The Fat Lady Story

“We want everything” Bells, whistles, lasers pyros. It’s the new corporate brand reveal and it has to blow them out of their seats. OK so no pressure then. Months of serious and creative thought went into the planning for three minutes worth of high octane madness choreographing revolving stages, water screens, lasers, firework, branded vehicles driven by stunt drivers, live bands and of course no show is complete until the Fat Lady Sings.

So our eponymously named talent is sourced and indeed her fatness did not disappoint. She was in possession of an awesome set of vocal cords so things were looking up. Here's the plan.

The denoument completed, the final pyro extinguished as smoke drifts across the arena, all the presenter has to do is walk back on and say...

“But you know what team, The show is never over until the fat lady sings" and you can pretty much guess the rest (unless you work in procurement). Could we get our presenter to remember the words in the right order? All afternoon, we rehearsed every variation but still no joy. Ok it will be fine on the day and just in case we’ll have a plan B (we never get to work on Plan A!)

So the moment of truth arrives but unfortunately without a cue. So there we all were backstage, white knuckled with tension, willing our presenter to say the magic words. Up high in the gallery, our fat friend was poised because it had always been our intention to fly her in over the heads of the audience singing “ There’s no business like showbusiness” (what did you expect powerpoint?) and far below, a group of stout roadies were at the other end of the rope waiting to take the strain.

Matters took their own course when the talent literally got fed up hanging around and launched – no threw herself with astonishing agility into mid air above the audience, our sound engineer reacted with equal speed and crashed into the opening bars of the backing track.

Meanwhile the talent had reached max cruising speed taking the stage techs by total surprise. Reacting fast, they leapt to the safety rope to prevent her plummeting into the audience and this had the immediate of sending her rocketing upwards. As she reached the top of her trajectory, the full force of her safety harness broke her momentum at precisely the point she sang her first note...

Part scream, part fear and part opera, she sang her heart out while dangling gratuitously and far below a crumpled heap of stage techs were desperately trying to compose themselves. The audience loved it and thought it was part of the act and indeed it was a showstopper.

The talent survived. So did the client. We still work with them. They trust us.

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