Did a last minute wrap (production found out last minute that they had to be off the stage by this morning) last night (we came in around midnight and I got home around 5 am), and it wasn't too bad. All the cable was on the floor (which was good, as we were on yet another one of those cursed fucking pipe grid stages), and the rig was well done, and it came up fast (neat rigs come out much faster than messy ones).
The one annoying factor was tape tabs, or in this case the lack of them.
Lamp and cable connectors that don't have a self locking mechanism have to be taped together to prevent kick-outs. We use gaffer's tape (a heavy cloth tape) for this, but when you're done with the equipment, you have to remove all the tape from the connectors - they won't come apart if you don't, and if you send back cable and distro that's got tape all over it, the rental house guys will hate you.
Having to pick at the corner of a piece of tape gets old fast.
Hence leaving a tape tab - just fold about a half an inch at one end of the piece of tape over on itself, so you have a little handle to grab.
For some reason, the crew on whatever this was (some video by some band I've never heard of)didn't leave tape tabs, and by hour two of picking at tape ends we were all homicidal.
It's the little things that get to you.
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