Muki.Dorifuto.com Photography talk with random tangents into the unknown

Behind the scenes: Animania Sydney 2010 Setup

I was out at Australian Technology Park today visiting an expo for work when I remembered that Animania Sydney is this weekend.

I remembered because I started to notice all the signage that was up. Then I realised that setup for the event starts two days in advance and that they were probably setting up! So I ducked over on my lunch break and took a few shots.

I think a lot of people take for granted the effort that goes in to setting up an event. There's a science to setting up an event in terms of logistics and scheduling. Things need to happen in parallel in order to make the most of the venue time - the in-house crews can't set up the lighting while the stage contractors build the stage.

The scheduling is pretty simple on paper, but if anyone gets it wrong, the consequence ripples and grows through the day.

The guys on the ground meanwhile are getting all the wiring gathered to connect everything together. Everything is labelled, tracked, connected, secured and then flown on the rigging.

This can take the entire day and typically the crew won't know if they've got it completely according to plan until the next day when they do a dry run and program the lighting board.

There's about 50 lights! All it takes is for one to be connected or labelled incorrectly and it can take ages to figure out what went wrong.

For most of the lights, gels are placed in front of them. Each one is cut by hand and placed in front of the appropriate lamp. They make pretty colours!

... and for sticking around, here's what the 2011 Animania Cosplay Calendar looks like!

Can't wait to see you all this weekend!