2024 Concert Series: Tech Solutions to make Your Concert Easier

Hello, friends, I'm Amanda Barr. And I'm Rebecca Lou Brennan. And welcome to Dance Principles United, the podcast. Together, we are passionate about helping studio owners with the business of running their studio. Join us as we talk everything from marketing systems, studio culture, motherhood, life and everything in between. This is the Dance Principles United podcast. Hey friends, and welcome to the Dance Principles United podcast. We are back with episode four in our concert series. Today we are talking about tech solutions to make your concert easier. And I am here with Nath. Hey, Nath.

Hey. How you doing?

I am so well. I think we should do something a bit different on the podcast. Okay, let's go with a personal update. What is going on in the world of Nathan?

A personal update. Well, I'm not sure if podcast listeners know I still try and drag my backside around a cricket field. I very much enjoy it. Something I've been doing since I was 10 or 11. Um, and I did that on the weekend. And my 40 year old body, I love cricket. Does not love cricket if you can't sense the irony over the podcast. Um, but it is, look, it's something that I enjoy and it's something that I, I always talk to studio owners when I'm having like my one on one calls about in terms of like creating that sense of community. Like that's what I want for like our girls. I want them to have a community where they're connected to because that's what I had through sport growing up. And you know, our girls whether, yeah, we always sort of toss up. Is it just because we were the studio owners? But our girls have that community through the dance studio. But you know, if they turn around in two, three years or maybe at the end of this year, whatever it is, if they turn around and say, oh no, soccer is what I'm passionate but like I just want my kids to be happy and have that sense of community. And you know me, like I said, the dragging my sorry 40 year old backside around a field, feeling very sore and sorry for myself because I do still play first grade cricket down here in the south coast, but I'm playing with guys that I started playing with when I was 10, 11 years old.

And you're playing with some of their sons as well?

Yes, and I'm also playing with some of their sons, also some of their.

17 year old and 18 year old children. Is that right?

Yeah, absolutely. And like, you know, it's past probably, look, I've probably come to the realization it's past the point of me playing for Australia at This point in, in my cricketing career. No, yeah, no, no, probably, probably. But yeah, I go back for the community. I go back for those connections that I've developed.

It's not about that.

Right, exactly. It's not about that.

I love it. I love it.

Even though you. Even though you hate the cricket?

Well, yeah, I hate the cricket. I hate the Saturday long days for sure. But yeah, I do love that, that sense of community and something like that.

Yeah, absolutely. Now what about. I'm going to put you on the spot. What about a personal update from you?

Eek. Let's talk about what I was doing on the weekend. I was Christmas crafting because I am that crazy person that loves Christmas, that wants Christmas to start on November 1st. Have you seen those memes going around with Mariah Carey? Well, I know you have because I showed them to you.

I was going to say you showed me one. Yes. But I probably don't get as many of my feet as you.

Mariah Carey changing from Halloween outfit to her Christmas outfit. That's me. I love Christmas. So I started Christmas crafting and building Christmas crafts because it's fun and I like it. So my garage, I can't get my car back in the garage now because I've got Christmas crafts everywhere and a dance studio.

So like we probably could have got.

If we had probably should have organized that situation better so I could actually fit a car in the garage. But you know, that's okay. All the things. Anyway, let's talk concert series, what we're here to talk about. So we're talking tech solutions that make your concert a little bit easier. So do you want to go through a couple of solutions that you think would make studio life's studio owner life easier?

Yeah, absolutely. And this is where like when we were in the studio obviously you know, we had very large studio. So our end of year concert was 160 plus routines.

Yeah.

So a lot to organize and like we always talk about with our members and sometimes it freaks some of them out. Towards the end, like post Covid, we stopped having rehearsal days.

Yeah.

So we would do like an in studio rehearsal was a bit different but we didn't have like a full tech run or anything like that. So we had to have been turning up on concert day knowing that everything was in order.

Absolutely.

That no songs were going to be in the wrong spot, that we weren't going to play the wrong song or have the wrong like everything had to be like really, really tight and in order.

Yes. So and that's Three good systems.

Right, Exactly. Like it wasn't just a hope. It didn't just. We didn't just magically walk in the.

