PLAYBOOK FOR BEING A GREAT TECHNICAL DIRECTOR

Hello, this is Les Goldberg, and welcome to The Road Ahead. The Road Ahead podcast is dedicated to the future of the live events business, bringing together industry experts. Hello, production world. This is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Today, I have three amazing guests. I have Joe Volpe, and his company is called CEP. I have Andy Stavro, and his company is called Event Flow. And I have Shane Carmelich, and it's Creative Technical Services. Guys, welcome to the show. Good to be here. Thank you. Thank you very much. Guys, we have on this show today three of the most talented technical directors in the industry that have today a combined years of experience of 107. We just did the math. And today we're going to talk about the role of the TV and the subject of this podcast is the playbook for a great technical director. So I'm going to throw out the first question to Joe. And Joe, would you describe what essentially is the role of the TV in layman's terms, whether you're from the industry or not? How would you describe that role? And you've been doing it for over four decades. So you have a lot of experience at this. A couple of things came to mind. One of them being, you know, the mother. If you, you know, you definitely get. Everyone's opinions, attitudes, reactions, kind of just like your mom used to get when you were a kid. I mean. And it's not in a bad sense, don't get me wrong. But you you are as a tech, you know, you are the guy, you are the one on the front lines of everything, having to, you know, venues, vendors, truck drivers, you know, you name it. We have to deal with it before anybody else gets on site. I think mother sums it up pretty well. Well, you know, of all all the words I thought I was going to hear today, that was not one of them. So, Shane, what are your thoughts? I was I was going to throw in a rodeo clown is kind of what I came to mind when I was thinking about it. You're basically there to on site, at least there to catch all the punches and kind of make fun of it. Never make it a serious issue. Always make it, you know, something. Oh, yeah, that's something we can handle. No big deal. Is that the is that the voice of calm? It could be the voice of calm. And then you do the little cat hurting throat in there. Always. Sure. You're always hurting some cats. And then and also what I've always tried to do is be a teacher. And that's a serious one to try to teach whatever I can to anybody. I don't hold anything close to the vest. You ask me a question. You're going to get an answer. The best thing I can example I can do with that is the guy that decides to wire the entire trust for lighting and has no idea what he's doing. But the girl will come to me and say, you know what? How am I supposed to do this? You know, it's like I'm there to teach. I'm not there to criticize. I'm just there to teach. All right, Andy, your thoughts. The role of the TV. You have mother so far and you have, you know, rodeo clown. I'm not sure what your adjective would really describe this role. Now, I love hearing this. I mean, this is great stuff. Now, I agree with with with both Joe and Shane. The. I think one of the challenges, as Joe says, you get on the front side and you're working with technicians that want to do everything to their greatest ability. Right. And then unfortunately for us, we have to find a balance with the budget. Right. So that's the hardest part. It's like you go to a great lighting designer, great audio engineer, and there's cabinets everywhere and fixtures. And you're like, man, I really want you to do this. But right. We have to balance these budgets. And that's as Joe like that's kind of the mom coming in. It's like, hey, we don't have that. We got to manage this. So, you know, you're you're coordinating logistics and then keeping these great players, trying to keep them in a line that Elaine that that works with the budget. That's probably, you know, I would throw that in as part of one of the challenges of being it. It sounds like you're describing a coach, you know, and keeping all your players in line. Very true. Yeah. They you know, everybody. Yeah. You know, everybody wants to do like you get some great freelancers and they want to bring their best. And it's like, man, if I do and it's like I get that. But we have these parameters. Right. And then you multiply that by a few departments and, you know, it becomes a full day. So definitely a full day for sure. I'm throwing out my next question to Shane. Shane, could you tell everybody, how did you get in this business as a technical director and how did you start? Because I know a lot of people that, you know, we're talking about the next generation and how they're going to ultimately replace us as we age out. My question is, how did you get in the business and what was your path? My early my earliest experience in the business was actually in high school. My high school had a TV station in which we played back. We had channels. Basically, we had four channels throughout the school. The