New Wine 2010 - De-rig

It's always sad to see the site being de-rigged; delegates packing up their belongings, tents disappearing, the cherry picker out taking down the big venue banners, chairs being folded and loaded into stillages and eventually, even the big marquees coming down. The packed and busy site slowly becomes more and more empty!

Four of us spent the greater part of yesterday morning packing up the Control Office, whilst still fielding questions; especially for the 'valuable' lost property which delegates had suddenly discovered they had lost (including 3 sets of car keys!) and for the de-rig vehicles arriving at the various gates seeking entry. The biggest job (as always) was trying to account for the 55 radio handsets along with all of the accessories (earpieces, fist mikes, holsters, belt clips) and this is where the importance of the radio log comes in! Thank you to Mel and the night crew who re-checked the log nightly to ensure that all radios were accounted for, and thank you to the Control Office team who logged them in and out so diligently every day.

We have learned a few lessons for next year, but overall, everything went very well. I had a brilliant team and sincerely hope that most of them enjoyed it enough to want to return in 2011! Now, I feel like I could sleep for a week to recover!

Roll on New Wine 2011  :)