Teacher have they sent us the right edit of the music or, you know, whatever that is.

Exactly. It happened. And we had zero. Like you know, the last few, like when since we stopped having those tech rehearsal days, we had zero music issues.

Yes.

160 plus rout every year over four or five years, however many years we did it after zero issues. So we know that this, these sorts of things work and that it can.

Be done as long as you implement them well.

Exactly. As long as you implement them well and you follow them through.

Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about. Do you want to talk about a music system to start with?

Yeah, absolutely. And so how we would start every sort of setting up for our concert for us in our studio.

That was in July.

Exactly. End of year concert routines started after the mid year concert. So first, first day back of term three, some keen beans wanted it set up. To be honest, we set it up right at the end of term two, once mid year was done and our teachers would start putting in the songs that they were dancing to for the end of year concert.

Yep. So we'd start with a spreadsheet with every class name, the teacher's name, and the teacher had to input the song. They also had to double check that no one else was using that song. Right. So it was like first in best dress kind of thing.

Yes, absolutely. Because like going back years and years and years before we like we got to one rehearsal day, like one time many, many years ago, and there was two classes using the same song and they ended up being in different concerts. So it was. Okay, like you probably don't. It was like I'm talking like year three or four.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I knew, but knew they were in different shows or whatever. But yeah, we had to stop that happening because we really wanted to make sure we didn't get to the spot where, you know, we couldn't divide the concerts the way we want, you know, so anyway, we bags. Everyone had to bags their song, right? Absolutely. Is that like a really like 90s word?

Yeah, I'm not sure it was a thing. It was a thing that our staff always talked about. So they had to go back in and then look, that spreadsheet started out very simple, just like class name, teacher song name. But then as we got closer and closer to concert, it sort of became the master spreadsheet for everything. The costumes would go in There. So we would assign costumes when that wasn't anything to do with me, obviously. But when Amanda and the team would be assigning costumes and it would go in that spreadsheet. Yeah, exactly. Which set of costumes were being used, the colors of those costumes and everything like that. And that master spreadsheet then became the basis for the text sheets that we use to ensure that we had smooth and well run concepts the whole whole way through.

Yeah. So can we talk about the other things that we started putting on those spreadsheets? Yes, the other things we started putting on those spreadsheets. I guess. So then it turned into the master tech sheet, you know, and we're going to talk about deadlines as well, aren't we? Kind of Go into that and how we got our staff to do that. But yeah, as you mentioned, to start with, it was just the song name.

Yes.

As we got closer, we'd then do another set of things that, you know, obviously someone else would put the costumes in, whoever was assigning the costumes and the colors, like Nathan kind of mentioned, because that would then help us form the basis of lighting, tech sheets, etc. But then when we got further along, it would also be. What do you want this routine to be called? If it was being called? You know, sometimes when it's like a hip hop mix or something and you call it something else, what do you want it to appear as on the program? Yeah, so we kind of. It would have to be that. We'd also have a checkbox that they had uploaded the music and we're going to chat about that a little bit more in depth as well, that the music was finalized and in the right folder for them as well. And as we got further on, are we going to talk about those things as well? The other things that we made sure that they started putting in things like if the dance starts on or off.

Stage, just those really simple things, right?

Absolutely. You know, if they start from stage left or stage right or whatever that was. If there was any special notes that. That you needed to know as you know, to be front of back of house manager.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Whoever. Whoever's running your show, whoever's the stage manager and things like that. Like is there somebody that's just starting in the middle stage that you want spotlighted? Is there's something happening at the end where somebody's walking off stage left where you want them tracked or followed with it. Like whatever, whatever the teacher wants.

Any additional kind of stuff, Any additional.

Kind of stuff that goes in there as well.

Absolutely. So that spreadsheet became that. But what we did do is get the team to put that in like in blocks, I guess. Is that the best way to describe it, you know, certain times of the year was like, hey, you have to go back and keep filling in this spreadsheet and where you're at.

Absolutely. Because like the key to it was that we would have really cleric expectations around all of those things.

So many people say that to us. Right. Like, how do you get your teachers to do X, Y, Z. Yeah. And I think it's just clear expectations and giving them enough time and them understanding the consequences if they don't. Right?

