Last night I was honoured to be compering a fundrasing auction for Naomi House Children's Hospice; a much loved local hospice, which relies very heavily on voluntary contributions.
I was compering this event with Matthew Baylis, another comedian who had kindly come along to support me, and having checked out the sound system (always sensible when performing) all seemed fine. We did however request an extra microphone which the hotel provided.
The guests filed in; the atmosphere was happy, there was a huge buzz in the room. And then it all changed. It all changed when I picked up the microphone.
As a comedian who has gigged in some very strange places, a change of atmosphere isn't a brand new experience for me, however this one was out of my control, in that my microphone had strongly objected to Matthew's.
The result was chaos, with feedback squeals emanating from every corner, and guests grimacing and stuffing their fingers in their ears, and whilst I might expect my husband to react to me, on occasion, in this way (usually at the mention of a trip to Sainsburys) I don't usually get that reaction from my audience.
We immediately ditched Matthews's microphone (which was, by now, nothing more than an ornament) and shared mine. My microphone, perhaps struggling under the weight of this extra responsibility, subsequently decided it had done quite enough work for one evening, and stopped working.
The answer (apparently) was simple. The microphone simply needed re-charging. This however proved a step too far for the venue. A couple of staff members made half hearted attempts to help, but we did notice the person responsible disappearing faster than the proverbial horse in a glue factory.
At one point, it appeared that all was lost. We were actually asked to stand in the middle of the room and call out all the auction items to the assembled throng. A surreal suggestion; this being a very, very long room with 120 guests, who had paid for, and were expecting, a professional and slick evening.
Eventually the problem was solved by one of the paying guests, who doubtless did not expect to double up as a sound engineer for the night. But speaking on behalf of Matthew and myself, we were very grateful that he did.
We can't speak on behalf of the venue of course. Let's just say it's a good thing I don't suffer from abandonment syndrome, or last night I might have sat on the floor and cried.
Fortunately, we were still able to raise much needed funds for Naomi House. But not as many as we probably would have done.
So the moral of the story? If you're booking a venue with a sound system, always ask for a back up microphone, and if it's a radio mic check that it is either fully charged or has spare batteries.
And if the venue can't promise you either of these....then don't say you haven't been warned...
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