# 2009 JUNO AWARDS...........Vancouver !!!!



## faracaster

Hey all
Hi from sunny (yes I said sunny Vancouver).
Another year has passed and we are at Juno time again. We are in Vancouver this year and as we all know it is Olympic town. This coming 11 months are going to be huge in this town. GM Place is our venue this year home of Mats Sundin and the Vancouver Canucks.

I’ll get out all the stuff I can prior to Sunday’s show......which goes at 5pm local time out here to allow all of Toronto (centre of the universe) to see it at 8pm. As you can see it is Wednesday night and I’m just getting Saturdays pictures. But I should have a little time in the next 12 hours to catch you all up.

I arrived on this Saturday past. And things have been moving at a very fast pace since then. The Canucks played their last home game the night before, so the conversion from hockey to concert began overnight on Friday.
We got into the venue Sat. AM and things started rolling in......as they always do in a big way.
We started working on the show this past July with our first scout out here. As always I am terrified at the black hole that stands in front of me in terms of “What the hell is this year going to look like”. A few months later and we have an approved design. This year I wanted to stay away from anything that resembled last year’s show and all the classic Vancouver cliché’s (killer whales, mountains, Inukchuks etc.). So we went with a little Asian influence. Pushed the stage way out into the audience, left it devoid of decoration, and upped to scale tremendously. To create a Zen-like atmosphere. This is enhanced with two 70ft wide video screens, another 28 ft high presentation stage video screen .......oh and some flying cubes that integrate 3 dimensional video and an enormous lighting truss within the cubes. All this is surrounded by vines and leaves we built at exploded scale and painted in a very psychedelic fashion (we are in Vancouver after all). Here is rendering of my set.









So Saturday we proceeded to get into the venue and the first thing I saw was this sign in the halls of GM Place.........I thought it was appropriate in a Zen sort of way.











Early this year I was approached to come up with an encompassing design that CTV and all media outlets could use as a guide line for shape and colour so they could design TV commercials (with Russell Peters again). We used this as our definitive bible for all the leaves we built and painted surfaces on the set also.(you will be seeing lots of this recurring theme in the posts to come)










￼Then the loading into the arena began. The first 13 tractor-trailers of lighting, rigging, audio, video, staging and band gear.


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## faracaster

*DAY 1 contd..........*

I'm always asked about certain technical numbers for the show. Here is a list of watts, lengths, weights, amounts....etc. Provided by the best technical producer in the business Mr. Karel Noordover

*Technical staff – 150, Approx ½ from Vancouver the rest from across Canada 

Production staff – 70, 45 from Vancouver the rest from across Canada

We use 500- 800 volunteers.

13 tractor-trailers of lighting, rigging, audio, video, staging and band gear 

1 HD television mobile with 10 cameras, over 4000 feet of camera cable

We have to install over 110 rigging points in the roof to hang our grid

There are more than 2000 square feet of video walls

300 lighting fixtures, 160 of these are remote control moving lights

Over a 2000 feet of truss to hang the lights

It will take 12 riggers 10 hrs just to install the hardware to hang the truss

Weight of rig is over 100,000 lbs

Approximately 400 miles of lighting, audio, and video cabling

2 audio mobiles, with over 120 microphone inputs each

The PA system is capable of producing over 300,000 watts of audio power through more than 150 speakers.

There are 100 channels of RF frequencies for, mics, intercom, and in ear monitors

About 10,000 person hours for technical crews

We use over 1,000,000 watts of electricity provided in partnership with Bullfrog Power. Bullfrog provides low-impact renewable electricity injected into the electricity grid to match the amount used by the JUNO Awards broadcast. In BC, all of Bullfrog’s power comes exclusively from wind power facilities and low-impact hydro sources that have been certified as low-impact under Environment Canada’s EcoLogoM program.
*


Here’s a group of fine young technicians checking rigging points.......and there is a little discrepancy to be sorted.










Yep the next home game is April 2nd...........cause we are here till then !!!!!!!










Here is one of the hundreds of road cases that litter the floor of the venue this is number #320 of ???????









More cases and cases of........stuff that goes into the air.


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## faracaster

*Day 1 contd..........again*

We brought the big clock down to the floor to do some creative cloaking. 











