Surviving

Some gigs are to be enjoyed, some are to be survived. This last weekend was to be survived. It was a Lindy exchange at Cal Poly up in San Luis Obispo, an event that went dormant for five years because of the pandemic but returned this year and brought us back on. Unfortunately, in five years all the college kids we used to work with are gone, so this new group had never done this - or any - event before, weren’t even around to attend the last one in 2019. And it showed. It was just a whole weekend of bad decisions and inconveniences. Things like not giving us information on parking so we all drove around for 45 minutes in circles on a campus until someone finally texted instructions, having an all-amateur sound crew so the battery-operated mics kept dying during songs, timing things so the audience started filtering in during our sound check and were totally confused, nowhere to go to sit during breaks, etc etc etc. Between that and my half-dead voice from the cold I caught in DC, it was a tiresome slog. After the three hour drive home, I still managed to make it to the Avelo airlines protest, though.

I had the H get Bobby some giant pants (“pantalones gigantes”, I call them) and Theo some new shoes while I was gone - I feel this need to “stock up” and brace for shortages headed our way. Today I high-tailed it to the grocery store for toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, and pet food and supplies. These, plus batteries and kids’ clothes, were on a list of things that might be difficult or expensive to get, soon. The last shipping container lands at our port in five days. Then what? The shelves were all fully stocked (I was afraid over the weekend everyone would have bought up everything) which tells me either a) no one else got the memo, or b) I’m overreacting. Oh well, at least all of these things will get used up either way. 

We’re all just watching and waiting for “it” to hit. Some say it’s going to be a doomsday of epic proportions…others say it’ll just be a minor temporary inconvenience. Nobody says everything will be fine, not even The Dump himself. So it’s kind of like anticipating my event attendance - I am 100% going to take a hit this year - it’s just a question of, how bad? I did some math today and figured out I could still be sort of ok even if I lost 200 people (this is calculating in paying less taxes due to less income). But if I do lose 200 people, I definitely have to think about retracting the camp back to its previous three day-four night schedule, and saving the $30,000 adding this extra day is going to cost. And I have to clear that with the hotel and make sure everyone knows before I start selling tickets during the weekend. Because if things still look bad in four months, they’re not going to magically turn around in a year. I can only have that extra day when 1100 people attend. If it’s 900 or, god forbid, LESS, then I’m going to have to do something I’ve never done in this event’s almost 30 years, which is cut back. I’m sure everyone will understand. It’s about survival. 

Only the strong and well-established are going to survive this. Let’s hope I’m one of those.