Life Aboard: Guest Entertainers

One thing that I didn’t quite realize when I got onboard was that there is live entertainment every single night of every single cruise. I didn’t really think about it, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise. The other thing that I didn’t quite realize was that no one else can run the lighting rig. No one else even knows how to turn it on. Now, combine live entertainment every night with no one else doing lights. Live entertainment requires lights. I’m required if lights are required. Hence, I will be working every single night of every single cruise for my entire contract.

These two realizations came quite early to me, since these facts were introduced to me my first day aboard. The full implications haven’t really settled in until now, though. A few months in, I’ve worked every single night for the last two and a half months. And now I realize that I’m not even half done, and I’ll be working every night for the next 4 months. Oh.

It’s not a daunting concept, it’s just my job. It makes me feel proud. I’m a professional. These guest entertainers, whose job it is to fly around to cruise ships and set up their act in mere hours, come in to the theater and start interacting with us. It’s all very professiona

l, and they ask for some special effects or some specific looks, and we can deliver. We’re professional entertainers. I’m a professional lighting operator, capable of programming a vast variety of effects at the drop of a hat.

For example, a couple nights ago, 10 minutes before a show, a guest entertainer calls up to the booth, from backstage, and requests a red wash with enough front light to not need follow spots. He told me what he was wearing, and then he moved on to sound requests. Enough information given. I programmed the show in blind right then and there, cleaned up the transitions, and started the show.

Some of our guest entertainers’ acts are more lighting-intensive than others. Some want talk washes for the whole hour-long show. Some have their own show discs that need to be repatched and focused to fit our rig. Some just have a list of songs that they might or might not do and I need to light their whole act. This last type of entertainer is the most time consuming. Sometimes I’ll program their show the night before, sometimes during the day of the show, sometimes I’ll adapt another entertainer’s show from a previous cruise during sound check.

As I get more familiar with the rig, and more comfortable with the control board, I cut down on programming time and do more impressive stuff. It’s quite fun to sit back and just look at what I’ve done. I’ve never run a rig this extensive and expensive before.