While we will use the clock during the show as video screens to those up in the nose bleed seats. However the clock has a 30’ diameter white logo on the bottom of it for BC Ferries which besides being a huge bounce for all lights in the room and we aren’t really promoting BC Ferries on the show. So we took a couple of huge black drapes and created a bit of a Cat’s Ass in the sky. 



















Later in the day with the clock flown out and all the lighting rigs down at working level to have fixtures attached to them.
￼


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## faracaster

*Day 1 contd..........again and again*

It's raining chains from heaven










PA being stacked up and ready to be flown.









Some of the video processors that are on the show.









And.....the end of Day 1


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## hoser

very cool, love these kind of pics.


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## nitehawk55

That's awesome Pete , I'm sure most don't realise the scope of how much goes into these stages and all the other components that make it work .....we just see the finished product on TV . 400 "miles" of cables ?....that one blew me away ! kksjur


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## RIFF WRATH

Well...............just awesome..........thanks Pete


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## greco

Many thanks Pete...I was looking forward to the possibility of this thread.

Great pics :bow:

Dave


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## megadan

Very cool, be sure to post more as the days go on!


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## Starbuck

Hey Pete thanks! I think we've all been waiting for these posts!


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## GuitarsCanada

Once again, thanks very much for taking the time to post these great pics Pete. very much appreciated. All the best with this years show.


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## Jeff Flowerday

I was just thinking the other day, where the heck is Pete's yearly Juno post? Well I shouldn't be so impatient, good things come to those who wait.


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## faracaster

*Days 2 and 3 !!!!!*

Had to amalgamate these two. Cause quite frankly, it is all a blur now and I don't know where one day stopped and the other began.

However.....
WOW !!!!! Two sunny days in a row in spring in Vancouver !!!!!!

We had a little issue with some high-speed motors from a supplier and not only did some things come to a halt on Sunday, we actually had to take down my video cubes that were already hung from the grid !!!!
So......while there was other stuff to be done, it had the appearance of not much happened on Sunday, but by the end of the day Monday we were back on track and caught up in all depts.

Here is a shot of the cubes hanging early in the day.









Moving lights hanging from the truss









PA being flown in the room.










Checking measurements.....more than once believe me. Or this is Sandra pointing out to Karel what’s good from the T&T supermarket on-line menu...I’m not sure ￼


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## faracaster

*Days 2 and 3 contd........*

Installing the Front of House (FOH) platform for lighting and video. They will be raised above the FOH sound position.










And the FOH sound board from the lighting platform.









Mike Keeping (foreground) is our head video technician......a thankless job that I’m very happy to say, is not my vocation. All these video panels that are used on shows and tours today are a relatively new technology. There is very little precedent for what has gone before. So when some designer (like me) comes along and says “lets hang these 250 video panels upside down and then have them curve to the left” Mike is the one that has to figure out an way of doing that...and making it look good. He’s says that when he sees me coming, he knows there’s trouble.
￼









Staging started to appear. Decks were assembled out in the middle of the ice and then would wait to be rolled upstage.

We had a veritable army hanging stealth panels ...endlessly it seemed.


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## faracaster

more of the same endless hanging of video panels.



















Stealth panels from behind. This is why they are called Stealth. When there is video in they they appear solid. Then when off, you can see through them. And when behind them, even if they are on, you can see through them as in the picture. You can see the glow from the panels on the truss in the background


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## faracaster

*Days 2 and 3 contd........again !!!*

Decking moving into place.



















Here’s Mike Keeping again, (remember him?) checking out the video set up of our upstage walls.









Bringing the stealth frames for the cubes onto the stage


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## faracaster

*Days 2 and 3 contd........again !!! and again !!!*

Here is two of my favorite pictures so far. This is part of the load –in crew. They are bringing in the vines that will make up a large part of the look of the set and they had no idea what the heck was going on with them.
They just were muttering about having to bring tractor trailer for of orange King Crab legs.



















Once the vines were in, then the leaves started to come in.











Taking their place in the seats..


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## faracaster

I call this Leaf fans in their seats............wha, wha












The end of days 2 and 3 !!!!!


