“Come to Sydney” the client said.
“Anything you say, Chief” we said.

And it made sense at the time. A little February action in the Southern Hemisphere would not only give us some great learnings for future Festival activation, but also (and let’s be honest here) provide a welcome respite from those winter blues.

Now, we’re probably both a little too cynical to pay any heed to superstition, but Friday 13th well and truly bit us on the arse. Joe’s as happy as a pig in the proverbial on a festival site, but as a girl who’s rather accustomed to life in the Formula 1 Paddock (plentiful in shelter, champagne and concrete flooring in equal measure) Lyns was more than a little perturbed to find herself huddling under a brolly in a downpour of biblical proportions, wearing a hi vis vest (not to mention flat shoes) and trying to direct an equally sodden client to the appropriate gate in a sizeable perimeter fence.

It wasn’t all bad - the One Partners team were making good progress with the Sound Lounge build and Texan Ernie (or Bert as he affectionately became known) had the free Nokia WiFi network up and running in fairly short order. Amazing though both were at their jobs, they couldn’t stop the rain and travelling back to London in Noah’s Ark between a pair of copulating hippopotamus (hippopotami? Hippopotamuses?) seemed an entirely reasonable means of conveyance.

Meeting the client for an end of day beer at The Establishment (which that evening boasted an eclectic clientele of wall to wall suits, three Team Nokia drowned rats and Fat Boy Slim, in town to headline at GVF the following day) provided a chance to ponder where the master plan all went so wrong. As with all good post mortems, (albeit before the event even started in this case) the Client left with a clear brief – in this case to study seasonal weather patterns, freak or otherwise, before committing to the next gig!