daytondailynews: Nearly two dozen stagehands from the Dayton area are preparing for one of the region’s biggest events in years — Super Bowl XLVI and its halftime show featuring Madonna on Sunday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Building the staging, sets, and lighting and sound rigs for the halftime show requires the skills of about 500 people, including riggers, electricians and carpenters, said Ken Rice, business representative for the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 66 in Dayton.
“They have pretty well exhausted the state of Indiana,” he said.
3 comments:
It always amazes me how swift and fast the stage has to be set for halftime show. It's incredible. Not only does this require a mass amount of resources, money, and labor-- but ALOT of management and organization to make sure everything runs smoothly. It must take a lot to transform a football field into a full blown performance space. It's good to hear that all the workers are heftily payed for their work. What I have also wondered about was-- how/ by what means of organization are they able to coordinate a crowd of "audience members" in such a huge space, how do they get them out- and how do they make the viewing experience of the halftime show visible to all?
I specifically remember last week commenting on a post about the volunteer workers that complain about not getting paid for this gig, and how they are griping about their lack of benefits. I cant imagine now how incredible it would be to work this show from the ground up like these people and get paid the hefty amount they are. One gig like that sure would help out a students college fund. It would be neat if Pittsburgh hosted Super Sunday so that we got the chance to participate in an opportunity like this.
At first I thought the article was saying that only 20 stagehands were working on the event, but then I understood that 20 stagehands from Dayton were doing it. Smaller cities frequently exhaust the IATSE personnel and often reach out to nearby locals and other folk. In Pittsburgh, local 33 will usually get help if there's a particularly large concert or several events on the same night, first from local 489 and then from whomever else, including students.
Keeping track of all of the people at the super bowl and balancing different locals' policies must be hellish. I also wonder if they pay the expenses for the stagehands whom they bring in.
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