Quote:
Originally Posted by Monolithent
I've been gone a while and when I got back I reread a thread on external drives and I started thinking about how much faith we have that everything in our various systems is gonna operate correctly the next time we power up for a show. I was wondering what others do to prevent failures as well as backup plans in the event that a failure should happen.
With the economy and this business being what it is, there are some of us that can't afford a failure of any type or it could mean the end of our careers in this business. To quote Don Henley, "The Wolf Is Always At The Door". Meaning if we can't perform and there is a lowballer in the area we could easily lose business in a single night from one failure. And I think the old adage, "Do Something Good And No One Is Watching, But Make A Mistake......"you get the idea. Bad news travels fast.
This is mostly directed at those of us that are primarily mobile and have to tear down and set up for nearly every show. But who knows this is an open forum, maybe some of the house guys can drop a few that even we don't think of.
Please understand I am not trying to say anything bad about anyone or how they run their own business. Just trying to help us all.
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Redundantcy Redundantcy Redundantcy. Back-ups for everything and back-ups for the back-ups when practical.
I have a back-up computer that is on and running all night I can switch to with the press of a button. I also have a laptop for the singers to use that I can press into service if the back-up were to have problems or if the monitor should fail.
My Bose PAS speakers are designed to have up to four things plugged in to them so if the mixer should fail I can bypas it.
I have tubs full of extra cables and adaptors I keep in my van. Whenever I need a new cable or some kind of adaptor I usually by an extra 1 or 2 of them.
If my van goes down, I have sources I can borrow from or if worse comes to worse, U-haul is just a couple miles down the road (only 2 days a week is my van an absolute necessity - other days I can use my wifes car). I also keep my AAA paid up.
I never ever upgrade my show computer until the back-ups are upgraded first and confirmed there are no problems, and always set a restore point before doing any upgrades to or installing any program.
Karaoke is my "day job" and only source of income, so to not be prepared for emergencies with back-ups and a plan of attack, is just plain dumb. Just my personal opinion of course.
Sam