Fiesta!

It's been a long long week. Having just completed ten straight days at the cinema I'm pleased to report that everything's been running smoothly.

Well, almost smoothly.

Last Sunday we had one technical issue with a DVD copy that the festival had supplied. It froze halfway through the film. When something like that happens the first thought that flies through your head is 'Shit!' The second thought that follows is 'Shit Shit!'. After you've gotten over those initial thoughts you suddenly become a coiled spring of action. I've had these thoughts many many times, so I knew exactly how my assistant manager felt when she happened to be on duty when the film froze.

She did all the right things; made an announcement apologising for the technical problem and that they were trying to fix it. A round of applause from the audience later and everything is hunky dory. Everyone's happy! Well everyone except the Chairman of the Festival who decided to throw his weight around.

After he spent ten minutes berating my manager for blaming the festival for the problem, which she didn't, and telling her off for not doing her job, which she was, he got shown up by an extremely pleasant woman from the BBC who happened to be in the audience. The nice lady from the BBC had offered some assistance to the projection team and together they concluded that there was indeed a problem with the disc and that it was no one's fault as even during rehearsal the scratch wasn't noticed and there had been no problems. It was bad luck and a duff copy which the Chairmen couldn't seem to live with.

The next day he came and demanded to speak to me and explained things from his point of view. I being the dutiful manager let him rant on and chain smoke himself out before responding that it wasn't our intent to blame the festival and from what I'd been told that hadn't happened. He muttered and grumbled and eventually buggered off saying it was a disgrace and we should be ashamed. A very rude and arrogant man.

It didn't end there though.

The next day he was in again to watch a film and made a point of coming up to me to say 'now, no fucks up tonight right? I'm sponsoring this film.' I think he was joking, but after everything that had happened and after he'd thoroughly upset my manager, I wasn't amused.

All in all, the customers have been fine. Some of the festival organisers on the other hand are among the most close minded, self-obsessed, arrogant and rude people I have ever dealt with in my life. I truly hope karma does it's job and comes round to give them a taste of their own medicine as you cannot treat people with contempt and expect them to smile at you.