Attendencewise, last night was a great success. Thanks and appreciation to those of you who brought yourselves, as well as those of you who also brought friends and family. I am grateful.

Operationally, last night was something of an exercise in futility, on a variety of levels. However, I'd like to focus on one specific area - the queue.

Our current process works fantastic, when there's less than 20 people at any given point in time. Last night was not that scenario. If I'm lucky, and you all hang in there, last night's yield will be the regular turn-out.

The current queue system is clearly not adequate for the needs of the patrons, and doesn't really service staff very well either. A primary consideration with the current queue system is equity: people who show up later shouldn't be heavily penalized for their arrival time; people who show up early should be able to sing at least one more song than the people who show up later. A solid structure should keep us from having to change anyone's position in the queue. As a general rule, we don't make changes of convenience that supercede the fairness of the structure. In reality, I do make changes to the queue, more to maintain what I perceive to be fairness in the system, not necessarily for patron convenience. I claim responsibility for such decisions, and stand by them, regardless of the result of such decisions.

Last night the queue process failed spectacularly. A few errors in judgment were made (yes,

thefreak, before the heavy boozing kicked in, although that would contribute to the general chaos later), and the inadequate process did a considerable amound of failing on its own. To those of you who got screwed out of singing after an inordinate amount of wait-time (2.5+ hours), I can only apologize for an imperfect system implemented by imperfect people. When the problems evolve to that state, there's no quick fix that will make anything less worse for everyone.

I'm sitting here with actual pen and paper, running simulations against the current process, and making some fairly large changes. With any luck, the only thing you, the patrons, will notice will be more efficient and timely rotations. I'm happy to discuss the process with anyone who has an interest, and I welcome any input that will benefit the evolution of our queue system, for staff and patrons alike.

- Å

 

7:55pm - box check, getting gear together, cable check
7:58pm - HOLYSHITWHEREAREMYKEYS?!?!! (In addition to my house and car keys, I have a couple keys I need for club operations as well.)
8:40pm - Haus turned upside down, living room bulldozed, brokenheatherdoing her damnedest to help me find my keys, epic fail 
8:45pm - Grab spare car keys, hit the road
8:50pm - call to house we visited on Sunday, my keys are there! Still bad for tonight, but not catastrophic for MY life
8:55pm - barrage of calls: Doomie, about contingency hotplate; Gilbert, about rounding up mics that aren't in my locked closet; Jonni and Tina, telling them I'm running stupid-late
9:05pm - arrive at club, scramble to get gear together. RECORD TIME FOR ASSEMBLING A FUNCTIONAL GC CONTROL RIG. I hope we can pull that off more frequently!

At that point, after a busy weekend, I'm toast. And THEN, the hilarity ensued....