Two weeks from today, I will hopefully be sitting in the sun with some friends, or with a book, taking a much-needed day off. And three weeks from today I will officially be on holidays, overseas. But before I get to that, there's still a lot of work to be done.

There are a couple of things that are keeping me awake at night. It's not so much the scheduling or running of the day, because even though that's on my mind it's also something I know I can manage. We're at the point now where all the artists are confirmed - any that aren't we have assumed are not participating. There are one or two who haven't come back to me with tech requirements, but for the most part I am able to guess these based on what I know of their works. Even though we're just under two weeks away, managing the artists is the part I feel most relaxed about.

What does worry me are the power needs of the Festival, and the lack of information I have regarding these. Again, I'm fairly savvy about all the needs of the artworks and performances, but the major problem is the lighting. We are working with students who are under the guidance of their lecturer. He's a great guy and they're definitely doing us a huge favour, but the fact that we haven't been supplied with power requirements for what they're planning two weeks out is just unacceptable. How on earth are we supposed to ensure that we can get them what they need when they don't let us know? Given that the Festival's spread out in block-party style over a fairly large area, we're in a bit of trouble power-wise, and we really need to cut back on power requirements wherever possible. As it is, we will almost definitely have to use 2 generators, which will probably take us over budget, not to mention make a bit of noise. I requested this information by COB Friday and have not heard a thing, so that worries me. I couldn't sleep all Friday night.

The other major concern that stems in part from lighting but is also connected to the works, is getting permission from the owners of buildings. We've already managed to approach a few of the residents and a lot have been quite willing (although some are very much opposed and the Festival Director is meeting with one particularly angry resident in the coming week to try to placate her), but there are still a lot of people who need to be approached and when they're businesses in warehouses it can be extremely difficult to find out who we need to talk to, particularly as I'm still working full-time so can't be down there during business hours. Some of the lighting installations will need permission to hang out of windows or affix to buildings etc, but again I don't know which these are or where exactly they need to go. At our WIP on Wednesday our lighting leader was talking about all these plans they had, and I said 'so will your students be approaching those building owners to gain their permission?' He looked at me in some surprise and said 'no, you will.' I told him that in that case I will need that information as soon as possible. As above, he promised it by Friday but it still has not materialised. I'm a little concerned now with the tight deadline, and am trying to decide how to handle this. I'm not happy with allowing them to get the information to me in my own time and not suffering any repercussions - I feel I should give them a date after which we absolutely will not approach buildings on their behalf, but this may also mean that the works won't get up which is obviously a scenario to avoid.

I guess this is a valuable lesson in working with creatives - sometimes, no matter how good your planning and preparation is, there will be someone to throw it out. You just need to decide how you're going to deal with that. As much as I'd like to do everything I can for them, my priority is to the artists and I just have to accept that I don't have the time to handle last-minute requests. I'm going to have to put my foot down this week.

I'm looking forward to the blissful Sunday when all this is over.