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## noobcake

Awesome! What exactly do you do for a living? I presume that the formal title for your job would be something along the lines of designer / event organizer? Whatever the technical term for it is, you sure have one hell of an amazing job!


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## greco

Many thanks once again. 

Something of this magnitude is difficult for me to comprehend....your pictures and comments make that possible.

Cheers

Dave


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## SUBnet192

Wow. This is a cool behind the scene to a behemoth event!

Keep it coming!

Marc


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## faracaster

*DAY 4 ........and off we go !!!!*

Hi All
A lot of work done today........and the arena is starting to take shape.
The hours are adding up and so are the miles on my dogs. OOOHHH WWWEEEE they are barking!!!!!
You know those NHL arenas are BIG !!!! 
At anywho....today was vine a leaf day.....
We started by puttin’ on the net. A little camo net (courtesy Mojo Props and Mr. Terry Roberts....don’t worry Ter’ they will make it back.) on to the giant ladder frames made by the good people at McWood Studios










Then after the camo nets are on, we started laying on the vines.









￼









Once the vines were attached then a little consultation with the drawings....the leaves start to go on.

￼


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## faracaster

Here are the completed ladders of leaves lying on their backs on stage ready to be hoisted up.


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## faracaster

*DaY 4 ........and off we go !!!!.......contd. again*

MEANWHILE ......in other parts of the arena.
Crews are assembling versatubes, getting ready to put them on the cages.
￼










Putting frames on the cubes that will hold the stealth panels









Then the stealth panels go on the frames










Lighting and video have completed their little home at the back of the arena. They even had a couch up there for guests....like me. :^) This is the LIGHTING LOUNGE,
We just need a mini fridge now cause we have the biggest screen and the best soundsystem you can imagine. Even some room to play our own game of hockey.
￼


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## faracaster

These ladders that we had been dressing are built in two pieces. Each about 20 ft. in length.
Then it was time to really work. A small army of us walked the first half of the camera left leaves. We did this “Roman style” (I had never heard that expression before). The ladders loaded with the leaves were just picked up and put on a dozen or more people’s shoulders and....off we go. Once we were is position at the base of where they were to live, they were hoisted up by high speed motors. Then we brought the bottom 20ft section over to hook up to it.



















Then we moved to the camera right side of the stage and did the same thing.


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## faracaster

*DaY 4 ........and off we go !!!!.......contd. again and again*

Here is the last piece of the camera right side just being completed, AND........the extra bonus of getting the cubes up in the air with some test video in them for the first time. They are still a long way from being finished but it gave us an idea of how it will work.
￼









End of day 4 !!!!!
￼


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## GuitarsCanada

This one is going to look fabulous when it's all lit up, Pete.


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## Jeff Flowerday

Canoe artict on the stage:

http://jam.canoe.ca/Music/Junos/2009/2009/03/28/8914006-sun.html


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## Guest

Wow Pete. Do you get to see this stuff setup on a prototype stage before you have to do the real thing? Or is that the first and only time that leaf-and-vine puzzle gets solved?


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## faracaster

*Day 5 at GM Place ......*

Hi All
Well this was our last day for setup and prepping. Oh, there will be lots of tweaking going on once the cameras are up and running tomorrow and that will go on till show on Sunday. But the big strokes need to be finished today.
We started the day by installing the base of our presentation stage. This will be where Russell Peters will host from and all the winners will be called here to get their Juno.











While this stage was going up the final bits of the video cubes are put together. Here, some technicians are putting stealth panels on the bottom of the cubes.
￼










Here are the cubes fully functional with versatubes (led tubes that carry video source in them) attached to the corners.
Video all up and working (thank god......that is no small feat, last year we didn’t have it running properly till show day) and the troublesome motors sorted out. So test signals are sent, pixels checked and the cubes run up, down and tilted


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## faracaster

Back to the presentation stage and Bob Lowmo our head painter and resident art genius is applying touch-ups to the tendrils and leaves.


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## faracaster

Sometimes adjustments are required........some are done with a paintbrush or a pencil ..........other times.............it takes a macho stance and a very specialized saw.

￼









Towards the end of a long day, we got our first look at some of the video we created for the show in the screens. Here are three looks. I won’t say what look is for what artist at this point because,....it could all change when they come in for rehearsal the next day.

























