Revved up

Another blog from an airport as I wait for my flight back to Sydney. The Mandy boys defiantly help with the profits of the airlines. This last week has seen Richard in New Zealand while myself, Dan and Mike (with the help of some locals and Southerners) lit and technical managed a conference for Yamaha Motor Australia on the Gold Coast. Lots of musicians, bikes and jetskis wizzed around and above us at this event which covered five different rooms in 3 days of conference. Very demanding , but very cool. While up here I also had the chance to go see ZINGARA, the show at Jupiters that I programmed lights for last year. A good fun casino variety show- a nice nights entertainment !! The highlight of the show is still the Globe of Death where 5 motor bikes spin around inside a steel cage. They should have done an appearance at the Yamaha event. Back to Sydney now for meetings and planning the future... as well as doing some gigs. Till the next airport...where will it be........

Auckland

While the rest of the guys are enjoying the Gold Coast as they handle the technical production for Yamaha's national conference, I'm in cold and rainy Auckland tech directing and designing a series of massive parties for an Australian financial company. Our first event is tonight in the convention centre - and everyone has their fingers crossed that the miserable weather will turn itself around ready for a big outdoor event on Friday night. The great news is that we all get to take a few steps back and have a break after this week - the end of a two month marathon run of events of all shapes and sizes. till next time rich

I've been everywhere man

I've spent the last few weeks flying and driving all over the place. Playground Weekender was an adventure in cars, ferries and trucks over the Hawkesbury River - very nearly involving boats after hours and hours of torrential rain. More recently, the whole team flew up to the Gold Coast for Macquarie Captial's annual conference which saw us put around 90 moving lights and a couple hundred conventionals into two rooms to create a few spectacular nights of partying, conferences and bands. Following the conference we did get a day off on the coast - after 'investigating' some lighting at various Surfers Paradise bars we headed off for an afternoon at Movie World... After flying back to Sydney on Sunday night I had to jump in the car and head off to Bathurst on Monday to light the Mercedes Benz national Dealer of the Year Awards. This was a huge event to mark the end of a week long dealer conference with some very nice cars ripping their way around Mount Panorama. The dinner and celebrations looked huge, and I had a great time working with all the crew. Here's a taste of what it looked like inside: Of course it's not getting any quieter - this week sees me flying to Port Douglas to light a unique event in the middle of the rainforest, and then after that I'll be spending a week in New Zealand before heading back to Korea as our long-running involvement with the musical Cats sees the show move back to Seoul for its second season in a year. Catch you soon.... don't know where exactly though! Cheers rich

A Weekend in the Playground

Let me start by saying that the Playground Weekender that Mandylights designed and operated over the weekend was a great festival. It definitely is one to keep an eye on for the next few years as it grows because it has a great Homebake meets Woodford Folk Festival feel about it and has secured a remote but very cool site.

Now when I say remote I mean it's around an hour and a half from Sydney which when we're talking about a 3 day festival might not sound so far away but when you add a car ferry that usually services the small population of Wisemans and decides it's all a bit too much at 3am the night of load out you end up with a substantially longer, dirtier and did i mention longer drive ahead of you. 

Despite all the perils of ferries and outdoor festivals it was a great weekend and one I will look forward to doing (from a houseboat) next year. Top work to Mike and Richard for operating the two stages and GY, Claire and the Cairellie boys for making it all happen.

Entech

On top of everything else that filled this busy week, I got a chance to program and put together the ALIA (Australasian Lighting Industry Association) stand at Sydney's Entech Exhibiton. With gear loaned from Jands, Show Technology, Cairellie, Lots of Watts, LSW, Resolution X, Sylvannia Lighting and of course, Mandylights, an impressive stand was built around my wanting to make a wall of VL5s on a ridiculously small stand. Turns out it created a bit of a talking point, and hey, I had fun :P I think this was taken when I programmed my 220th cue for the stand...

9 Lives

Dateline.....Sunday, 10 February 2008 Location......Wuhan, China. How many people who read this go there or even know where Wuhan is. I did not until recently. The reason for the trip here is the on-going prowling around ASIA that CATS is doing. MANDYLIGHTS continues to provide lighting direction and operation services to this touring production which keeps on gaining lives. We are half way through a China tour , and the tour has just been extended again with the confirmation of another return to Korea finishing around October. I think this is about the sixth CATS tour of Korea. Who said cats only had 9 lives. To keep up with the workload we have welcomed on board Sian. She is looking after CATS for the next while. (Maybe forever if CATS keeps extending !!!!) CATS Team Lighting on the set in Wuhan. Ryan Sturgeon(Head Systems), Greg Yates(LX Director), Largent Wilson(Systems), Wing Tsou (Head Spot OP), Sian James Holland(LX op), Hsiu Hui Yang(Spot OP) I am heading back to Sydney and hit the ground Monday morning and head straight into lighting conferences for a major corporation. The next few weeks keep us all busy with corporate events all over the place for a whos-who of companies. Thankfully some of them are on beaches or the Gold Coast so we can have some fun in the sun. Recently I have had fun walking thru Beijing and Wuhan snow. It will be different back on OZ. Bye Bye for now. Greg Yates Hong Kong Airport

Busy again

Hey all, Sitting in Woollongong at the end of a weekend lighting and running visuals for a corporate event. Also sitting at the start of a flat out time for the team. We'll be at Entech in the next few days (check out my overkilled ALIA stand design) and on jobs all over the place, from ballrooms to theatres to old abondoned prison blocks. Greg comes back after a two month long stint on Cats which is still making its way through China. We're really excited to have Sian on board who will remain with the show for the next little while. I've found myself wanting a holiday, but with gigs coming up on the Gold Coast, in Port Douglas and even on a Sydney beach, I think I'm going to get myself more than enough sun at work in the next couple of months. Mardi Gras is coming up in a few weeks too - it's going to look great. The designs are almost done... stay tuned to see how it goes. I'm accepting donations of Red Bull and Starburst snakes for the 'keep richard awake for 24hrs' fund. It's a very worthy cause! cheers rich