Yeah, absolutely. And giving them, I guess, ownership around, you know, explaining like what goes wrong. If so maybe we should come back to like talking about the music collection, for example, and then we can sort of talk about those expectations around that. So with the music that Manda talked about, like, we'd have the song spreadsheet. Now once a teacher had bags in inverted commas, picked this on for the end of year concert, they had to put it in. We had. Would have a Google Drive folder and that Google Drive folder would have a big folder. End of year 2024 concert music.

Yeah.

And then within that, each teacher would have their own folder.

Yes.

So Ms. Amanda would have to have all of her end of year concert songs unedited straight away.

Obviously that was beginning of term three. Like first day. Had to be in there. Yeah.

Yep. Had to be uploaded because we know sometimes teachers are away and that's all right as well. But you know, in the reality is that even best case scenario you have 18 lessons or we had 18 lessons before an end of year concert to have a routine finished.

Yeah.

If a teacher's away for two of those, like that's a big chunk. Like I'm talking to dance teachers here on the podcast. As someone that's never taught a class, but you guys know that like missing two or three lessons can have a big impact.

Absolutely. The other thing that we were, it was important to us is if a staff member was sick and they called in sick, which happens, it's okay that, you know, you know, that's the reality of it is we didn't want to be, you know, messaging them at 3 o' clock if they really were sick, going, hey, what's your song title for this class? We need to run it. How do I know what's the edit? I can't find it on Spotify. Like all of that. And that's what we always told our Staffers, if you're sick, we don't want to have to hassle you. We want to let you have the day off, get better, you know, and come back. So by uploading their music really early on in the piece, that allowed us to be able to do that and go, hey, it's fine that they're away. I can just show the COVID where. How to find their song, their, you know, in the drive, what the music was, all of those things. Without having to hassle that person when they're off sick.

Yeah. And the kids still have an amazing lesson and be able to work on their concert routine.

Hmm. Absolutely. So we started with that, like unedited music.

Yes.

And then when we got closer, we created another folder that was like final edits, right?

Yes, absolutely. So the final edits would be in. Because by that stage as well, we would have had the show order out. And so it would be the concept breakdown. Exactly. The concept breakdown. So, like, I think we had maybe seven concerts or eight concerts. And so within that it would be, you know, end of year concert one, end of year concert two, and by X date, maybe it was depending on. Yeah. When the concert was. Maybe it was end of week four.

Yeah. Usually like a month out or something like that.

All final edits must be up in the Google Drive ready to go.

And they had to be called the right thing as well. We were hard on our staff about that. They had to name them the correct thing in the drive too, right?

Exactly. Because that's super important because as the, you know, the person that was the stage manager, me, who was going through and getting through all Those tech sheets ready 160 plus concert routines.

Yeah.

Without a tech run it, you know, I didn't have the time to physically be going through and chasing up and finding every specific like. So I would go to the point of, like, when you upload your song name, you can't just upload Hip Hop Mix. You had to write Jazz junior Pink, show three, Hip Hop Me, like, and then.

And I think you even got further in that it was like S3. Meaning show three actually.

Yes.

A one item 18. And actually got them to put it in that way because that way you could run your eye over it very carefully. Is that right? You did do that the end. Right. And they had to, you know, actually work out what show, what act, what item number they were and put it incorrectly and name it exactly what was called in the spreadsheet as well.

Yes.

So that everything matched.

Exactly. Because I'm not a mind reader yeah. And like, whilst Hip Hop mix.

What? What the hell is Hip Hop Mix?

Yes. Whilst I did have a pretty good idea and, like, sometimes if there was a little mistake, I could go through and, like, figure out where and things like that. But, like, I just physically didn't have time to do that for 100, 160 routines. And it also, like, we keep, like. Like, I'm probably going to bring back, like, multiple times over the podcast, but again, giving the staff that ownership around those things.

Yes.

Making them actually take the time to go back in and do it and explaining to them that, you know, hey, guys, I really appreciate you doing this. I know sometimes it seems like a lot, but you having to take an extra one minute a song saves me 12, 14 hours of work.

Yeah.

Like, just explaining those things to them. People like, oh, yeah, okay. That's okay. Like, I think too often as studio owners, you know, we keep too much in our head and we expect our.

