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…
