'[They said] I intentionally sabotaged their event': Client gets mad after touching the single button sound engineer told them not to press

Author image for Brad Dickson
Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Oct 11, 2023 6:00 PM EDT

This story serves as proof that politics, politicians, and political parties are silly wherever in the world you go—and also that politicians are completely incapable of listening to expert advice. In general, for some reason, people are particularly unwilling to listen to A/V guys, thinking that because they set up their home sound system and know how to use a TV remote, they know all there is to know about running an event as a sound engineer. 

For some reason, stories like this consistently pop up where the engineers are disregarded by clients and superiors as if they're just a kid who pushes buttons for fun. Really, in any situation, any time a client tells you that they have "their own guy," you can rest assured that something exactly like this is going to happen. In any case, there's something about the human psyche that makes us really want to do the thing we've been told not to do. So, like Checov's Gun, if you mention that this button shouldn't be pressed, you just know someone is going press it…

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  • 01
    Font - You can do whatever you want. Just don't push this button. XL OC It's election season in my country (I don't live in the US, I live in New Zealand) and this joke came up again amongst my crew. TLDR at the bottom - and no you don't have my permission to rip this one for your own 3rd party website or YouTube replay video...
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  • 02
    Font - I work for a fairly large company within the events team and I handle all the AV for events internally within our company. So if you need microphones, projectors, speakers, laptops - that will most likely go through me in some various capacity. Occasionally we hire out our venue spaces to external clients because they look pretty nice and professional for corporate events.
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  • 03
    Font - A political party wanted to use our venue for one of their rallies. Company policy is that we remain neutral in politics and treat them as any other client - no discounts, no special treatment. That's fine by me and makes sense because imagine the PR disaster for publicly favoring one political party over another.
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  • 04
    Font - Anyway, in order to save on costs, this politcal party was fine with using our equipment but insisted on using their own sound engineer to run everything "because he knows how they like things done". Objectively, I'm completely against this. I know how our equipment works, I know the quirks of our venues and if something goes wrong, I can fix it faster than anyone else. Additionally, if they break something well then that becomes my problem to resolve...
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  • 05
    Font - Regardless, they didn't relent and after some negotiation, upper management relented and told me to let their "highly trained professional sound engineer" run everything. My role was to get them started prior to the event starting and then leave immediately. My direct manager told me quite bluntly that as soon as my scheduled time to help stopped, to drop everything and leave them.
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  • 06
    Font - Our venues have a built in safety switch for audio called a limiter. Basically if you try and push the sound way too loud through the speakers (To the point of actively damaging the speakers, let alone hurting peoples ears), then the limiter kicks in and mutes the audio for a few minutes. The fact that the limiter has to kick in means you screwed up. You didn't do a minor screw up, you did a big screwup. This is never an issue for me or my crew because we know what we're doing.
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  • 07
    Font - Anyway, the day of the event comes and I've finished my setup - all the microphones are ready to go and there's plenty of audio to push through to be loud enough for the most deaf person in the back without even remotely risking the safety limiter. The party reps show up and start their setup. Then their "highly trained professional sound engineer" rocks up. This kid looks young - about 18 or 19 and fresh out of college. But the client assures me he knows what he's doing. The fact that he
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  • 08
    Font - I run him through the sound desk for controlling the microphones and explain: OP: "Here's the controls for the microphones, I've already set everything for you so you basically just have to adjust the volume a bit depending on whats happening and mute or unmute as required. There's also some spare batteries if you need it but I doubt you'll run out before the end of the event. Just a fair warning, I've locked this one setting. It's a safety setting for the audio to prevent it from getting
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  • 09
    Font - Their guy: "Okay, makes sense! Thanks!" My scheduled time expires and I leave him to it. Since I'm annoyed that they wanted to go cheap and not have me run their event, I decide to maliciously comply with their request for me not doing AV for them. Typically when smaller events don't require AV support for the event (Some dude giving a PowerPoint presentation with a single microphone does not warrant paying almost a thousand dollars for me to sit down the back and do nothing for the whole
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  • 10
