Your team is facing unexpected technical difficulties on stage. How will you lead them effectively?

Having been in the entertainment and theatrical industry since the seventies I have a wealth of situational knowledge to advance any event to a successful and happy conclusion. There is always a solution to whatever problem arises except in the most dire of incidents or accidents. Things must be dealt with quickly as almost all we do is on a very specific timeline. Identify what is up, come up with a solution, implement it. If it doesn't work try something else. This is something that can also be applied to life.

Stay Calm in order to evaluation the situation at hand. Your demeanor sets the tone. If you panic, it will likely escalate the situation. Take a few deep breaths to center yourself while you are working on finding a quick yet safe solution. Remind your team of their skills, abiilities and allow yourself to trust them and the process of resolving the conflict/s at hand.

Technical problems happen in live theater, no more how professional the crew. There are just some things out of our control...like the weather. I was once performing on stage in South Korea when the concert hall had a power outage. The entire house went dark. Knowing this sort of thing could cause a panic that could be dangerous, I segued to a very quiet, calming piece of music at the piano...one I could play perfectly in the dark. The audience stayed in their seats. As if by design, the lights flicked back on as I played the last note. Staying calm during these types of malfunctions is key, and being open to pivoting to a joke, an acoustic set, going off script until the issue is resolved.

Knowing that any technical problems during live stage causes a threat of show dead. Depending on what type of technical issue happened, all the best we can do is first trying to find where it is & who’s in charge of that area … he must report it clearly how he fixed the problem … the rest of the crew should do some priorities such as (1) MC off-voice tries to keep audiences stay calm (2) Crew via radio must know exactly what to do in order. Unexpected problem is out of control. In order to shorten the risk, we’d better foresee it & prepare protocol and review it during tech rehearsal. A good technical supervisor and reliable suppliers contribute remarkably into reducing technical risks

One you have navigated 'X' solution that you have in mind be sure to use clear language to the team to avoid any confusion. If appropriate, let the audience know about the problem. A brief explanation can help them understand and be more patient when going about this as they'll probably will be confused and you want o make sure to keep everyone calm. Lastly, inform the speaker/ performer onstage what is going on and try to avoid technical jargon when informing them about the conflict and letting he or she know about what will happen next as the "solution"

Open Communication & transparency. In other words, honesty is the best policy! Communication with your team sets the bar for the level of expectations,challenges at hand. Kindness also goes a long way, especially on those long hours of Tech when you're figuring out how the show should flow (creating presets and making requests from client a success). One of my many objectives when show calling, is to make a show into a great success and not set up fellow technicians for failure. My advice during Tech is to create opportunities for technicians and team members on the event to share their thoughts, concerns, and ideas alongside our provided client in order to ensure a smooth event run. There is no "I" in team. #