That sounds terrible! This sounds like a really common situation I hear in certain industries - vague idea guys postulating stuff they know nothing about and expect some sort of return from their " genius " space intended.

Even worse when the culture of asking questions is frowned upon, “you didn’t get what I was saying?” is such a horrible tactic. I’ve had to deal with this type before, but thankfully I worked in the arts and so that’s a little more expected, and abstract. Or the other way around I guess, lol. One that particularly stands out was a lead dancer that “had a vision” for his stage lighting and it was one of the longest, most drawn out, egregiously tedious experiences of my life. Wanting things that he knew we couldn’t do (we showcase our space every time and clearly detail our ((few)) limitations), wanting things that I’m pretty sure don’t even exist, needed to change things multiple sets back after we’ve moved on from them.

The sort of thing that look like there’s no planning at all. The fucked up part is that it was almost the opposite, he has 2 full notebooks for this 3 hour performance which is just like kind of unheard of for staging.

I will say though, I made it work and it was a great visually stunning show, with things that I haven’t really seen before. So I can’t really fault him in particular, because he also actually really did put in the work. It was just absolutely terrible to create. I don’t mind getting lights to flash with the beat, but getting cues for individual drums in quarter and 16th notes is… Draining. And there was so much more manual work than there should have been, there’s a normal amount of cueing and changes for a team to do and then there’s the team working through every single song with no breaks. Like we were those overhype DJ’s with a prerecorded set.