whole school is wired with television. So we'd play curriculum material for the students. And then we also had a small show called Target, the information show, which was a weekly broadcasted show that we would do along with that. We'd shoot basketball and football. And I got into this because there was actually a game I was at as a fresh as a sophomore. And some I saw some commotion happening and someone needed an XLR cable, ran up the bleachers and tossed over the side to connect to where the the truck was, which was like a little trailer that had a bunch of gear piled in it. And basically, I'm like, I can do that. I ran up and did that and just kind of got the bug. And from there, from there, I went on to I went on to college. I went to St. Mary's College in Moraga. I happened to go to school with the Eisner daughters, and he donated a small video truck to the to the school. So then I kind of got learned more broadcast, did a lot of directing and then quit a job, left, left the industry. After that, after college, became a machinist. Then a truck driver. These are good qualities to have as a TV show to do. Yeah. Yeah. Then I quit that and and took a job driving a van, delivering overhead projectors and slide projectors from McCune. It was called McCune Sound Services back in those days out of San Francisco. And that's where I truly started learning the ins and outs of production. Became a production manager there. And then, you know, after six years there, I went freelance. Got it. And then been kind of a production manager freelance ever since then. Well, Shane, I will tell you, my my roots go back to high school and the video club. So the video club, this hobby thing turned into a gig. And almost there's a little theater thrown in there, too. I did some theater in high school and college, too, which kind of drives my kind of creative side. Cool for the business, too. So, hey, same question to Andy. Andy, how did you get in this business? Is yours through high school like Shane's? It is. It was through high school theater, high school theater. We were doing that senior year. We're looking for an ad. We're looking for jobs. Me and a friend that was we were doing tech. And there is a hotel here, Point Hilton Tapatio. And they needed a it's like, what on earth could you need AV at a hotel for? Right. That seems so foreign. Like, we'll go check it out. Yes. And then we they I got hired on. I started with Swank and. Oh, geez. Yeah. Did you go buy your first suit at Goodwill? Yeah, you go. That's standard. That's where I got. That's where I got all my show clothes. You go to the second hand shop, you get one one or two good suits and a cut. And yeah, back in the day, your your suits all year round. Yeah. The good news. You know, the good news about that. I don't have a rock and roll touring or, you know, fancy background like that. But being in a hotel, you learn hospitality and being in-house. You have two clients, right? I'm sure our friends at Encore can attest to this. No matter who's in house at a hotel, that's your client. But as a provider, the hotel's also your client. You always have two clients at any given time. And it becomes, you know, you really got to work to to have some some service chops. So that was my big takeaway from that. Yeah. And then as things progress, you just kind of take bigger bites and take on bigger challenges. And you look back a few years later and you're just cranking away. So interesting. OK, Joe, would you share with us how you got in this crazy business through the hotels when the wheel was still square back then? Right, Joe. There were square wheels. No, I was just going to say I was just going to say you said you had, you know, you had cameras and stuff. It's like I don't know what didn't know what a camera was. You were still drawing. But no, I did start in high school. You know, I did. I did the video club. You know, we had a little I forget what they were, the little Sony. God. And, you know, and half inch video recording, you know, black and white, half inch video, open real video recorders. You know, back in high school and then when I went to college, I was actually going to college for phys ed for two years. And I said, that's not going to work out. And I switched and got into broadcasting and and, you know, graduated, you know, with my degree in television production, broadcasting, worked for the local cable company, took their trucks out. They had two beautiful trucks that we used to do the sports things with and that kind of thing. And then the summer of my senior after my senior year, excuse me. I was offered a gig to go out on tour as a production electrician. So I spent probably two years on tour. I then did a lot of rock and roll between lighting, stagehand, worked for a couple of different promoters, did the tour thing. And. That's where I think I cut my cut my teeth because you learned so much as a as a stagehand, as a rock and roll stagehands, as a touring electrician, you're going into a venue a day. You know, Les can attest to some of that with the touring business besides