    Font - However this client is so insistent that they don't need or want my support. So I go home. Doing one hour of work and getting paid for a full day is great for me (And as I don't work fixed hours, I work when events happen so the 9-5 work day doesn't exist for me) as I have no other tasks on my list for the day.
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  • 11
    Font - Ten minutes later, I get a phone call from the client: Client: "You need to come back, the sound isn't working!" Me: "Sorry, I can't do that, I'm offsite and you were insistent on not having AV support from us during the event" Client: "But the microphones aren't working!" Me: "Well I can try giving advice over the phone? Are the microphones muted? Orange light on the microphone itself - or is it muted on the sound desk? That's a red light above the volume control"
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  • 12
    Font - Client: "No, it's all on. The audio was working and then there was a pop sound and it all cut out!" Me: "..........Check the controller on the far right. What is that set to?" Client: "It's been pushed to max!" Me: "So you unlocked the one thing I told you not to touch?" Client: "We needed the microphones to be louder!"
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  • 13
    Font - Note: Pushing the level to that height would be the equivalent audio level of standing beside a jet engine as the plane is taking off... without protective gear. Me: "The safety limiter has kicked in. You have to wait a few minutes for the safety switch to automatically turn off" Client: "You need to do it now! Our party leader is about to walk on stage!"
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  • 14
    Font - Me: "As I said before, I am now offsite and you were insistent on not having our support during the event. Apologies, but by the time I get back, the safety switch would have released anyway. If you have any concerns, you are welcome to take it up with our management. Put the controller on the right back to where it was and you will be fine."
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  • 15
    Font - Well, they certainly took it up with management. Yelling that I intentionally sabotaged their event because I was secretly siding with their opposition against them. The event was an objective failure because the microphone audio kept swinging wildly all over the place and made the political party look stupid. It ended up in the media as a minor footnote but was more directed at their inability to manage an event as opposed to blaming us - we weren't mentioned. My manager asked for my sid
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  • 16
    Font - The client threatened to take their business elsewhere. Management shrugged - the amount they paid barely warranted a second opinion. Two months later, the same political party came back but with a different person in charge. And the new person insisted that I be their sound engineer for the entire event. That event went flawlessly.
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  • 17
    Font - Moral of the story: Pay the expert to do his job because even though your kid knows how to use a phone doesn't mean they know how to run a $20,000 audio system. TLDR: Political party doesn't want to pay for a professional to run their event and insists on using their own extremely unskilled operator. Unskilled operator proceeds to remove the safety limiter for audio, potentially causing permanent hearing loss to the attendees. Client gets mad and management looks at how much they paid and
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  • 18
    Font - MeFolly You could have put a cage over that button, sealed it with a double key lock, and taped over the whole thing with "Caution! Electrocution!" Somebody would still find bolt cutters to get to it, because they know better. ↑ 619 B Reply Share
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  • 19
    Font - harrywwc if it was an analogue desk, I'd be fine. if a digital desk, and not one I'm familiar with, I'd be telling the boss to pay the professional as it would take me way too long to get familiar with it - unless the pro had set up everything nicely, and all I had to do was faders and mute/unmute :) and if the pro tells you "don't do that", then for goodness sake, don't do that. 150 Reply Share ●●●
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  • 20
    Font - Geminii27 The client threatened to take their business elsewhere. "I'm not sure why you think this is a threat." shocked_pikachu 464 ↓ Reply Share
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  • 21
    Font - AgreeablePie "I can get it cheaper!" Problem is, the professional spray knows which buttons to press without having to learn on the fly. He also knows which buttons NOT to press. 57 Reply Share
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  • 22
    Font - Luna_Leeloo You get what you pay for! I am often amazed by people that don't understand that this includes service in the form of on-site Lighting and/or Sound Engineers never pO off your local A/V specialists 496 Reply Share
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  • 23
    Font - kiwimuz Brilliant. A typical example of how the political party would run the country (like a bunch of numpties ignoring sage advice). 57 Reply Share
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  • 24
    Font - TygerTung In the interests of transparency, which party was it? National? Act? Reply Share 17 entitled peoplepizoff Sure sounds like one of those ... or perhaps Liz Gunn's party. Remember she forgot to register her candidates. Wonder if she's got it sorted now. What a bunch of dumbarses... 15 Reply Share ●●●
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