Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada
I just got home from a three city tour that jumped me around the country a fair bit with stops in Ottawa for Canada Day, Edmonton for the Edmonton International Street Performer’s Festival and Peace River, Alberta for Peacefest. All three events were outdoor festival environments, but luckily two of the three provided sound systems for me to plug my wireless microphone and iPod into so I didn’t have to worry about sound.
The only festival where arranging for a sound system became an issue was the week I spent in Edmonton. The Edmonton Streetfest had made arrangements to rent Fender Passport Systems and the rental cost was spilt between the performers who used them. This lead me to the debate of whether it was going to be better to ship my own system to Edmonton or buy in on the rental of the system that was being arranged by the organizers.
To make matters more interesting, I was given ‘special guest’ status and was invited to perform in the nightly Troupe du Jour shows where a sound system was provided but was scheduled for fewer street shows of my own (where a system wasn’t provided) in the square than most of the other acts that had been invited to participate in the event. This made me feel less inclined to opt in to the ‘day rate’ for the Fender Rental because I was getting less use out of the systems than just about any other act at the Festival.
In the end I opted to ship my system up to Edmonton on the bus and ended up sharing my system with my friend and fellow performer Mike Wood. Mike has a pro-active hate on for the Passport System for some reason so was pleased to use my Anchor System and there was only one instance when we were double booked to do shows at the same time. In this scenario we were able to borrow yet another system from another group and successfully managed to avoid the Fender Systems all together.
There’s something to be said for not having to carry a sound system with you if your flying from event to event as the excess baggage charges can add up quickly, but there’s also a certain power in using a system that you’re familiar with and in this particular instance the cost of shipping my system by bus seemed to work out to a fair bit less than it would have been for me to buy in on the festival organized rental. This isn’t always the case and certainly if you were traveling further afield where the weight of your luggage becomes more and more of an issue the rental option might work to your advantage so it’s important to look at the specifics of each situation before making your final decision.