Cheers
pete


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## GuitarsCanada

Amazing, man. What happens to the artwork after the show. is it recycled somehow for another stage. Lighting I assume is just broken down and put away.


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## shoretyus

faracaster said:


> Back to the presentation stage and Bob Lowmo our head painter and resident art genius is applying touch-ups to the tendrils and leaves.


Go Bob go use LOTS of glue hwopv


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## Guest

Those video cubes look stellar!


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## Chito

Thanks for doing this again Pete!


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## faracaster

*Day 6 at GM Place ......Rehearsals*

Hi All 
This will be my last little email for this year’s Juno’s. The show is tomorrow and we start very early as the show is at 5pm Vancouver time (8pm Toronto time) so there will be no time for taking pictures let along getting them into an email. 
Thanks for sharing your kind remarks and comments.

The way this show works, is one huge partnership between a lot of people. 
Alex Nadon, the lighting designer, is a great partner to create the show with. He is always open and willing to not only bend with the prevailing winds but to contribute and create beyond the call of duty. He and his crew spend hours after we have all gone to our hotels programming and tweaking
so the show is the best it can be.
Mathieu St. Arnaud is our video designer and he is a magician !!!! He is sooooo creative and always a pleasure to be around. Another willing partner, Mathieu knocks it out of the park every time. He just wants to make the visuals the best they can be.
Karel Noordover is our Technical Producer. NOTHING would be possible without him. He gets all these TV technical parts together. He is like the fixer and the scrounger and the Godfather all in one. Again another partner that I would not want to do a show like this without.
Louise Wood is the Producer of the show and all things start and end with her. She is the force behind everything here in Junoland. She is the linchpin, the glue, and the one that out of us all, is the person that the buck stops here with. She is like the senior partner, the founder, the CEO and she will still sweep the floor if she feels she has to. Louise and I have done seven of these Juno broadcasts together now starting back in 2002 with St. Johns, Newfoundland. She put together this team that I am a part of and she is the captain of our ship. 
You know, I was entirely cynical and disinterested when I was asked if I was wanted to do this show seven years ago. It is rightly easy to blow off this show or any award show as vehicles of commerce. I will likely never be on this show as a performer or even be nominated, so why should I care? Award shows are always self serving in some way. I mean if it was just appreciation for an artist, you would do that privately. However, the fact that you perform and release product is 99.9% of the time for some self serving reason is it not? Either it makes you just feel good, or you are looking for recognition, or you are trying to make dough. We post clips of our demos and songs all the time. What for? For feedback at the very least. Award shows are just a more expensive version of that kind of feedback really. You release an album and you promote it, tour, try to sell product at the venue. If you win a Juno, you have a sales spike. It is all part of the wheel. It goes round and round. 
The man who asked me if I would consider doing the show, appealed to the musician in me and said "Pete, live music TV feels like you played it." He was absolutely right. I bit seven years ago and now I hope I am around for the eighth, when the show returns to St. Johns. I love talking to the bands and kibitzing with the musicians. It is just a huge sandbox for me and I love playing in it. Always very interesting and out of all the shows I do in a year, The Juno Awards are my favorite bit of work.



Well we started rehearsals on Friday and continued yesterday.
Friday we started with Crystal Shawanda yesterday, a beautiful ballad and a tender rendering of it. 









Serena Ryder really kicked it out.










Next was City and Colour with Gord Downie.









￼
The Stills were next


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## faracaster

On to Saturday.....
Sarah McLaughlin was first early this morning










Then we had Sam Roberts Band.
We are doing a special gag with him. Sam wanted a 50’s look to the performance. In the arena, we bath the band in green light and in the arena they will appear green. But then in the TV truck, they dial the green colour out, leaving anything green in the frame, black & white. But then around the band, other things were bathed in different colours. So the band appears in black and white while portions of the still in colour.
Here are a couple of shots that illustrate this. 
First the live in the arena shot.










Now.....two shots from the truck with the effect.
￼


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## faracaster

Last of the day yesterday was Great Big Sea with Hawksley Workman and Eccodeck
￼









Then Simple Plan. Mathieu, our video designer did a great job with this performance I think.
￼



















There was also Bryan Adams with Kathleen Turner, Divine Brown and Nickleback. I didn’t get any pix of their performances because I was busy doing other things.

