Wrestlepocalypse VII

This past week, I have been in tech for the show Wrestlepocalypse VII, the seventh installment of the annual pro-wrestling/satire show that goes up before Dillo Day. I was the lighting designer this year, which still feels strange and new, but for the first time, I'm actually excited about how things turned out and not afraid or ashamed for people to see it. That last part matters a lot for this show because so many alumni come back and their opinions matter to me.

This year, designing Pocs was a story from struggle bus to success. About two weeks ago, I was finalizing my rental order and had to create four different plots because the rental company had a huge order the same week and didn't have the equipment I wanted. This was super frustrating, and I raged at the universe for an entire day, but by the time it was finalized, I had let go enough to accept what I could get, regroup, and go from there.

We picked up the order last Friday and loaded in on Sunday. I had a kind of stressful time because I had to leave twice for other commitments, but my team was amazing and got all the lights hung and cabled. We left Sunday at 10:45 ready to focus on Monday morning. I have to stress how great my assistant, master electrician, and other helpers were; I literally could not have done this without the hard work they did on Sunday.

I hit another struggle on Sunday night because at 11:00, I got a cold. The whole thing progressed overnight, and I felt mostly better when I woke up on Monday. It was strange. My assistant and ME met me at 10AM and we got through focus. My work on Monday was basically assembling the puzzle pieces to be able to put together the entire show. I made color palettes (9+13 wrestlers+5 dancers), effects (10), and basic looks for various parts of the show, and was able to get out at a reasonable hour to sleep off my exhaustion.

Tuesday, I woke up and could not speak. My voice was back by the time I had to go to class, but it was freaky. After my class, I went to the theater and started cueing the show. I wrote over 100 cues that day to get the whole thing ready for rehearsal. The only thing I hadn't prepared was the lighting for the opening dance because I hadn't seen it yet, but I had the framework for that and about two-thirds of the cues by the end of the night. I left planning on finishing my notes Wednesday afternoon. I dealt with something funny on Tuesday night; I had to exchange a light for a different instrument, and I ended up carrying it home because the place to exchange it on Wednesday morning was closer to where I live than the theater. It was silly to bring it back, but really convenient.

On Wednesday, I ended up waking up early and heading to the space to do my notes. I first exchanged the light for the appropriate instrument (super proud for choosing the correct replacement on the first try) then did my focus notes. After addressing the electrics, I sat down to fix my cues. I decided to re-number my cues (unnecessary, but I get obsessive about these things), and accidentally deleted half of the show. I was able to re-cue it from my notes fairly quickly, but it was extremely frustrating. I also re-made my cue list, and it is so organized and beautiful. I'm quite proud of it. We ran the show twice on Wednesday, the second time with an audience.

Thursday was an exciting day. I didn't have notes to take care of before we opened because I fixed everything the night before, so it really just waiting for the show to start. We had our safety walkthrough, and they said the lights were perfect, and the people who run the theater where we do the Dolphin Show are now part of that team. One of them asked about the LEDs that I was using, and I got to show her, which was fun. I'm really happy that they are joining these risk management meetings because they're awesome and know exactly the type of things we are trying to do. Opening night went really well. We had a moderately full house and the audience was great. I left that night proud of what we had accomplished and excited for Friday.

Friday, I got to spend the day convalescing. I slept a lot, watched a bunch of Netflix, and regrouped before going to the space for our 8:00 show. It was a totally crazy run!! There were people who had set up a tent at 5PM to camp out in order to get into our 11PM show. We packed the space for the 8:00 but didn't have the best crowd control, so a couple of my lights got bumped/went out, and I missed a couple cues because I was yelling at people to move. I think that in the future, we are going to have to prep for the Friday 8PM the same way we cover the 11PM.

Between shows, I made sure all of my lights were working and took a trip to the vending machines to get myself another bottle of water and bottle of soda. I went through a bottle of each during the first show because the space was so hot. It was a combination of the warm weather, number of people, and activity of being at a wrestling show. I was pretty dehydrated by the end. After refocusing the light that got bumped and fixing the light that went out (and multiple channel checks), I talked to one of the directors about crowd control needs for lights safety. I was stressed, so the conversation happened in my stressed-out voice, and I know that probably sounded more assertive than I needed it to, but we had amazing crowd control for the second show.

When I was ready, I did get to check out our line, and it was amazing to see how many people turned out for the show. I even saw the alumni run up to the doors just before I had to go back in, and it made me very happy to see that group. Going through Wrestlepocalypse with a given group of people bonds you in a very specific way, and having that connection with those who did it before I did is something I love about this production and what makes it particularly special.

The 11PM show was packed, crazy, and AMAZING!! The crowd was super responsive, the cast went all out, and I called my cues perfectly. I felt a little twinge of sadness as I hit "GO" the last couple of times and my cues played for their final run, but I was and am so proud of how it looked and ran. Even though I wrote a bunch of effects and used fun LEDs and had a lot of movement and color, the thing in my design that I am most proud of is the fact that I covered the space sufficiently. There was a moment in the final heavyweight match when tall football player #1 lifts tall football player #2 above his head, nearly to the tall point in the ceiling, and the lifted wrestler was still lit. Getting the coverage right is what I'm most proud of, and the flashy stuff was fun as well.

After the show, we took our cast/team photo and celebrated with the alumni. They did their thing in the ring, and then we headed to the party. I was out with friends past 3AM and had a great time hanging out, recapping the run, and catching up with people. It was a great Pocs, I am happy with my work, and I am excited for next year.

We had strike today, the Sunday after load-in and the day after Dillo Day. It went really smoothly and I was done in 2.5 hours. It was very bittersweet walking away at the end because even though I know I'm going to design again next year, it's going to be totally different. We had a lot of seniors this year, next year I'll be a senior and so will the director I've worked with the last two years, and it's always a new show. I'm going to make it awesome, and I know what I need for visibility, and the rest is icing.

The photos are already online, and they look AMAZING!!! I am so happy that our photographer worked so fast; it's really impressive.

Today is awesome because I'm looking forward to VIII.