behind LMG. But, you know, you're going into a different venue every day. So you're meeting 25 new people every day and you're dealing with 25 new egos and attitudes every day. And, you know, after the rock and roll thing kind of settled out, I did my hotel stint. I worked for a local hotel A.V. company. And like Andy said, your clients are not only the pharmaceutical client, but it's also the catering manager or the beverage manager or the hotel manager, you know. And yeah, and actually the company I worked for sent us to the local I forget what it was, Robert Hall clothing store to buy two blue blazers and two gray pairs of slacks and a couple of shirts and ties. And, you know, and then from there, after that, you know, I met some great people working in the hotels, the staging techniques, the carabiners, you know, some of the legacy people in this business that started Multi Image and and, you know, did a lot of that kind of stuff. It was then took a job for a local company in New Jersey and then kind of went on to Sharp Weisberg World Stage as a project manager. And again, cutting your chops. And then when I went freelance. I kept my hand in doing a lot of the tech stuff, but really around 2005, I guess, focused more just on being a technical producer, technical director. You know, it's interesting. All of us have come through a different channel, some similar, some different. But it has a component of hospitality. It has, ironically, driving a truck. You know, it's some of the very basic things we deal with. You guys deal with trucks every day. If the equipment doesn't make it there, that is definitely a problem. And so if you've driven the truck, you really do understand the details. But it's really interesting that all of that knowledge that has been ascertained over so many years and the experience and all having a little bit of that hotel background and the hospitality is kind of all the ingredients, you know, that go into, you know, what it takes to be a great technical director. And moving on, my next question is to Shane. Shane, what do you find the greatest challenges of being successful as a technical director? You know, what are the minefields you have to walk through and overcome on a regular, reoccurring basis? You probably have some expectations that, you know, some things might not go as planned. But what are your thoughts on that question? The greatest challenges? Yeah, there's physical challenge, and I think there's also like mental challenges. A lot of them I think we already kind of touched on, and that's dealing with egos and attitudes and expectations and setting expectations are some of the big ones. Challenges like on site are a dime a dozen now. Some of them are time allowances. We've lost so much time in on site. Things have to happen at an app pace is kind of what I say. You know, things are no longer. You don't have the luxury of having enough time to do a load in anymore. I've taught myself that 24 hour days or two days, basically. And that's how I tend to now create on site schedules. Things like trucking costs. Clients don't want to hear that. Yeah, I know trucking costs or trucking costs are killing us. That's we're having to jeopardize, I think, equipment packages to fit trucking budgets in. That's a big stickler for me. Having enough experienced staff is another tough one, especially after the pandemic. We had a lot of people leave the industry at a lot of local labor companies, then way out to where it's hard to even pick up local labor. I found myself almost 100 percent using union labor everywhere I go. Because that's the only way I can depend on a full crew showing up at least and getting some people that actually do have some kind of experience for that. They're playing the game a lot better than they used to. Encore is too. They're starting to play the game a little bit better than it was in the past, at least with budgeting and rules and things like that. The more comical things, chandeliers are a challenge, dead scissor lifts, empty propane tanks, the lack of loading docks, and the fact that we can not store anything in ballrooms anymore, either because there's no room left or because Reedy County has decided to not allow any empty cases to be in any ballrooms anymore. It's interesting. Shane, that is quite a list of interesting factoids. And that's just touching on it. I could go on and on, but you have to laugh them off is what it is. They got to be laughable. Andy, could you add to Shane's list of crazy challenges? I never thought I could not store an empty road case in a ballroom because the ballroom's not allowed to have empty road cases. It's crazy. No, I think you nailed them all. I mean, post pandemic, the loading times are gone. The room spaces are. And I don't know if that's because institutional knowledge on the meeting and event planning side is gone. And these people see a X square foot ballroom like, yeah, that's the spec that fits. It's like, yeah, but you need so much for production, right? And yes, post COVID, we're backloading more semis. We have more like everything's