'Latrobe Space and Place' spectacular

I can only assume that this event is part of the Commonwealth Games extravaganza of funding 'art' events.

The theme of the events was to bring back the memories of coal dinning of last century. A tourist company named PowerWorks based in Morwell at 'The Ridge' does tours of the Morwell Open Cut Mine and Hazelwood Powerstation, this was the focus of events.

The central focus of the events was a smallest dredger built by the SECV and had been 'walked' to its present site at the entrance to PowerWorks as a symbol of coal industry in the Latrobe Valley. A visual artist used the dredger as the central element for an hours length show. Strangely, the dredger was really used as a framework to hold up white canvas sheets that were used as a screen, much like you would see at a drive-in theatre. I'm showing my age here! From the audiences point of view you couldn't see the dredger at all.

The spectacular started out with a 'tribal beat' from three percussionists beating the tripe out of a set of drums. Then a large choir sang praises to the dredger. This was followed by a large group of musicians performing music as they walked down the road from PowerWorks to the site of the dredger. The rest of the hour was consumed by images being cast upon the canvas and a multitude of performers hanging from ropes attached to the dredger to act out various themes.

Enough of the spectacular, what was I doing here?

Apparently the LV Shire approached the local branch of the Ulysses Motorcycle Club to provide Marshall's to help in people/vehicle control as a large number of patrons were expected. Ulysses agreed and were told to meet at the EnergyBrix main gate for a briefing. This never happened. We were left to our own devices. We spilt up walked across 'The Ridge' and some staying at the EnergyBrix gate and made our way to various positions where we could direct traffic to the nominated parking areas. Now you have to understand that we were given no directions, so we made up our own plans on the fly, which were very effective.

My position was half way up the road from the dredger to PowerWorks, where the car parks would be utilised. My directions were simple, "Inform people in cars to keep going until they reached another person wearing a similar jacket to mine and follow his directions". Hard you say? Well no, except for people that weren't disabled in some way. It's a really long walk from the EnergyBrix carpark and a somewhat shorter walk from the PowerWorks car parks. However, If you have a disability it's a really, really, long way to walk. I just followed orders and was witness to how unbelieving some patrons were to the lack of attention in the planning.

As the road was closed (of course I wasn't told) I made my way down to the intersection with the main road where the rest of the Ulysses volunteers grouped and came together with our own plan to handle the exodus of people after spectacular finished. Again we weren't included in any pre-existing plan.

I was in a pair that provided pedestrian access to patrons trying to get back to their cars. The patrons had to navigate across Commercial Road. This was made more difficult as the available overhead lighting was extinguished to enhance the effect of the spectacular. My partner and I worked a double lane each trying to keep cars and patrons apart from each other. Initially it was just one crossing which wasn't too bad, but as the evening progressed the crossing grew to perhaps fifty metres wide as patrons just wanted to get home.

So here we are, at night, with no overhead lighting trying to control the cars passing through the area. At times the job was difficult as the patrons clearly thought they could walk anywhere they liked to get to their cars. Now people needs to be defined as Adults, teenagers, children and babies, they just wanted to get home. Of course there were those that decided to leave before the spectacular finished and they were really hard to see. My partner and I really had to be on the ball to detect patrons in the dark trying to cross the road anyway they liked.

All in all, I think we Ulyssians did a great job in trying circumstances, we rose to the occasion and performed well.

I hear there was a de-breifing later in the evening. I left that to the secretary of the branch: If I wasn't briefed, how can I possibly be debriefed?

This has been the most challenging Marshaling exercise so far.

P.S. I've written a song using this particular dedger as a central point. The dredger appears to me as a T-Rex on display. I still think the analogy holds true!