This article originally appeared on THUMP Netherlands.There they are, hidden in the shadow of the stage. Every night they stand there again, bent over a giant mixer panel of buttons and slides, creating expressionistic landscapes of light flashes, smoke, and lasers. As a humble servant of the artists, they try to limit the damage your favorite DJ will inevitably do. Their one eye stares at the screen in front of them, while the other eye is aimed at the half-empty beer glasses placed terrifyingly close to the DJ equipment. Yes, we're talking about the lighting and sound technician you find in most modern nightclubs. Lars* is one of them.
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Lars has done this job for over ten years. He still has bags under his eyes from last night and was late today. In the next hour and a half, the club will be flooded with thirsty, aspirant alcoholics, hedonistic pill poppers, and the non-stop partiers of Amsterdam's nightlife scene. But right now, in the fluorescent light, the club looks awfully empty. "I always start by making the whole room completely baby-proof," says Lars. "You need to be aware of the fact that people are strolling around with drunk, infantile baby brains. When they see a plug in a socket, they start pulling. You even have to mind the smallest details."
"In this club, the audience can go everywhere, even into the DJ booth," Lars continues. "That's great for the atmosphere, but it's a nightmare for me. Sometimes, tall people put their drinks on the speakers, dance on the booth, or twist the disco ball on the ceiling. That looks great in pictures— promoters couldn't wish for better advertising—but it's also just fucking dangerous." Lars points to the DJ booth. "Those tables over there aren't built to stand on," he says. "If someone trips and a monitor falls on his or her head, it's over. No more fun. Lawsuits. Club closed. And I'm responsible for it."Every time a half-full glass of beer is placed near the equipment, Lars has a small heart attack. "I've seen so much equipment be destroyed," he says. "Last year, during the year exchange, someone had the marvelous idea to pull a bucket of drinks and ice over the DJ gear. Of course, the gear shut down immediately. The only thing you could do to save it is turn it upside down."
"Then you have to let it dry, open it up later and clean everything," he tells me. "A lot of DJs are pushing that CUE button like idiots, so they have to be replaced very often. When I worked at the Melkweg [the Milky Way, a music venue in Amsterdam], I once saw someone accidentally push a flight case with a guitar amp into the canals. Fortunately, the flight case was airtight and kept floating. Hence why stagehands are always so grumpy and strict: they know what can go wrong."In the rankings of the biggest morons in nightlife, number one is (as always) the student groups—[guys and girls from fraternities and sororities]. "[We had these students once who] just pulled a whole light installation out of the ceiling and broke the door to the beverage storage in half," says Lars. "Later, they started pulling plugs out of power sockets, which shut down the DJ gear. I had to figure out what was happening. In the meantime, the crowd was getting upset and started to yell. It was my fault. Apparently, I didn't get everything hidden and clogged up properly."
Clubs are all a big mess
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Most dreams don't come true
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A group of enthusiastic young promoters walks into the club. They look at the ceiling with sparkling eyes. "Sir, are you the sound man?" one of them asks Lars, who is installing the DJ gear nearby. "I have a video on a USB stick here—can you play [it] on the beamers tonight?" Lars looks up and laughs. "I'll see what I can do for you, man."Although the sound technician is usually seen as the grumpy party pooper—the one who strictly waves his finger when the DJ plays in the red—he is also the silent power that solves problems the average drunken club-goer doesn't even notice. "It's often about frustration," says Lars. "The audience isn't loose enough, and of course, it's never the promoter's fault, so I get comments that the lights are too bright or too dark. I can do anything they want. 'Do you want brighter lights? Sure thing!' They're the ones in charge and I really want to help them, but I'm just the amplifier of what's happening on stage," he continues. "When you play like shit, I'll make sure diarrhea comes out of the speakers. When you're on fire in the booth, I'll make sure the whole clubs gets lit. DJs taking over from other DJ often think: okay, I have to pump up the volume! I always get the same excuse: 'Yeah, the previous DJ turned up that gain knob.' Dude, don't bullshit me. I've been looking at those panels the whole time. The moment the volume gets up, I notice. I can try to make some volume adjustments with my mixer, but that sounds like shit. Besides, when you play too loud, the speakers will shut down. There's also a legal limit on how loud you're allowed to play. Don't give people a permanent injury. You don't hear what the audience hears in the booth too, you hear the monitor. More often than not, DJs aren't aware that they're causing earthquakes in the club."Lars has a modest piece of advice for the (novice) DJs among us. "Learn to work with the gain! If you're continuously pumping up the volume, you force me to walk through the audience to the booth and tap you on the shoulder while you're talking to a girl," says Lars. "If you don't respond, I have to turn down the volume myself. That's super embarrassing for you. I don't want that, you don't want that, nobody wants that. So, trust the sound guy! We want the same thing. It's ironic. I often want to pump it up even harder than the DJ, but I can only do that when the sound is right."
They're not all party poopers
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