USITT Day One

Not sure how much blogging I will do this conference. Today was the first day and the big question of the day was if I was going to get here in time to sit on the panel I was doing.

I turned out to arrive with more than an hour to spare. But even without a timing issue there was still a surprise for me. When I got here and checked in the show guide to find the room the session was happening in I discovered that I'd be on a panel with Jay Glerum...

You may not know, but Jay literally "wrote the book" on stage rigging. Suddenly upon discovering this I started to wonder about the quality of the methodology within my presentation. There'd be nothing worse than saying something in a room full of people while sitting next to Jay rolling his eyes at my possible idiocy.

There was one slide in particular (I'll upload slides when I next have the machine online) that I was wondering about so I showed it to him first. I'm glad I did because he did think it was wrong. Interestingly I told him I had applied it the way I had seen it in another book and his response was "yeah, he always misinterpreted that."

The session went really well. When Jay is on a panel the room is always full. I'd say there were like maybe 300 people. In the end I think I did hold my own. Pretty cool.

After that I sat in on part of a fire curtain presentation by Dan Culhane. I learned about over balance bars and arbors. That was cool and a total surprise. Next was the Technical Production Commission Leadership session. I managed to sit through the entire meeting without volunteering for anything (although I totally undid that by email later on - even putting myself up for commissioner).

Last today was the new keynote. Two of our students were receiving awards and a team of CMU folks did all of the design and media for the new format so I went to an event I usually make sure to miss. It was certainly better than the old format. 

Then back to the room for food, recharging electronics, and catching up on a day's email. 

Tomorrow will probably be a whole lot more about the booth.