I was speaking earlier to the chap organising this charity gig we are playing and asking about how we were to load in and trying to get across that the public car park two streets away was quite a way to have to bring stuff and was there somewhere we could offload our gear any nearer...
Anyway, reminded me of the gig where bringing our stuff in meant parking at the back of an Indian restaurant, going through the ( in use) kitchen, up in a small service elevator and across the venue floor. Took many, many sweaty trips.
Anything longer or weirder ?
Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell.
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RoRo ferry, drive on and load all the stuff into the small barmans lift up to the saloon, then drive off the boat and park up about a mile away and then reboard the ferry this time through customs and set up the gear. Unload being similarly interesting.
Lighthouse ship. fekin narrow gangplank and narrow doors in the bulkheads with shin high stepovers.
Too many cast iron fire escapes in the wet/ice/dark (perm all of them).
Getting onto a US army air base a few weeks after 9/11. I was doing a PA hire so 4x4 and a 4 wheel trailer fully loaded. I sat for 1.5 hours or so in the gate house waiting for the 'sponsor' (someone on the base expecting you) to nod me through. just got in the truck and drove 50 yards to the gate of the car park and a spotty youth points a gun in my face and says where you going? What you doing? Whats in the trailer? Empty it?
Look I'm nearly two hours late because of you guys, heres the keys, you want it empty you do it!
I got waved through by another nice young lady with a gun.
Plenty of Military installations have the mess halls upstairs, sometimes two flights! No lifts.
Angle hotel Bury St Edmunds. One function hall is in the middle of the large sprawling old building. Narrow staircases and corridors No lift (it comes up behind the bar but you cant get from the beer celler to the FOH).
Again sound hire at a garden centre but in the private grounds of the owners immaculate garden. Absolutely no vehicles or castors or marks on the lawn! I used a large sack barrow with 10" pneumatic tyres for everything but it took a long time.
Like @Danny1969 says "wheels on everything". I used to advance every gig and ensure there were no stairs. Or I would hire muscle specifically for the load in/out and charge accordingly. I used to carry a big piece of ply with reinforcing strips on the back as a ramp for those 3 steps they didn't tell you about! The aforementioned big wheeled sack barrow has saved my ass a number of times, strap a load on and bounce it up/down stairs, marginally easier than carrying it.
I did a gig with a former band on HMS Belfast in London years ago.
Had to park at the far end of the nearest road, wheel the gear along the road, over the gangway to the ship and then get it to almost the opposite end of the ship through a series of low and narrow doors and corridors - total nightmare but would have been so much worse if we hadn't taken a sack barrow!