got to be delivered in 10 hours, right? Start to finish. And yeah, and it's frustrating because you want to do the best job you can. And as you take time away, at some point you're coming off the runway and you're like, that's as good as it's going to get. You have a show, right? I wish I could have detailed a few more things, but with the time, that's, I think the time is the, as you're saying, is the current, that's the biggest challenge, you know, aside from, you know, playing the mother role as Joe pointed out. So. Do you know, it's interesting, technical technical directors come up with what I'll call is the master plan. And if everybody just follows the program and does what they're supposed to do, the plan probably works most of the time. And as soon as someone either shows up late or incomplete, or the something is not on the truck or, or some variation, it throws sometimes the whole plan out of kilter. You know, you got to get the trust up in the air if you're going to fly anything. So Joe, any thoughts on the greatest challenges? I mean, both of them, you know, Shane and Andy really, you know, nailed a lot of different things. I mean, I think some of the challenges that I've run into lately are just what the producer wants. You know, the producer wants 175 feet of widescreen and doesn't understand the fact that a keynote machine can't run that. That is hilarious. Are you getting a lot of people? Are you guys getting a lot of producers or however the event goes? Are you guys getting the sense that people are leaning on you? It's not just the technical, but as the creative component to it now as well. And even more, I think I were going to hit that up in a question coming up, but even more than that, cause I'm now getting leaned on. I'm now have I'm in control of all production schedules. It seems, I mean, the client just gives me a block agenda and says, build a production schedule. And then I'm in charge of now fully implementing catering. I'm doing, I'm checking, I'm checking on people's dietary needs and interacting with the hotel and setting up all those meals and scheduling all that. Instead of just saying, here's the crew I have. Can you add us to the meal plan? You know, there's definitely. Well, you're better, you're better than you're better than me. I don't deal with luggage and I don't deal with, you know, employee catering. I'll feed my crew, but you know, it, you know, but yeah, but what you just said is like, the producers are definitely leaning on us. You know, I mean, I know Andy's background, Shane, I don't know, I don't know you, but you know, my video background producers lean on that, that I know lean on my video background to say, can we do something like this? Or how do we do something like that? Sometimes they take that knowledge and say, okay, great. Sometimes they're like, nope, we're going to run a 150 foot wide screen off a keynote machine. And you know, when, when it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Yeah. And I get that too. I definitely get leaned on. Yeah. I get leaned on for that kind of stuff too. Cause my background is like yours. It's. Yeah. No, I think, I think we're getting leaned on more and more for other things than, I mean, you know, I'll date myself when we used to do, you know, 18 and 24 projector slideshow. The technical director didn't have. I'm with you. I did. I built 300 foot long scaffolding systems and I did Pawnee projection and quadrupled over 10, 20 projectors in a room so dark that you can't see your own hand. You can't. Right. But you know, the TD, you know, TDs back, TDs then were not as concerned because they had, you know, slide guys, they had programmers, they had the poor AUX guy in the corner making slides at two o'clock in the morning, you know, nowadays, you know, and it was kind of a set formula. You could do three things. You know what I mean? You could do a single screen. You could do two over one. You could do three over one. You could, you know, now with, with the onset of, of Malumin, with the onset of Pixera, with the onset of watch out. Yeah. Bad. God forbid. You know, what, what clients want to see is more and bigger, you know, and, and like Andy said, the budgets don't, the budgets don't support it. And the timeline, like Shane said, the timelines don't. You forgot the, you forgot the convection oven guy. Cause I did that job back in the day. Is that the hot box? Hot box where we need the amoebas. Oh my goodness. We used to take all of our hair dryers out of the hotel rooms and put them in the boxes to keep the slides dry. And I always traveled with the glass slide mount kit. That was a staple. You had to have that in your work. Okay. Let's shift gears, guys. Let's shift gears. Okay. I'm from, from the history of the AV, we're going to Andy. Andy, this question is how did TVs provide the best value? I believe a great TD and the playbook, if a TD makes great decisions, I think the producer gets so much value from that. And what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I think they're looking for us to be reliably consistent. When, you