Staff and to be mind readers.

Exactly. To be mind readers and understand exactly what's going on and just communicating it to them is just super, super important.

Absolutely. So Edited Music was due in the drive about four weeks before, and then approximately two weeks before we changed that, the staff had to stop playing it. That was a very strict rule. They had to stop playing it from, you know, their downloads folder on their computer or whatever and start playing it from the drive in class.

Yep. And stop. Stop even playing it from the Ms. Amanda folder.

Yes.

And playing it from the end of year show concert three.

Yep. Just as a double check, because we didn't have the rehearsal just in case they'd uploaded the wrong version. They had to double check and play that in class with the kids and rehearse with that version. We were very strict on that. We're also very clear that, hey, if you don't do this, your music might be wrong on the day.

Yep.

And that's on you.

Yes. Like, I know that might sound harsh, but again, like, giving them that ownership of it, like, because, you know, there'd be nothing worse than, like, a teacher, like, glaring across, like, looking at me like, it's your fault. And, like, I'm really sorry.

It's not like you were told to play it for two weeks in class from this drive, you know, that was your fault. And that works really well. Our staff were all on board with it. It was fine. There was no issues. We communicated that very clearly on Slack, you know, and as we said, we were really strict with our dates and our deadlines around that.

Yes.

And that really helped with that as well. We were really strict with dates and deadlines around everything we would, you know, on. We communicated with our staff on Slack, which is the platform, messaging platform, and we always gave them really clear dates. You know, music must be uploaded to the folder by this date. Routines must be finished by this date. I was very strict on routines needing to be finished by this date. You know, also things like practicing running on, running off, you know, about whatever you do right at the end must be commenced on this date. Students need to be practicing lining up in the wings from this date. And we were very, very strict with all those things. And I just, I think the staff preferred it because they knew where they stood, they knew what was expected to do. They didn't. They didn't forget things because, you know, sometimes they're like, oh, shit, I didn't think to practice that. I didn't think that. And it was just really clear what they needed to remember.

Yeah. And it wasn't just. We didn't just put it out in the staff handbook at the start of the year or the start of the term and expect that everybody absorbed that by osmosis. It was like constantly communicated. Like Amanda said on Slack, every week in, like those informal conversations when they.

Rock up on before class. Yeah, yeah. Reminding them, yeah, hey, remember this week.

Is the week that all their music's uploaded. How are you going with that?

Yeah.

Oh, like, then it opens a conversation. Okay, you're struggling with Jazz Jr. Red. Not a problem. When is it going to be up by? Yeah, just making them think about, oh, yeah, sorry, I'll have that by Thursday, definitely. That's like opening up those conversations and just those constant. And reminders. Sometimes I think we worry that we're being a nag or something like that. And look, don't get me wrong, if you say it the wrong way. Yeah. You can sound like, absolutely. So just like, being mindful, doing it with kindness, doing it with empathy, and doing it from a place where they know you're trying to help.

Absolutely. And make it easier. Awesome. So that's kind of our, I guess, our music system, our timeline system, all of those sort of things. What other kind of tech solutions do we kind of use at concert that you might want to chat through?

Yeah. So, you know, within the. The actual playing of music and, and videos and things like that, we would use a platform called qlab, which I highly recommend for that. I know a lot of people would, you know, outsource it to their, to their theater. I know that happens But a lot of people also play it themselves. And some theaters have very minimal input from the external tech people.

Yeah.

So whatever it is, make sure that you talk to your theater. Like, that's my first recommendation. Like, have a meeting with the tech people. Make sure, again, like, communicate with them exactly what you want to happen.

Also helps you. It's funny, I was having this conversation. I don't know if I've told you this. One of our SJC members, Brad, he also works in tech at his local theater.

Yes.

And he was talking about the importance of studio owners having really early conversations with their techs. You know, the tech staff or their tech supervisor or coordinator or whatever at their theater. Really early on to make sure they're getting good quotes as well. Because otherwise they get stung with all this, like, last minute stuff if they didn't have a good quote.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think also, like, making sure that the tech people understand what you want out of your concert. That was the big thing that we learned. We moved to, like I say, our new venue, but it was the venue we had for the last probably what, 10 years of concerts at least.