So that is it for this year. 
Cheers everyone. I hope we’ll all be around next year and I will be lucky enough to be doing the show next year in St. Johns, Newfoundland. If I am, I’ll send out updates !!!!!

Pete


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## faracaster

faracaster said:


> There was also Bryan Adams with Kathleen Turner,


Opps I do that all the time. I meant Kathleen EDWARDS. (and she was great !!!!!)


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## GuitarsCanada

Another great job, Pete. Much appreciated as well. Love to see the behind the scenes stuff.


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## Jeff Flowerday

So who watched the show? How was it?


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## Sneaky

I tuned in to the rerun on CTV around 12:30 am and watched about 30 minutes before nodding off. I must say the stage design was the best I have ever seen! Bravo Pete! Well done. I see another Genie in your future. :smilie_flagge17:


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## Guest

I caught a bit in the middle. Saw The Stills performance and the C&C + Gord Downie bit. The stage was most awesome. Definitely this sets a new bar for Juno stages. I didn't get to see the video cubes clearly, but the screen on the back as superb.

I'd like to see the Sam Roberts performance. That video thing with the B&W translation of just stuff bathed in green lights sounded fantastic. Pete, how did Sam Roberts and the band react when they heard/saw the cool effect?


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## greco

I watched the entire program. 

Personally, I thought that this year's was the best in comparison to the past few years.

Dave


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## Tarbender

I thought it was an outstanding show and it just zoomed right by. Didn't even realize that it was over till I saw the credits scrolling.

Dynamite job Pete. You're really raising the bar for next year!


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## faracaster

*GEMINI WIN !!!!...........again*

Hi All

It's almost an embarrassment of riches but I have to tell you all....... That the 2009 Juno Awards won a Gemini on Monday for Best Production Design or Art Direction in a Non-Fiction show or series. Two in a row !!!!!!
I am humbled and honoured.
I'd like to thanks all of you here on the Forum that follow and seem to enjoy the blog from the floor of the arena. I'll gladly do it again this coming April from St. John's NL. With a twist this coming year, we will be in Mile 
One Arena and out on George St. so get your party gear on and get to St. John's in April.


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## GuitarsCanada

Congrats, Pete. Another great job this year. Well deserved :rockon2:


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## al3d

Congrat pete...greath work..


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## hollowbody

Congrats Pete! With all the work that was put in, you certainly deserve it!


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## Jeff Flowerday

Yep, Congrats!


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## puckhead

can't believe I missed this thread the first time around.
very, very cool. congrats!


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## mario

Congrats Pete...well done!


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## Jeff Flowerday

puckhead said:


> can't believe I missed this thread the first time around.
> very, very cool. congrats!


It's an annual thing, Pete has been posting these threads just before the Juno's for the last 3 years. We all look forward to them.


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## Chito

Congrats Pete. Looking forward to 3 in a row! :food-smiley-004::food-smiley-004:


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## Starbuck

Pete, Congrats Man. That's amazing that you obviously have a love for music and the arts, AND you got to make a living at it AND be recognised for your contribution to same. Good on you! Many more!


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## Kenmac

Congratulations Pete. You and the team put in a lot of hard work and the Gemini win is well deserved.


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## Sneaky

Yay, Pete! I called that one. I think that was a Genie I posted in the picture though. :doh:


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## faracaster

Sneaky said:


> Yay, Pete! I called that one. I think that was a Genie I posted in the picture though. :doh:


Hey Sneaky, yes it was a Genie but, I knew what you meant. And.....yes you did call it.
thanks bud !!!!
Pete


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## marauder

That was an amazing perspective on the show. As I'm in St. John's, I hope I'm able to see your work in person in 2010!!

Congrats on your award, and best of luck on another!

Derrick


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## GP_Hawk

WOW!, Congrats Pete and thanks for the inside look...what an amazing production.


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## WCGill

World-class my friend, congratulations. I missed this thread last spring as I was gone working, very glad to have seen it. An incredible amount of teamwork. Nice!


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## al3d

Pete...looking at this pict of you...you should be in the "The Who"..don't ask me why, but your look screams BRITISH..ahahah


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