know, if, if we can come to them with intelligent answers, consistently the hardest challenges to be to be available for your producer, right. That's like, I've that's been the best feedback I've got those, you hit some of those good windows. It's like, well, I'm not on four shows while I'm trying to advance this one. And they're like, you're always available. It's like, man, being available to the producer and being consistent for them and being able to, you know, they're going to now they're going to bounce creative questions off of you. And they're going to bounce some other things. So that's being consistent and being available for them. I think it's the biggest value, you know, and bringing the knowledge. Yeah. A lot of value kind of goes back, we were talking about relying heavily on creative now. And, and a lot of on a lot of the lower budget. So is also is just doing a complete creative design where they're not, they can't afford a creative director. So I tend to do a lot of set design and my pre production work, mostly with LED, because that's all I like to work with. And then another thing is, I have one producer, actually, a lot of the producers I work with is, is budget owning the budget. Like, I'll completely own my budgets. And again, goes back to time. I find myself writing budgets for shows, for proposals, things like that, probably 90% of the time without any backup quotes. It's all just done on base knowledge and base experience. And that's kind of how I've been working for probably almost three to four years now. Because they just there's no time. I mean, I'm on a proposal today that I got, there's a proposal due Monday that I got called about, at 432 days ago, that needs to be presented by Monday. But it's a 2300 person general session, a full exhibit floor and a full breakout setup. And I haven't even had a creative meeting with the producer yet, because they're not available. So it's things like that to where, you have to lean a lot on my knowledge of what things cost and try to stay up to that. And then it's pretty much all on my shoulders if it doesn't come through. Because that's the ask. That's the new ask of that. Joe, your thoughts on providing value as a technical director? I mean, what Shane was just saying is, when you're budgeting something, and I do get involved in budgeting at some point, sometimes, and it's been going on for a while, I just don't know where producers come up with their numbers. They say to you, here's the number. It's like, well, how did you come up with that? It's like, oh, well, I did this and I did that. And I just had a conversation the other day with a producer who said, he used to bill a client $200 for travel expenses, not hotels and flights and that kind of stuff. And now he's getting hit with $400 worth of travel expenses because Ubers are more expensive. People are parking. People are, you know what I mean? But it's just a budgetary, and I think you could be the most value to a client by listening to what he's asking you for and giving him a realistic answer to it. And that's the only thing you can do. And if he doesn't have an answer to it, it's on him. Okay, we're moving on. We're moving on. This question's back to Andy. Andy, how do you deal with crisis? Step one. Uh-oh, uh-oh. I know Andy, so this should be good. What's the manual, operator's manual say? How do you deal with crisis for a TD? Hair on fire. Panic immediately. First thing, panic. Now, I think first thing is just remind yourself of perspective, right? We're not saving babies, all right? Let's take a step back and let's just logically work through it. Sun's still coming up tomorrow. I just start with the resetting because we lose perspective in that instant. Something weird's happening. It's like, let's ground ourselves, grab the smart people, grab everyone's opinion, make a fast choice, move on, right? And that's probably all I got on. That sounds like a play in a playbook. That sounds like a play. Shane, your thoughts? He read all my points. Assess the situation, discuss with your best staff, and act calmly, professionally, and then use your smoke and mirrors to divert attention away from anybody that's worried about it. Joe? Showbacon. I like his answer. Showbacon, that's the best. He's got the best answer. Absolutely the best answer. Showbacon. All one up you, Joe. The bread at the bottom of the showbacon. Oh, there you go. Okay, the next question goes to Joe. Joe, what's the most fun part of the gig and what is the most fun project you've worked on or you're most proud of? I mean, to me, the best part of any gig is the people you have on site with you, in all honesty. I can't tell you how many times you walk into a show, I just did a gig a couple of weeks ago with Andy, and it was great seeing Andy again. You know what I mean? I hadn't seen him in a year or so. It was fantastic seeing Andy. And it's the people. For me, it's what my wife says, when I leave this business, I'm going to miss the people the most. I couldn't care about the gig, the gear, the hotel. It's going to be the people, honestly. That's the most, to me, the most fun part of the gig. Your Rode family? 