AC/DC Review
Feb. 20th, 2007 08:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisHere's my more detailed account of this past weekend of AC/DC, the annual advanced & challenge square dance event in downtown Washington DC.
I telecommuted from home Friday morning so I could more easily depart work early at lunchtime, dedicating the rest of the afternoon to AC/DC setup and registration. 95% of the preregistration materials were in my possession so it was critical I be on time.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kent4str was working an abbreviated day at his office a few blocks away, then join us after he had borrowed the parking pass from a colleague so we could store the minivan at his office for free instead of paying through the nose for valet parking at the fly-in hotel.
I loaded our calling equipment, the registration materials, my luggage,kent4str's luggage and a handful of other items into the minivan and prepared to head downtown.
Of course, plans never go as hoped.
I received an e-mail near lunchtime from Warren Jaquith who was curious about whether our club sound equipment would be required. Indeed, yes, we were counting on it. Someone dropped the ball on coordinating the transfer of equipment from Warren, probably because of the foul weather and club night cancellations through the earlier part of the week. After a frantic series of telephone calls, we got that issue straightened out: Cissie drove out to Virginia to collect the toys while I headed downtown.
Before she could get the equipment though, Cissie had me swing by her place south of Dupont Circle to collect the cash box and a box of t-shirts. As luck would have it, her apartment complex isn't easily accessible from either my place or the fly-in hotel, and street parking was almost nonexistent thanks to snowbanks from the aforementioned week of snow. Figures.
Despite the best efforts of the universe, I did manage to get the items from Cissie and find a short term parking spot near the hotel. Many thanks toapparentparadox's hubby, Mark, who encountered in the hotel lobby as I checked in: he helped me schlep most of the minivan contents to our room.
The dance space and registration table weren't in the fly-in hotel proper; rather, they would be in the Shriners' hall just around the corner. Alas, when I arrived with the registration materials, the place was still locked. I instead laid out all the piles of paper in my hotel room and began assembling 150 registration packets solo.
Thank god I packed a 2L bottle of Coke Classic: the caffeinated sugar water kept me going longer than my worn fingers wishes. Thank god as well for cell phones: even as John Z, Cissie and I were in various locations around DC on last minute missions of mercy, we were all in rather close contact and coordination.
As soon as I received word the hall was open, I carried over the registration materials.kent4str contacted me by cell phone after work, I told him where to find the car (after accidentally directing him to the wrong block, doh!) so he could move it to his office and we began setting up the calling equipment.
AC/DC runs three simultaneous adjacent halls. Hall 1, the larger room, was used for almost all of the A2 dancing; while it shared a wall with Hall 2, there was no concern of sound bleed between the spaces. Hall 2 and 3, however, shared a collapsible folding air wall barely a half-inch thick: we were worried about the sound bleeding easily between these two rooms.
As it turns out, by judiciously placing the speakers for each caller slightly offset from each other but essentially back-to-back, the spillover of music & calling between the rooms was minimal during our testing. Filling the rooms with dancers helped with the sound a little, although the room shapes themselves did have relative dead zones unrelated to the air wall. Still, it all worked surprisingly well.
For the most part, the rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur. I danced a couple of A2 and C1 tips on Friday, had a blast with Clark Baker's hexagon squares and barstool dancing on Saturday morning and generally kept myself busy the entire weekend.
We were prepared to call A2 and/or C1 material at the open mic hour on Saturday evening but we had a total of six callers signed up. As the hour approached,kent4str and I were already exhausted: we had been staffing the registration table, answering questions, directing people around town, organizing meals, selling 50/50 tickets ($400 total raised!) and such so we were more than happy to drop ourselves off the list to give our out-of-town guests the calling slots.
I used my handy-dandy little digital recorder to record a number of A2 and C1 calling sessions, primarily by Vic Ceder and Clark Baker: I was always up to my ears in some task or another wheneverstormecho or Linda Kendall were on mic in a hall with a level I could dance. Figures. I have much transcription to do, especially the full hour recording I made of Clark's hexagon squares and barstool dancing... great fun!
Sunday came around very quickly. Dismantling the entire space was relatively easy, a good thing since I had two nights of sleep deprivation by then --it takes me a while to sleep comfortably in an unfamiliar bed.kent4str got the perfect parking spot directly in front of the front doors of the hall so loading our luggage, equipment and club stationery supplies & leftovers was a breeze.
