It’s 4am and I’m on my knees

There’s just over 100 people here at Mashed, about evenly split between those awake and doing stuff (mainly werewolf and Rock Band at this moment in time) and those grabbing a few precious moments of sleep.

Stace came up with a good idea early on, a night manager, someone to take over from a sensible time late on Saturday to give the core organisation team a good break. This year I’ve split the main on-site organisation into four roles – the Senior Producer and three Production Assistants – it’s worked really well and meant we’ve kept everything very well in hand – but for some reason the shift pattern for overnight isn’t resulting in as much sleep as I could do with!

Ian Forrester is in his element, this is the middle of the day for him! Next year he can run the night shift I think.

Thoughts on the event so far:

• Having dedicated staff rather than volunteers has made things much easier and smoother.
• I wonder if the smooth running has some-how taken the ‘edge’ off the event a little?
• We have about 100 more people here at most times than we did last year.
• The screen is amazing, we can’t get a smaller one next year.
• I’m very excited about tomorrow’s (today’s) presentations.
• Kingswood Warren guys are awesome, I wish I had more time to give them.
• Hotel in Muswell Hill has been dreadful, the concept of a 10 room block booking seems quite alien to them.
• Very happy to read the virtually totally positive twitter and blog posts coming out.

I’m really on my knee right now, I can’t see how I can see the day out, and there’s still so much to do – I had the horrible two hour stretch in the middle of the night so I’ve not managed to get more than two hours sleep. I need some tips on keeping focused and awake. I think I may find a quiet corner and try some simple meditation.