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This one gave me a chuckle.
The Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives hosted their yearly awards gala and they asked if I would do the live announce again. I said sure, we worked out a trade deal and all was good. I did warn them that sometimes travel comes up and then I might have to pass; they were cool with that.
Travel came up and off I was to be on a plane instead of behind the mic for them. I said the only option I had for them was that I could pre-record it the show for them into individual sound files and they audio-visual technician would play them back for the proper intros. They loved that idea, I recorded it, they loved how it sounded, it was done well in advance and sent over to the av company to get them comfortable with pacing and technical stuff, etc.
So the night of the show comes and goes and the next day I email to see how it went. Here’s the answer I got:
Well….funny you should ask. Hi Peter – the rehearsals went really well but we did have a glitch during the actual intros. I sat with the av guy to make sure he knew when to cue the next person’s intro. He would hit the button with your recording and then play music in between. However, he hit the button too quick after announcing the Key Bank winner and we heard “from Business First” too soon so he stopped it right away. Unfortunately, by stopping it the way he did, it was miscued and then it went back to the very beginning of the recording again. Luckily he wrote down the exact time of each recording so it was a matter of getting back to the right time on the recording but he kept missing it so we had about 2 full minutes of waiting and wondering what was up. My face was on fire J
Your voice was loud and clear and it sounded like you were right there so that was very cool. I think considering what the av guys had to do, they did an awesome job. And other than that, the night was fabulous. We are getting rave reviews.
Yikes.
So tonight on Facebook, I see my friend Nancy Knight posted something so I threw a kudo towards her as she was one of the award winners —who happened to be the NEXT intro when the AV had the hand-eye coordination melt down on his computer mouse. Nancy wrote:
Peter — thanks for the kind words — yeah, the audio left me and my prom date stuck at the top of the stairs for QUITE some time… before I figured it was all automated, I thought you were mad at me or something…
Oy! Usually I only annoy people when I am present but thanks to one tech, I annoyed hundreds of people while in Texas. Sorry Nancy. 🙁
Of course, I never make mistakes. Like the time as a PA announcer I had a stadium full of people stand for the national anthem during a college football game…only it was time for the band to play the school song. Yeah….
Tags: announcers, commentary, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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