2010: The 2nd Half: Berlin, Backstage & Baseball

As is so often the case, the year has come to a close - faster than expected. I was last writing about work and the World Cup Soccer tournament in June and now it's Two Thousand Eleven.  Just a few shows over the summer - T Mobile sales meeting for TBA Global in Seattle; concert video for Dave Matthews, Goo Goo Dolls and the Celtic Women for Live Nation & Magnetic Image and the Harmen/KFC Awards show for AM Productions. Finished editing the trailer for "From The Crew" with producer Doug Murray. Hope to get the series on the air this decade!!!

What followed was quite a busy fall and some exciting baseball!

Early September, back at Moscone Center for Oracle Open World,  San Francisco's largest convention - produced by InVision Communications.

End of September into October was the Citrix Summit & Synergy shows in Berlin. Did a similar show in SF last May (as mentioned in an earlier blog ). Video crew came from the UK and were a pleasure to work with (pictured on left).

The Giants clinched the division angainst San Diego - but as the game was on at 2:30AM Berlin time, I got the news at breakfast the next morning.

Had one day to tour downtown Berlin - a city of almost 4 million people.  Did the tourist thing on a bus and saw most of the usual sites (Bundestag, Brandenburg Gates, Berlin Tower & The Wall (or what's left of it - quite a bit, actually).

Always amazed at how easy it is to get around on the train in Europe.  Going to cost billions now to upgrade rail service in California - Hi Speed Rail and SMART (in Marin County) have an uphill battle.

Back in the USA the following week on a Google Sales meeting for Group X - Confidentiality agreement in place - can't say a thing! In between sessions the crew huddled backstage to watch the Giants take the Atlanta Braves in the divisional playoffs!

I started shooting a video series for American Health Care in the middle of October.  The ongoing  web videos will serve to help their  patients control their diabetes while living their lives to their fullest.

It's still October and I'm off to Chicago for a Schwab Town Hall Meeting:  Bumpy Road Ahead; Please Invest Carefully, produced by TenCue. Live webcast took place in the original flagship of the Hilton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. If you want to watch some insightful conversation, click the photo on the left to watch the webcast.

Not too many Giants fans in the Chicago hotel bar as I watched San Francisco beat up on the Phillies!  Got home in time to see them win the Pennant!  Maybe I'll get to watch the World Series at home...

Wait, no, there's a PayPal show in San Francisco for Creative Technology. I can recall watching many playoff games over the years while working backstage - obviously the shows are booked way before anyone knows whos going to be in the game.  Fortuitously, the PayPal show ended the day the World Series started!

After a great weekend of Baseball, it's down to Silicon Valley for the Google Global Sales Conference, once again with Group X.  One thing I will say about the show is that Google puts great effort into it's search engine to make it work as seamlessly as it does. Try misspelling a word when you do a search - you'll most likely see the "did you mean this?" suggestion. Lot's of amazing coding goes into getting you the results you are looking for.

Of course the World Series is in full swing and once again I'm backstage in a small room, rehearsing and watching base ball on my laptop during breaks. Rehearsal ends, I'm driving to my hotel, it's the 8th inning of game 6 and  I'm looking for any bar or restaurant that has the game on.  I'm somewhere in downtown Mountain View and spy a plasma in a restaurant with the game on. Make it for the bottom of the 8th and watch something I've been waiting for all my life with a group of people I've never met before. I'll remember that night the rest of my life!

My wife and daughter went to the Parade a couple of days later - while I watched backstage on my laptop.

November continued with some very creative productions: VISA show at the tony Inn at Spanish Bay for Harris Creative;  Audio Visual Technics' production for  Novartis at their spectacular office building in Emeryville and the  Safeway Foundation's annual Gala and Fundraiser with Huey Lewis and the News, produced by DaVinci Fusion.  Ended work for the month at one of my favorite hotels: The Arizona Biltmore. Known as the "Jewell of the West", its design is influenced by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Ironically the weather was about the same as in San Francisco as we collaborated on the InVison produced show for Cisco.

Thanksgiving is over and 2010 is approaching it's end.  December starts with technically challenging and beautifully designed shows: InVision for Oracle and Group X for Google.  Seems like the theme for a lot of the shows in 2010 was cram as much equipment as you can in a small backstage and try and stay out of the way of the projection image.

The year finally came to an end with Stage II's production of the Adobe Global Sales conference held at the Aria hotel at City Center in Las Vegas. This hotel had the most hi-tech bells and whistles of any hotel in which I've ever stayed. Touch screen displays at your bedside to open drapes, turn on lights, AC, TV or set an alarm. My favorite button is the "goodnight" icon.

Lights out, TV off, drapes close, goodnight.  And Happy New Year!