Life as a Sound Tech on a Cruise Ship

Life as a Sound Tech on board a Cruise Ship

Well… Im writing this a little over a year since Ive last been on one and in two months time Ill be able to do more on the subject because yes, Im heading that way again. So here are my ramblings about what I encountered and what Ive learnt in that while. Ill try and cover as much as I can from getting the job to the final sign-off and everything in between.

So, after being caught up in the studio side of things for so many years and wanting to do more travelling and more live sound (South Africa has a nice industry but I hated working in mediocare facilities) I thought to myself, why not cruise ships? And so I sent off an email to my local hiring agent. A quick google search and making sure I typed in the right paramaters I got the people of Royal Caribbean. I must be honest, I looked at all the companies, browsed all the blogs I could find and read every piece of info I could find about the companies and how they were to work for. And so I sent off my resume to Royal and Princess. Royal was first to respond to my enquiry and also the fastest to set up an interview date.

A few points to remember though if you want to join as a full tech… They want to see experience. Yes a degree in entertainment does go a long way. I did however work with a few guys who didn’t have a lot of experience and so they ended up as stage staff with guys being full techs that probably had a bit more experience but no real talent whereas the stage staff did have the talent. I was in a position though to help some of those guys that I saw had star quality to end up as techs though.

So the interview is scheduled. I was to have a Skype interview with the HOD and the head shecdular. This went off without a hitch. The questions they asked were so elementary that I almost fell on my back… Seriously, who doesn’t know what a noise gate is?! After the the interview I was told to keep an eye on my emails and my local agent would be in touch in a weeks time. This I thought was fair and thus was very surprised whern I got a call an hour later from my agent saying Ive got the job plus a placement onboard. OK, this is the part where I do have to say that my resume is quite impressive and that must have worked in my favour.

And so all the paperwork started. I had to get a medical test done at a facility who specialises in cruise lines. I had to go get my Visa for the USA (I was to join the Mariner Of The Seas in LA). I also had to, for my own peace of mind, go get checked out on some of the gear that I was to work on.

Fastforward to the 11th of September 2009 (officialy 4 weeks after my interview). Im on a KLM flight to LA via Amsterdam. With Royal you pay for your first flight, and the rest they handle (I guess its to make sure that youre actually going to be there if you did pay for the flight). So with knowing nothing of where I was I landed in LA with my luggage and a piece of paper from my agent tha had my hotel details on them… Getting to the hotel was fun cause I wasn’t so use to the bus system they have in LAX. That night I had Burger King for dinner cause I wanted to eat that and slept like a baby to get ready for the next day. Sunday morning 13 September I woke up, had breakfast and got onto a bus to take me to the ship terminal in San Pedro. This was fun, cause I was now on my way to somewhere I had no idea about accompanied with my LOE (letter of employment), medical certificate and luggage. After wating for a bit in line to get checked out by out HR people I got on board, and boy was I in for a shock… For those not familiar with the Voyager class ships… Its actually not small… It is in actual fact massive (or that’s how it felt at first). I was shown around the ship (a quick tour that I forgot as soon as I did it) and told to be in the screening room for a debrief with the chief safety officer.

All of this stuff was ok, finding my room was less so… But I did end up finding it after a little while and then I spent the rest of the day getting to know the ship and went to my first rehearsal and show to check everything out. That night I went to my room to sleep… Cause for the next two weeks I had to sit through quite a few ‘educational’ sessions. It was just so boring. I did however learn how to sleep with my eyes open (these things were held early in the morning) and find my way around the ship with more efficiency.

When youre a tech you normally get a two week handover. That means that the previous tech will show you your day to day duties, get you up to speed on what is going on around the ship and what needs your attention. You also spend that time getting to know the production shows (if youre a main room tech) or getting use to the Studio B tech schedule (if youre on a ship with an ice ring).

OK, here I have to make a bit of a detour and talk about the different techs on board.

Main Room Sound Tech

This is the guy who runs the main theater sound. This is your main area of responsibility and where you will spend your time working.

Studio B

This is where the Ice shows are held. The Studio B tech (depending on the people who work out the schedules) will also mostly be the guy running some of the arb stuff that the lounge tech doesn’t have time for. This will mostly be on the Promonade on Voayger and Freedom class ships.

Lounge Tech

This is the stepping stone for guys who were stage staff to get into a tech position. The lounge tech is responsible for all the other venues. And making sure that they function. This sounds like a lot, but mostly its just CD players with some useless speakers connected to them. But if the Lounge cant handle everything the main theater guy will help out.

