Onsite

We have the task of pulling things into place and polishing them into shape before the Gatherers arrive...

22 Dec 2000

Arrived in Nelson on Wednesday morning, picked up and taken to The Gathering office... It's all on here, everyone is in the thick of putting the party on - The event is sitting around in rough hewn blocks and we have the task of pulling them into place and polishing them into shape before the Gatherers arrive...

The office, in Nelson, is the base of operations - about ten people are locked down in it answering phones, processing data, squashing rumours, making up some new ones and dealing with the million little dramas that come up running this beast.

Over twelve thousand tickets have been sold, which is around 50% more than any previous G. We're pretty much expecting it to max out to the 15kiloperson limit we're placing. That's a lot of peeps and a lot of portaloos needed.

I've spent one night onsite, where the basics of the constructions are going into place - essentials like water and plumbing, the framework of the zones is placed and trucks are rolling to the site 24 hours, carrying the raw materials and decoration up from Nelson - and more things both huge (like shower blocks in a shippping container) and small but essential (say, headshells for turntables) keep turning up waiting to be delivered, or have to be tracked down.

Another day visit onsite showed things a little further along. We now have a landline, the zones are well underway, and crew showers will be online soon, which should help defuse some of the tension that's natural in a situation like this.

Although things are still coming together, it looks like it's going to be a great party - we have a cool new cool new site, the weather is great (UV levels are maxing out though, the southern sun gets harsher each year), production is tight, the crew is the best ever and we know a huge amount of people are going to come and have a wild time.