Luke and I bundled off the coach, excited, but hot and also tired. The flight from Australia had been long, closely followed by a tube trip, a second tube trip, a train journey and then a second train to Castle Cary.. (All prior to the already mentioned coach trip). We found our suitcases, ladder, hoops and assorted gear and looked up over the dusty expanse.
Glastonbury Arts Festival.
We pulled our 75kg of circus equipment up to a gate and asked the gate crew to radio for our artist transport to collect us.
Sadly for us, no such transport had been arranged and it was up to us to lug everything to the Theatre and Circus headquarters on the other side of the festival. I am not going to go into too much detail about this experience, except to point out that we were both extremely jet-lagged, had no water, and were pulling heavy gear across grass (which the wheels were not designed for) in heat that was above 35 degrees Celsius. It was an introduction to an event that I will never forget.
We met up with
the organisers who were to tell us where our accommodation was. Having
now not slept for about 35 hours, I was very much looking forward to
crashing out.
Sadly, the accommodation was not ready.
So.. This was resolved, we rested up and then went to find our stage managers for our show times. On all of our performance days we had been given slots that either crossed over with times when we were performing elsewhere, or where we had 10 minutes to finish one show, high tail it across to a second venue, pre-set and pre-dip, (All being fire equipment) and be on stage.. So basically this was all impossible.
I have performed at a huge number of events, and never have I had an experience quite like this one..
More on Glastonbury soon..
Glastonbury Arts Festival.
We pulled our 75kg of circus equipment up to a gate and asked the gate crew to radio for our artist transport to collect us.
Sadly for us, no such transport had been arranged and it was up to us to lug everything to the Theatre and Circus headquarters on the other side of the festival. I am not going to go into too much detail about this experience, except to point out that we were both extremely jet-lagged, had no water, and were pulling heavy gear across grass (which the wheels were not designed for) in heat that was above 35 degrees Celsius. It was an introduction to an event that I will never forget.
Sadly, the accommodation was not ready.
So.. This was resolved, we rested up and then went to find our stage managers for our show times. On all of our performance days we had been given slots that either crossed over with times when we were performing elsewhere, or where we had 10 minutes to finish one show, high tail it across to a second venue, pre-set and pre-dip, (All being fire equipment) and be on stage.. So basically this was all impossible.
I have performed at a huge number of events, and never have I had an experience quite like this one..
More on Glastonbury soon..
The big-top where we performed 6 out of 9 of our shows - with added high wire walker!
The view from our second venue (Outdoor venue)
No comments:
Post a Comment