I was incredibly dissapointed as these performers were from fellow performing arts and music courses, who we have performed with and supported in the past but let us down in a might way when we presented them an opportunity to perform and showcase their talent before a paying audience.
Undefeated, I made plans to perform once our timetabled lessons were finished. Most of the group opted to go home despite me explaining the dire situation that the imminent fundraiser had become. I asked the group if they could prepare some performances at short notice so that we would still have a show to put on for our audience but to little avail, so I started rehearsing "Fire" by Michelle Williams - which I'd previously covered and posted on YouTube and also performed at my college's monthly Open Stage event - and Serena and Stefan offered to sing backing vocals for me during the chorus.
My acoustic cover of Michelle
Williams' "Fire"
I also rehearsed a cover of Amy Winehouse's arrangement of
the 1936 jazz standard, "There Is No Greater Love", composed by Isham
Jones, with lyrics by Marty Symes. However, despite me mentioning this to
Stefan - who hosted the Talent Show - he only announced I was performing one
song and so I did not perform the ballad.
This was the least of our worries though however. I stayed
in college right up until the event, which was only attended by just over half
of the group (myself, Serena, Stefan, Luke and Crystal). We attempted to set up
the small hall for the event, placing chairs, moving instruments and PA
equipment, only to find that we could not get any sound to play from the PA
system and have sound from the microphones as well - it was either or. This
proved to be a big headache which resulted in the show starting a full hour
late, as we had to wait for a tutor to find a solution, whose was busy in the
hour before the show.
On a positive note, Crystal, in response to my request for
performances from within the group, brought along her little sister to perform
a cover of Sara Bareilles' 2007 breakthrough single "Love Song",
which led to her winning the show, which was judged on audience response to the
performers.
I performed first, singing "Fire" with support
from Serena as Stefan decided to drop out literallly last minute (much to my
annoyance). The performance went well and was well received by our
dissapointingly small audience (of less than 10 people), made up of Serena's
immediate family and aunt and 3 performing arts students.
Manny - a singer-songwriter friend of mine and Stefan's from
outside of college - performed beautifully an original song of his which was
very well received. He was followed by Crystal's youngest sister, who only
being a child was understandably very nervous and she had to start her
performance over after missing her cue for the first verse. She gave a lovely
performance in the end which we and the audience loved. Lastly, Katie gave a
heartfelt performance of Bruno Mars' 2010 hit single "Grenade" -
somewhat out of pity for the poor turnout.
We made virtually no money from this fundraiser as we didn't
feel comfortable charging the performers or audience for the mess that the
event became. Once it got underway it was evident that it had potential.
I believe the failure of the event lies with preparation. We
should have attempted setting up the PA ourselves in advance of the show date
or at least the morning of rather than an hour before. In addition to this, we
should have arranged a rehearsal some days before the event, which would have
provided an opportunity to confirm each act, time them and create a running
order from that. Had we arranged this, we would have realised much sooner how
unreliable the performers we had enlisted were going to be and changed the
format of the show to have a 50/50 mix of performances by ourselves (which we'd
actually have a fair amount of time to prepare) and others.
Overall, the event was a major embarrassment for the group
but a much needed wake-up call that if we are going to put on an event as big
as that we need to plan better and also have the full support and input of the
entire group.