100%. 100%. How about the project you've worked on in your life that you're most proud of? I mean, not for nothing, doing this for 45 years has been one or two. One or two. A couple of years ago, I was asked to be the technical producer for an Amazon project with a client out of LA. We did four premieres of one of Amazon's shows. I was asked to be the technical producer for two of them, one in Mexico City and one in London. It was probably four and a half to five months of my year that I worked on this project in these two cities. Just to be able to pull off what we pulled off in Mexico City and in London. Andy was in LA doing the project, so I know he knew some of the backstory of this, where I was. But just to pull off what we pulled off in a park in the center of London and a 450-year-old church in the center of Mexico City was just amazing, I felt. That's awesome. Same question to Shane. Shane, what's the most fun part of the gig? It's definitely not the bread or the bacon. I just know there's something else in there. Also, what project have you worked on that you're most proud of? I would say, I'm going to just go right with Joe and that's staffing. It's seeing those people that you may have not seen in six months or six years even, to recross paths with someone. So I think staffing is a big part. My other favorite part of the gig is when the last door closes on the truck. That's always my favorite part. That last loading dock door shuts and the truck pulls away. That's the good part. Projects is difficult. I'm like Joe. I've done so many projects. I think one of the ones that I'm technically most proud of was during the pandemic. I did a broadcast shoot for a client that was all done with tracking camera. On a big green screen production. So it was all with Unreal Engine and that was like the first time I dove deep into that kind of thing. We had a we had a articulating jib that tracked. We had a rail cam that track and then just the regular zoom stick camera that tracked and everything and just kind of the how far the technologies come and how cool that was working with actually an environmental designer that created the entire atmosphere for the for the show. So that was that was a good one. A couple of funny ones is back in the early days seeing Henry Kissinger dress as a woman singing on stage. You don't see don't hear about that every day. Wow, that's a that's a that's a unique one. And then I did a show. Yeah, and then I did a show for a for an Oracle event. There was a David Foster who was promoting a young piano player at Larry Ellison's house and Nobu catered the show. Those are called exotics. So that was another extremely unique event. Andy, your thoughts. What's the most fun part of the gig and what are the most unique event you're most proud of? Yeah, I'm going to second what they said. It's it's the people and it's the load out. There's a weird dopamine boost one when everything's wrapped and there's this calm and the trucks are in the ballrooms empty or the arena's empty or whatever. So and I can't put anymore. It's people to load out. It's it's those two pieces that make it fun. And then in terms of most. I have to think I mean a lot of projects there as Joe saying some of those AWS gigs were really good. I would have to say those were fun. Those were fun projects. A oftentimes on. Doing the ballroom work, you know, doing the corporate stuff were reaching just the immediate audience. So when you get into some of these things were actually broadcasting out to the world. I think that adds a little that's that's something cool because you're you're reaching and touching more people than just, you know, the 300 to 2000 whatever's fitting in your immediate space. So so many shows now have a, you know broadcast to the world. I would say that has become the new post covid standard where she where we've got our live audience. And we've got this audience. We picked up, you know, during the pandemic and that audience. We want to send out something whether it's to promote them coming back to the live audience or people aren't going to fly in for some of these remote countries. So all right, this is going to be my last question and I'm throwing this to Joe first. What things would you say? You've learned along the road that you've been on the hard way about being successful. What have been the tough challenges? You've had to learn that makes you a better more successful technical director today that maybe weren't so easy. What were the lessons you've learned to have a show crash and burn? Oh that hurt really honest with you. But what you learn from that is going to be immeasurable down the road. As you know, unfortunate, you know, as fortunate unfortunate as it might be for the client for the audience for remember might be having a show just go up in flames. I don't know, you know, I mean I've experienced it once in my career and believe me it taught me a lot. It really taught and I wasn't I wasn't a TV at the time. I was just I was an engineer