
DAY 4 (Tuesday, July 29th) – The Tale of the Mild Panic Attack
Photo Credit: Rania Peet. If I’d known it’d end up looking this good, I may not have been so worried
8:34 am – I forgot I turned my alarms off yesterday, so I overslept a bit more than an hour. Oops, whatever, no big deal, we’ll be fine. We have to finish one big installation today, and one smaller one, which shouldn’t be nearly as difficult. Then we just have to wire everything and pray it all works.
10:12 am – We just had our first major setback (from experience it probably won’t be the last). Turns out we have the wrong light bulbs. All of them. Last year, people thought the moon wasn’t bright enough, so someone told the runner to bring 150 and 200 watt bulbs, so that’s all we have. Unfortunately, no one checked the motors, which are rated for a maximum of 102 watts. OK then, moving on for now.
10:15 am – Plan formulated. We’re going to rig all the inflatables up on a quick release system of sorts. This way we can raise and lower all the inflatables within minutes, without losing any of our tie lines. So we can have everything up in the air, and lower it to wire it, install light bulbs, and for any other last minute emergency. The lights will be last minute. Like, literally the last possible minute. No problem.
10:17 am – Very glad I brought all of my tools on this trip. And gloves. Definitely glad I brought these gloves.
11:32 am – These extra tie lines are slightly complicating things, but it’s starting to come together well. It’s cool seeing this materialize. Things are going well, so naturally I’m concerned.
11:58 am – Forgot that we have to do a second one of these. Fuck. No longer feeling quite as good about it. It’s gonna be crunch time, but we’ll make it work.
11:59 am – Whatever, back to work. We’re only gonna have enough rope to finish the main installation because of how much this quick release system requires. So now we’re waiting on another Walmart run. It’s amazing how the more you do this, the less these minor catastrophes affect you, I’m not too worried about it.
12:26 pm – I have encountered the thorn bushes from hell, Jesus Christ.
12:41 pm – Installation 1 officially finished. Well, except for a few extension cords and light bulbs. So you know, not finished finished, but we’re almost there.
2:06 pm – No word on bulbs or extension cords from anyone, so it’s time for a lunch break.
2:23 pm – Or, never mind, other people need help with their set ups.
2:26 pm – The guy that made the Walmart run forgot to get the rope. Plan B? There’s a plan B, right?
2:48 pm – Now I’m working vendor check-in while the lady from Four Quarters takes a nap. Mild panic since I have so much to do, but I suppose it’s good to try and take a break at this point. We sent someone else back out to Walmart, we’ll have everything we need shortly, no sense in worrying. Much.
5:00 pm – Back to work now. There is still no word on the rope, but we’re running out of time and I don’t feel right just sitting around. I’m gonna work on what I can. I have some rope left, I’ll just deal with the rest when the rope shows up.
5:15 pm – On the bright side, things are going faster than they were before. This installation is lower, and since we’ve done it before, it sort of speeds up the process. Bad news though… We’re out of rope.
5:40 pm – Rope is finally here. Back to work, but people are trying to get down the road to the bottom camps, so we’re definitely in a big hurry now.
6:58 pm – Climbing into the tree to fix the second anchor line. Pretty sure most of these branches are dead. I’ve definitely reached that point where I’m far too busy to be scared of heights anymore. I always reach this point, and honestly I’m starting to get used to it more. I’d better be, I was just 15 feet up in a tree trying to pull it backwards to free up a rope. If you’re gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough.
7:38 pm – Both installations ready. Anchor lines are all good. Time to wire up everything; fingers crossed we have enough extension cords.
7:51 pm – Sitting in a tree right now. The owner of Four Quarters is not happy that we’ve been blocking the road for two days. Time to get a move on.
7:52 pm – And it’s getting dark. Quickly.
9:15 pm – Done. Finally. All wired. We can’t test it until the generator is turned on tomorrow though. But our extension cord is waiting patiently next to the generator, while I wait not quite so patiently to test it out. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t work, but I can’t help being nervous.
9:30 pm – So there’s a staff meeting going on tonight. When on earth did all these people show up? I sort of get tunnel vision when I’ve got a lot to do, I didn’t notice anyone show up.
10:00 pm – Time to shower for the first time since Saturday night. If you could only smell me right now.
10:23 pm– I feel unspeakably wonderful. Time for bed.
DAY 5 (Wednesday, July 30th) – The Roadblock & A Downpour
Photo Credit: Rania Peet. Things starting to come together, eh?
9:28 am – It’s a bit chilly out this morning, but very pretty. Good day to kick off Big Dub, and an even better day to finish up all this hard work.
10:02 am – The moon is tested and in the air. It’s not quite as high as I would like it to be, but I’m going to fix that later. No real complaints though. That’s the good news. I’m sure there will be bad news soon.
10:18 am – OK. Bad news. As it turns out, we can’t run power to the pavilion directly. We need to run it to the generator, which is on the other side of the pavilion. So now we need another 150 ft or so of extension cords, and I’m not sure if that exists. Let the extension cord Hunger Games begin.
10:30 am – Consolidation time. We’re going to have to lower the other installations again to swap out the extension cords for shorter ones. I’m really glad we made these so easy to drop.
11:12 am – We lowered the first one and swapped out the extension cord for a shorter one. Perfect length. Of course, we took it to grab another one, set it down, and now it’s gone. Ok, all’s fair in love and extension cords, I get it. Gotta swap out the other long cord.
12:05 pm – Have to wire the entire extension cord through the pavilion rather than over it, around decorations, tie lines, lights, and other extension cords. This is gonna suck.
12:56 pm – We miraculously managed to wire it all with extension cord to spare. We are officially done with an hour left before gates. That’s actually more time than I thought we would have. It’s been a long couple of days.
1:01 pm – I have earned the shit out of the shower I’m about to take.
2:46 pm – Laying down. Still too lazy to shower. Life is hard.
Photo Credit: Rania Peet. I’d say it was worth the trouble
Those seriously awesome mushrooms sitting under the moon are the creation of the wonderful Rania Peet, be sure to head over to her blog right here to find out exactly how those masterpieces (and her other deco work for Big Dub) were made.
So that’s it. Well, not really. Things got even more interesting once all the people showed up, but that’s the story of my set-up experience. And for me, it was the fun part. I know it sounded like I was miserable, as everything seemed to continuously fall apart around me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved it despite every mistake and mishap; I couldn’t have imagined spending my festival any other way. I had the time of my life climbing some trees and fussing with rope.
It is also extremely important to note that this is not a story of the entire set up-team. This is only my personal story, covering only what I was charged with and a few interactions with the teams working around me. For all of the hard work that myself and my team put in, there were at least half a dozen other teams working just as hard.
I definitely wasn’t alone, and I can’t finish this article without giving thanks to the absolutely amazing people that really made everything so breathtaking: Rania Peet, Slow Kidz, Nephilnine, Leo, and of course my infinitely patient girlfriend, as well as the excellent team we had working with us.
This was far from a one-person job, and if it weren’t for those people, the festival simply would not have been possible. That’s the sort of hard work it takes to make Big Dub such a special festival. And while it may be maddening at times, and painfully hard work – my back is just now getting back to normal – I can tell you for sure that I’ll be back next year, 5 days before anyone else gets there, clambering up more dead trees. Hopefully I’ll bring enough rope next time.
As I said, this was only the beginning; be sure to stay tuned for the rest of my coverage of Big Dub Festival coming later this week.