Back to my regular stuff. I found the first month the toughest. It takes time to get to learn the ship, and above that you have to also do your job snd have to learn the way the room works. The production shows are mostly so easy but you would have a few singers that are a royal pain.

My room had a Crest V12 with BSS processing, EAW PA and QSC amps. And in that chain a few other toys that made life easy. You would have to know a few things though. The production shows run off of TC and backtracks with a click for the band. This can be run from various formats, but on some of the ships this is done from a TASCAM 2424. A stable but sometimes slow piece of gear.

The lighting cues are also taken from the TC that the 2424 sends out.

The other acts are mostly bands or singers, or jugglers or comedians or air acts. Its just not a cut and dry are. Youll be exposed to a lot of different styles of music and acts.

The job part is quite nice. Depending on what needs to be done you’ll work either 4hrs to 9 hrs a day. My worst day was when a guest spilt a Coke on my console when we were not in the teater. That had me up fir such a long time rebuilding the console…….. Yes, I did have spares… Lucky me! I did however have one busy sea day a week where I would do between 9 to 12 hrs for the day, just depends on how idiotic the CD was with scheduling stuff in the teater.

OK, what else… Well lets go to spare time… The entertainment department is quite easy going and you do spend quite a bit of time in the bar… Or in your room hosting people or watching movies or doing washing or… well, I did end up writing some stuff when I was on board.

You do have the chance to rack up quite a big bar bill… and when you are on shore you have a bit of time to go explore and see the places around you…

And from experience I will answer this question as well… Most guys are more interested about the women aboard… Ok… if youre an ass, you probably wont meet anyone, if youre good, you also probably wont… Its up to chance… I ended up in a relationship which actually ended up nowhere. It was fun however.

Ship life is not for everyone however. It has its days where you want to jump overboard and swim back to shore. It has its days where you cant believe where you are. It has its day where you just roam around and look at things. The thing is, you have to be able to adapt and look at all the different people around you as an extended family… Youll hate each other, love each other, but at the end of the day you have to

co-exist with each other.

So here is a regular week (on a 7 day cruise out of San Pedro)

Day 1

Disembark and embarkation day…

9:00 wake up to go ashore and do stuff

16:00 get back to the ship

17:00 rehearsal for the welcome aboard show

18:30 dinner

19:30 get to the booth for showtime

19:45 show starts

21:00 show probably has ended and setting up the stage for the next day

Day 2

Sea Day

10:00 wake up, maybe…

12:00 rehearsal for the evenings show

13:00 lunch time

The rest of the day is either spent sleeping, doing some work in the theater or catching up with friends

The show times normally are quite late on sea days…

About 21:00 & 22:45

00:00 clear stage and setup fo the next day

00:45 probably hit the bar

Day 3

Docked

Depending on the act this can be an early or late rehearsal…

Either 11:00 or 16:00

So you schedule your time to get ashore during the off time…

19:00 showtime

21:00 second show

23:00 late night comedy

Day 4

Docked

This was my off day… There are not off days, but somehow my shedule had this worked out as one for me… So..

9:00 wake up

9:15 go ashore

17:00 back on ship

And then I went around through out the evening watching the entertainment that was happening around. This was part of my routine to see how the Lounge Tech was doing his job and if he was ready for promotion.

23:00 head to the bar with my mates and have a piss up

Day 4

Docked

Well, this all varied… But mostly the schedule went as follows…

10:00 wake up

11:00 rehearsal

12:10 get a quick lunch

12:30 get off the ship and go explore

17:30 get back to the ship

18:00 doors open

19:00 showtime

21:00 showtime

22:30 set up for the next day and then head to the bar

Day 5

Sea Day

11:00 wake up

12:00 rehearsal

13:10 lunchtime

Rest of the day same as the previous sea day

21:00 showtime

22:45 showtime

Day 6

Sea Day (I hated this day)

7:30 go for breakfast

8:00 head to theater for captains corner (a stupid talkshow with the captain)

9:00 Captains corner

11:00 backstage tour

12:00 rehearsal

13:00 Lunchtime

14:00 karaoke superstar (don’t ask, youre not ready)

16:00 2nd rehearsal

18:00 doors open

19:00 showtime

21:00 showtime

22:30 late night comedy

23:20 set stage for the next day and then head to the bar

Day 7 also doubles as Day 1

So, getting close to my contracts end was a bit of a pain… I was extended a few times cause of my replacement being unable to join on time. At the end though I was tired, I just went through a cast install, a visit from the companies head tech and went through the 2 week handover where I wanted to kill the guy..

So what did I learn in that time… To enjoy every moment… To not take everything so seriously… And to be amazing at my job!!!!