Least.

Probably more just a couple of years ago. But, you know, when we moved down there the first year, I remember, like, the. The tech people were really cranky with how, like not. And look. Because sometimes we know that tech people can be a bit like that.

Yeah. I was gonna say. I don't know if it was us that made them cranky. I think they were just their personality. Yeah.

But like, with how we did things and how we wanted our audience to experience and feel and feel and things like that. Because it went against, like, how they'd been trained to do their job for a squillion years because experienced in what they did and they were very good at what they did. But just like, I can't even remember specific examples, but, like, how they thought the show should have been run wasn't how we wanted our families to. And so they were getting a bit flustered and there was just like that little breakdown in communication.

Yeah.

Of. And then I was like, oh, hang on. Right. Maybe I hadn't communicated exactly what we want. Like, we're okay if it doesn't exactly go perfectly in this blackout here because of, like.

Yeah.

So making sure that you communicate how you want the show to run.

Yeah.

What's important to you.

And for us, you know, that was maybe moving away from that very artistic kind of style lighting. Not completely. Don't get me wrong, but, you know, moving away from that Kind of style and you know, for our preschool kids. For our preschool kids and focusing more on making sure that everyone's face can be seen that it was lit the right way, you know. And that's what worked for us. And each to their own for each studio. But it's communicating that to your tech staff I think is really important.

Exactly. That was like having. Yeah. Having big discussions around the difference between our preschool and our younger kids rec shows versus our comp show. Our comp show was the one that. Yes. We were happy for the more artistic side of things to come in around the lighting and the production side of things. So we were happy for that to have you know. Yeah. For the lighting guy basically to. To go a bit ham and do. Do what he thought best and to. To really have that professional touch on it. But for him to pull that back for the little kids, for the preschoolers where mum and dad are sitting in the audience and they want to see all we want like in that show. Yeah, cool. Let's put some cool colors but just heaps of front wash so we can see their happy smiley faces.

Yeah. And that's what worked for us. We got off topic. We were talking qlab.

We were but qlab again because like, like I said most us off topic never. Who would have thought. But qlab's a platform that is specifically designed for theater productions for basically what we use it for. For an end of year concert. Don't try and shoehorn another solution in like don't try and play it through your Apple music on your computer and things like that. Like I know it works unless you're.

A very small starting studio. Look, you know.

Yeah, look qlab does take a little bit of time to get your head around but most of the theaters guys will want to help you with it as well like because it makes their day a lot easier and they. A lot of them nowadays will have a laptop side of stage that you can just bring like your USB with all your songs preloaded in and they'll just take. It'll take them literally five minutes to set it all up and play it there from you. It's specifically designed for shows like dance concerts to. And you can like that have both.

A music and video. Yeah, exactly as well.

Look, if you want to do the video side of things, to be honest you will need to. To set it up like within the week before type thing and spend a little bit of time yourself. But the great thing about it too is it's a super high end product that's got so much functionality that you can just pay per day.

Yeah.

So you can just pay like 10 bucks per day and. And use this amazing software as well. So if it's something that you're looking to do, definitely, like, look into it now. Look into it now. Jump on YouTube. So many, so many tutorials on how to use it effectively. We only, like, scratch the surface with the tiniest minuscule of what it's used for, and we just use the basic functions. And that still gives us an absolutely incredible show.

Yeah. Amazing. Awesome. Well, hopefully that gives you some great tech solutions that help run a seamless show.

Yes.

Because that's what we all want, right? Like a really seamless, easy show. And I think a lot of it. We're probably coming back to setting it up well early on. Right. Putting those systems in place in your studio, with your team, with your staff. And look, even if you're the only teacher with yourself, you know, having that already, so you're not still cutting music the night before or going, oh, crap, which is the. You know, I've had eight different versions of the edit of this song. Like, which one am I using? Am I going back to version 6 or version 8 or, you know, all that kind of crap that's happened to all of us at some point. So setting up those really good systems really early on will make your life so much easier, right?

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. Hope you guys have an incredible week. We can't wait to be back in your ears next week. Bye.

Thanks, everyone. Bye.

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