At this point, we don't have a space or hotel contracted for next year's event, but we do have dates --February 8-10, 2008-- and we have callers CJ Smith, Dave Wilson, Ett McAtee and Mike Jacobs.
I telecommuted from home Friday morning so I could more easily depart work early at lunchtime, dedicating the rest of the afternoon to AC/DC setup and registration. 95% of the preregistration materials were in my possession so it was critical I be on time.
kent4str was working an abbreviated day at his office a few blocks away, then join us after he had borrowed the parking pass from a colleague so we could store the minivan at his office for free instead of paying I loaded our calling equipment, the registration materials, my luggage,
kent4str's luggage and a handful of other items into the minivan and prepared to head downtown.Of course, plans never go as hoped.
I received an e-mail near lunchtime from Warren Jaquith who was curious about whether our club sound equipment would be required. Indeed, yes, we were counting on it. Someone dropped the ball on coordinating the transfer of equipment from Warren, probably because of the foul weather and club night cancellations through the earlier part of the week. After a frantic series of telephone calls, we got that issue straightened out: Cissie drove out to Virginia to collect the toys while I headed downtown.
Before she could get the equipment though, Cissie had me swing by her place south of Dupont Circle to collect the cash box and a box of t-shirts. As luck would have it, her apartment complex isn't easily accessible from either my place or the fly-in hotel, and street parking was almost nonexistent thanks to snowbanks from the aforementioned week of snow. Figures.
Despite the best efforts of the universe, I did manage to get the items from Cissie and find a short term parking spot near the hotel. Many thanks to
apparentparadox's hubby, Mark, who encountered in the hotel lobby as I checked in: he helped me schlep most of the minivan contents to our room.The dance space and registration table weren't in the fly-in hotel proper; rather, they would be in the Shriners' hall just around the corner. Alas, when I arrived with the registration materials, the place was still locked. I instead laid out all the piles of paper in my hotel room and began assembling 150 registration packets solo.
Thank god I packed a 2L bottle of Coke Classic: the caffeinated sugar water kept me going longer than my worn fingers wishes. Thank god as well for cell phones: even as John Z, Cissie and I were in various locations around DC on last minute missions of mercy, we were all in rather close contact and coordination.
As soon as I received word the hall was open, I carried over the registration materials.
kent4str contacted me by cell phone after work, I told him where to find the car (after accidentally directing him to the wrong block, doh!) so he could move it to his office and we began setting up the calling equipment.AC/DC runs three simultaneous adjacent halls. Hall 1, the larger room, was used for almost all of the A2 dancing; while it shared a wall with Hall 2, there was no concern of sound bleed between the spaces. Hall 2 and 3, however, shared a collapsible folding air wall barely a half-inch thick: we were worried about the sound bleeding easily between these two rooms.
As it turns out, by judiciously placing the speakers for each caller slightly offset from each other but essentially back-to-back, the spillover of music & calling between the rooms was minimal during our testing. Filling the rooms with dancers helped with the sound a little, although the room shapes themselves did have relative dead zones unrelated to the air wall. Still, it all worked surprisingly well.
For the most part, the rest of the weekend was a bit of a blur. I danced a couple of A2 and C1 tips on Friday, had a blast with Clark Baker's hexagon squares and barstool dancing on Saturday morning and generally kept myself busy the entire weekend.
We were prepared to call A2 and/or C1 material at the open mic hour on Saturday evening but we had a total of six callers signed up. As the hour approached,
kent4str and I were already exhausted: we had been staffing the registration table, answering questions, directing people around town, organizing meals, selling 50/50 tickets ($400 total raised!) and such so we were more than happy to drop ourselves off the list to give our out-of-town guests the calling slots.I used my handy-dandy little digital recorder to record a number of A2 and C1 calling sessions, primarily by Vic Ceder and Clark Baker: I was always up to my ears in some task or another whenever
stormecho or Linda Kendall were on mic in a hall with a level I could dance. Figures. I have much transcription to do, especially the full hour recording I made of Clark's hexagon squares and barstool dancing... great fun!Sunday came around very quickly. Dismantling the entire space was relatively easy, a good thing since I had two nights of sleep deprivation by then --it takes me a while to sleep comfortably in an unfamiliar bed.
kent4str got the perfect parking spot directly in front of the front doors of the hall so loading our luggage, equipment and club stationery supplies & leftovers was a breeze.At this point, we don't have a space or hotel contracted for next year's event, but we do have dates --February 8-10, 2008-- and we have callers CJ Smith, Dave Wilson, Ett McAtee and Mike Jacobs.
