Evaluation

We Will Rock You

Positives

• Front of House was a positive of the show nights as it was well organised this meant everything ran smoothly and that no staff were required to help. It was well managed and everyone knew their role and had a part to play, this presented an professional image to the audience.

• Crew were very organised also which ensured the backstage area of the show ran smoothly. All crew members had their own roles to perform backstage during the show, they also had pre show checklists to complete, this was so that if any problems arise they could be fixed before the show.

• By having two lighting operators (one for each act) this provided a back-up should one not be able to make it on the night. Also by having the lighting operators cued by the DSM this meant that there was no late or missed cues.

• The set was in keeping with the theme, it needed to be futuristic but still old in a way, this was achieved by having the sliding doors as a London underground station and the lighting design and truss together added the futuristic element.

Weaknesses and solutions

• Although very organised front of house ran into issues to do with seating, as more tickets than seats available had been sold this meant that seats had to be added into small spaces in the auditorium, however the front of house team were not told about this issue until the night of the shows. Although they dealt with the issue well a better solution for the future would be to have the front of house team in charge of ticket sales instead of performing arts staff.

• Although each crew member had their own role backstage this was not made clear to the performers and as they didn’t know who the crew were it resulted in front of house staff being asked to help with costumes. An easy solution to this would be if the backstage crew were to be introduced to the performers so that it would be easier for the performers to identify the correct crew members.

• Although having the lighting and sound operators cued by the DSM works best if both cues need to go together and there was good communication. By having all three on coms created confusion when the cue wasn’t clearly heard it meant the operators were having to ask the DSM who they were cueing at that point which almost caused late cues. This could easily be solved by having lighting using their cue sheets to cue themselves but still on coms to listen for when sound and lighting needed to go at the same time.

• Although the set was in keeping with the theme of the show and looked good issues arisen when plotting the lights. This was due to the truss and the use of moving heads, the truss prevented some lights being used and the moving heads took up time when programming them. This could be solved by having more time in the space before plotting so that and possible issues could be identified before plotting which would also give us more time to fix the problem.