on the show, but it just went poof and we had a reset. You know what I mean? The audience will like excuse us. We'll be right back. You know, the little screen came up with the you know, the noise on it, but you learn a lot from something like that. And and the other thing is, you know, you really have to understand that if you make a mistake, it's okay. Don't make the same mistake twice. Yeah, don't make the same mistake twice. Okay, Shane your thoughts thing. You lay out one one. One thing I've learned is a patience with communication for sure. That's a big key a motto. I kind of live by in production is and I've lived by it. My whole career. I think is no news is good news. So don't expect, you know, a lot of high fives and out of boys, you know, other than for maybe the cruise you hire and things like that because it's usually, you know, a successful show is one that you haven't heard anything bad on learning from very early days learning how to negotiate and deal with unions. That was something that I kind of learned the hard way because back in the day least working full-time for an AV company was always pushed away, you know, shove push the unions away. You don't want to have, you know, unions are bad blah blah blah and kind of learning how to actually develop relationships, which I have great relationships now all over the country with, you know, local BA's that, you know, if you work with them in a supportive role, they're going to help you out. And that's just I think one of the things that was a hard learn for me. I remember I was early in my career. I was doing I was a truck driver and I was also brought in to do the load in and they wanted to I was at the Grand Ole Opry and they're on the stage. What talking about lighting? I could hear them talking about lighting. So I clicked on a spotlight and lit up their spot and no boy was I in trouble at that moment had no idea but rain it helleth rain down on me at that very moment. All I was trying to do is exactly. I got it. And all you were trying to do is kind of make them feel important and lit up. Andy, your thoughts. There's a lot of things. I still struggle with trying to figure out how to be successful. One thing I I struggle with is I if time as you mentioned last minute, like if something gets thrown off on the schedule, things get things get weird. So I had a recent event where not a crazy event. Forty forty some odd rig points, right? Five hours into the call. Not one piece of truss floating in the air. So right. So inside I'm just my soul is melting and I'm just doing it. And what I found, I found myself. Reverting back to basic thing. Like we're all here because we have trust issues, right? Like we're just going to all manage it, right? I found myself. That is ultimately became clean on it. All of us. Okay, it's all. That's why we're here. But I found myself backstage pulling theater with the with the hands plucking feeder and and because I had just like I had went from the conductor. Someone that's supposed to take a high-level management and everything was going weird. It's like, well, I can make a difference plugging feeder. And so I that's something I struggle with. So I got to just remember to take a step back. We have with good peeps. Yeah, boys and girls that are going to take care of this professionals. I don't need to be in here. But I sometimes feel like I have like maybe it's just my own. I got to be doing something positive. No, totally, totally guilty of that. You know, it's something that if I don't like something in the air, I'm the first one to jump on the lift and say you're not tying that drape. Right? Just get out of the way and let me do it. You know, and I my wife is like just told me. Oh, she's in production, too. She told me I'm never get out of the lifts and get down here and do your job. But yeah, it's hard. It's hard thing to let go of. Sometimes, you know, it's like we all came up. I mean, I can't go run audio desk or a lighting desk anymore, you know, because I obviously shifted away from that to concentrate on production manager. I can get in trouble with it. But but it's kind of like those things that are really like if something isn't right, you know, sometimes again, patience. I lose my patience and communicating how to do it instead of I just go and do it, which isn't always the best solution. Guys, I am so happy that you all joined me today because I figured out with my experience, we're at 147 years. Okay, so if I had another person, we could have written the Constitution, maybe something about 200 years ago. Listen, I want to thank you, Joe and Andy and Shane. You guys are an amazing team. I look forward to seeing you in a ballroom, in a convention center, in a big place that could be dark and cold where we're enjoying the fun of all the hard work that we put into doing these shows. And I look forward to that as this year progresses. And this is Les Goldberg and The Road Ahead. Everybody. Great job. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you, Les. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Take care. Yeah.