Malmöfestivalen 2011 part 1

Last Friday on the 19th this year's edition of the annual festival in Malmö began. Of course I'm working there 7 out of 8 days. So here goes the first five days (including my day off).

Friday. Had arrived at my parents place the evening before to help my dad get two cars to the festival. Got there, got unpacked, all was fine. Then the electricity guy shows up claiming that we haven't ordered nor payed for the extra juice that we needed. Great. That meant we had to run the popcorn machine, the cotton candy machine and the lights on the same cable - not a good idea. Can't pop popcorn and making cotton candy at the same time without blowing a fuse. So we had to pop the popcorns while there was no people to stock up enough popcorn to last until we got that extra electricity, so that we could make cotton candy to those who wanted some. Some phone calls later and we still hadn't recieved that extra juice. 8 hours after the nasty electricty guy had left another one shows up, handing me an extra cable. Great! Turns out that there was no electricity in the cable. Traced the cable to a locked electrical cabinet. So one more phone call for Dad. Switch places to the other stand and there it turns out we haven't got electricty for the lights. The cable is pulled out of the cabinet and the cabinet is locked with white plastic strings. Great... Calls them up and they say they'll come and fix it. Before they do the guy next to us selling sugarcoated almonds has solved the problem by cutting of the plastic strings with a knife and putting in our cable and his own. The electricity people arrive after it's already dark.

Saturday. A new electricty guy shows up and gives us power in both cables. Day goes smoothly after that. It gets even better when Zombie Walk walks past us. I curse myself for leaving my camera home, but an old friend of mine was in the walk apparently and so I found these pictures on FaceBook :) Rest of the day goes smooth. Except that I and Love are sent to the stand next to the stage, cause Dad and Jeanne didn't want to listen to techno... As if I did. After five minutes of constant bass I started to wish that it'd be over soon.

Sunday. Except for terribly aching feet the day went smooth until it was almost closing time. The sky opened on us and I had to get creative to protect the balloons and the cotton candy machine. On top of that Love wasn't feeling well. I switched with Jeanne at the stage so that she and Love could pack up the other stand. After Veronica Maggio finished at 11pm loads of people wanted to buy. Unfortunately we are not allowed to sell after 11. How did they figure that one out? And after selling to a few people I was practically chewed out by a girl not much older than myself flanked by two security guards. Then a new police office was stopping Jeanne to drive the car to the stand cause there was too many people (the day before there had been more people and it hadn't been any problems for Dad driving in). Dad went mad on all of them as did I. I was furious at this self-important bitch who couldn't step outside protocol just to realise how stupidly arranged the schedule was, and that if someone asked to buy while I was packing I would sell to that person. I was still friggin' packing! Walking to the train home I felt as if my feet would fall off. They hurt so badly from standing on stone for 16 hours/day 3 days in a row. On the train I tried to put weight on my knees instead of my feet as to relieve them, instead I got a cramping in all of my right leg. Joy. It hurt so much that I couldn't keep myself from crying and when we got off the train I walked as if I was wearing a diaper cause I had to walk on the sides of my feet and without bending my knees much for it not to hurt.

Monday. Feet pretty OK when I woke up. Still I refused to spend any time at the stand next to the stage as to avoid any extra pressure on my poor poor feet. So instead I made cotton candy the whole day. This was Love's day off and Kajsa worked instead. It was nice spending some time with her, although I was pissed at the world in the beginning. The day went perfectly fine. It was first day of a new semester. All the adults were working and all the children were at school, a nice quiet day that I could actually spend sitting more than the other days. Day was only partly disrupted by the fact that we once again only had electricity in one of our cables for a few hours. And that the backstage area where we put our stand wagons after work was completely closed down and almost impossible to get into for the first time since Friday. Kajsa and I had to push and pull and heave both of us at the same time to manage to get one of the wires loose to be able to get inside.

Tuesday. Finally my day off. Woke up around 10am (my biological alarm clock is always set on ten hours) and immediately felt the effects of doing cotton candy four days in a row. I couldn't move my right hand without it feeling like the entire thing was bruised and broken. Muscles were a complete mess. Still hurts a little now, but after showering the muscles warmed up a bit and stopped aching that terrible. Feet were OK. So my day off was spent shopping for food for me and for Dixi the Rabbit and for the start of term in a week. I also scrubbed the entire flat, changed sheets and did some laundry. All that boring stuff that one doesn't have time for when one works full weeks.

All in all management has been shit this year.