String Quartet-Corporate Conference

Our quartet performed onstage as attendees arrived at a conference at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre. It was such a pleasure to be back and performing in one of Perth's top venues. We played a half hour set of light music- interesting enough to keep guests entertained but not intrusive to disturb conversations. We performed in the main theatre, which seats over 1000 people. For a change, we were amplified so that we could be heard by all. We finished playing at 9am, picked up our gear and exited into the stage wings.

BUT... we were trapped:
a) we had no access to the backstage hallways
b) we couldn't walk behind the stage and exit on the other side because things were in the way
c) we couldn't exit through the audience (that's just unprofessional)
d) we walked down a loading ramp and found a door, only to find that it too, was locked.
Our last option was to try opening the roller door. Surprisingly it worked, except we found ourselves in a concrete space with only a window and a fire door. Our options were:
a) break the window
b) open the fire door, which may or may not have an alarm
c) give up, wait 2 hours for the conference to end and then exit through the audience (which is how we got into the theatre in the first place)
By this point we had spent half an hour trying to get out. After assessing the fire door and a bit of a debate, we opened it. NO ALARM!
We ended up on what turned out to be a loading dock. It took us another 15 minutes to find a way back to the carpark, but that's a story for another day...