People Never Learn

I went and mixed at a local school last night, not the first time for that school. Last time we went they gave me a run sheet, early, so that was good, but it had every item run together, without allowing time for a change over between acts, which meant, that after a late start, we were already running 20 minutes late after only 20 minutes. Last night was their end of year concert, and was almost entirely unrehearsed. This time for a six o'clock start, i was given a run sheet at 5 to 6, after reading through it quickly, i discovered that i didn't have half of the cd's needed, so at 5 past 6, after getting the cd's and not having done a check whether they worked, we started, to discover that the school cd player, which they provided didn't work, so already before starting we were ten minutes late. finally we started the program, with every 5 minute set, running the timing of the whole event back at least 2 minutes. I can live with shows running late and not running to time, thats just standard, but the fact that after the last gig, i sat down with the person in charge and explained to them (the same person as this time) that they needed to leave a small gap for changeovers led me to believe that some people never learn. The stage manager, one of the teachers was fantastic though, and chased up stuff that i needed, so that was fantastic. As we move towards Christmas and the shows we are putting on, i hope these things are things we do well.