Nick and Nora's: My week at the World Figure Skating Championships

Well... it's over. And I kind of miss it, even though I am very glad it's over.

I mean the ISU World Figure Skating Championships 2009 in LA. See, they have been my life, at least work wise, for the past 2 months. And then this past week (9 days really) they were COMPLETELY my life.

I was one of 2 production coordinators (until the actual event the only one) for the Host Broadcaster for the Championships, a company run by a friend of mine called Red Brick Entertainment.

We shot the event, and then our feed was broadcast to over 80 countries all over the world. Those countries would then provide their own commentators and put in interviews and what not. Not only that, but many of the countries had their own teams who used some of our equipment, and for whom we had to arrange to get offices, commentary positions on the rink, and who knows what else.

Big job. Bigger than the Super Bowl in some ways (Super Bowl is only 1 network, we had 4 fully on site, and about 10 others with some kind of presence).

And it was a LOT of fun. We had pools going on how many falls there would be in any given event. I got to work with some great people. I got to experience figure skating live, and it is better that way. I got to meet Scott Hamilton, who is a really great guy. I got to participate in a world wide TV broadcast! How great is that?!

The days were long (2 in particular were 6:45am or 7am to midnight, and most of the others were 10 to 12 hours). Flurries of activity followed by periods of boredom. LOTS of coffee was drunk. I remember chatting with "Nora" and saying that in the past 2 hours I had 2 venti bolds from Starbucks. That was almost normal... Thing is, I had more coffee later in the day! Gotta get that caffeine to stay awake!

So now I'm home. I slept in today, got caught up on most of the other things I had going. Next week Rob, the executive producer and I, will have to go through everything and make sure all the invoices are sent and paid, and that we pay everyone, so it's not completely over. But the hard and long part is.

The event went EXTREMELY well on our end. The usual issues and little things that seem big at the time came up, but in general nothing went wrong, and everyone was very happy. This is a good thing for me, since I was a big part of preparing everything so that it would go well!

So, as I said, I shall miss the excitement and fun of a live broadcast, and definitely miss the friends I made, but I am glad it's over and I'm home. Now on to the next thing!