JUGGLING ACTS

When it comes to juggling diverse entertainment packages, David Ross and Will Lofdahl can turn near spills into thrills with the best in the business.

To hear Ross describe what it's like to bring in a rodeo show one weekend and Olympic caliber ice skaters shortly thereafter, one begins the realize a successful night is when only promoters, agents and managers know who they are. A perfect outing is when they all walk away happy.

"We like to think of ourselves as ducks in a pond," said Ross, who is the director of the Show Me Center. "On the surface it looks like we're making a smooth trip across the water. But underneath our feet are peddling like mad to get the job done."

Lofdahl offered a slightly different portrayal when asked to describe his job as events coordinator of the Show Me Center. "A friend of mine said what we do looks a lot like someone moving furniture," said Lofdahl. "The only difference is that sometimes we move it every day and it comes in all shapes and sizes."

During a five-week span from late February to late March, the Show Me Center hosted an array of shows that involved cowboys and former Southeast Missouri State Indians, musical mood swings, all-stars on ice and a little country music to top it all off.

A Longhorn Rodeo Championship, a Moody Blues concert complete with a 55-member Paducah Symphony, an international ice skating show, a Sawyer Brown concert and an alumni basketball game meant changing the complete makeup of the Show Me Center floor five times.

"When you're making that many changes in such a short period of time, you're going to be dealing with crews that are very tired and sometimes testy," said Lofdahl. "You've got to be sensitive to their needs and understand that they've got a job to do just like you do."

Said Ross,"I tell anybody who is just hired it's like ships passing in the night. If somebody says something that offends them they're probably not going to last long. You just can't take anything personally because a lot is done under pressure."

Asked what his worst nightmare was on the eve of the World Cup Figure Skating Championships, Lofdahl replied,"A power outage. With all that chipped ice and fresh layer of water scheduled to freeze overnight, a power outage would leave us with a very large puddle and an even larger headache."

A full portable ice tank was brought into the Show Me Center the day before the show and installed over the floor. "If you can imagine a giant sand box with chipped ice, you've got an idea what we start with," said Lofdahl. The sandbox measures 40 feet by 58 feet. The equipment takes 12 to 18 hours to prepare and requires the skill of a special ice technician to supervise and maintain the skating surface during the show.

The World Cup Figure Skating show was a timely event, given the fact that it followed the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway. "The television ratings for figure skating in this year's Olympics brought something like the third largest audience of all time," said Lofdahl. "That helps promote the show naturally and makes what we do that much easier."

Not all of the events that Lofdahl and Ross have worked with run so smoothly. "I remember when Sawyer Brown came here for a private party last year," said Lofdahl. "We had a power outage the day of the concert. We were able to restore power but only enough to accommodate the band and turn the lights on at limited capacity. Here were all these people showing up to an arena where the temperature was 90 degrees."

Ross experienced a nightmarish moment when he worked at a much larger arena in Chattanooga, Tenn. "I don't recall which band was there, but for four seconds the arena was pitch black," said Ross. "Everybody just froze, including me. It's a moment where your heart just leaps through your throat in anticipation of something really bad following the blackout. That's why we walk around with those little flashlights. It's moments like that that make you never forget to bring that flashlight to the arena."

Power outages aren't the only mishaps to contend with. There are technical glitches with a band's equipment and even communication snags that lead to some near embarrassing moments.

"I remember when Def Leppard was here," said Lofdahl. "For some reason the tour manager didn't want us to have any photographers shooting pictures during the concert. I had five of them standing outside our office waiting to be let in. Finally a publicist talked to him and convinced him it wasn't any big deal. I had to sweat that one out for a few minutes, though."

Another critical moment is splitting the money from each event. "Greg Talbut, the business manager, sits down with the representatives of each show and they don't leave until everyone is happy," noted Lofdahl. "Greg is extremely busy the day of the show."

Nancy Hess is the box office manager and Scott Raines is in charge of concessions and catering. "It feels sometimes like we're all jugglers in a circus trying to make everything run smoothly," said Lofdahl.

When the key five-week period was over, Lofdahl, Ross and the rest of the Show Me Center crew was able to breathe a collective sigh of relief. It wouldn't be long before the next juggling session, however.

"It all starts before you know it and by then you're running around so fast you don't have much time to think about it," he said.