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has a change of leadership, this new group of operations people were determined not to do the same things that the past operations people did, even if it worked. This year there was no “Bob Class” and Bob had a new body guard. The Operations Manager, this guy, Andrew, felt we didn’t need to waste time on it. Good call, Andrew.
    It was just another day of filling theaters and listening to people bitch at me about tickets, seats and why I didn’t seem to know who they were. This was a difficult day and so we were running late with most of our start times. All the first screenings had started on time but as we got more into the day, we were falling further and further behind. Jane received a call from the festival office; Bob was coming to our next screening.
    We got everybody on our team ready and set aside the three seats for Bob. My manager alerted the projectionists that Bob was coming and reminded them to hold the film until he was seated, she would give them the word when. I began loading theater; starting with pass holders, then hard ticket holders and we started on the wait list line. It was going pretty smoothly, the team clicking. The patrons entering the theater not realizing they were about to spend the next two hours in the company of Mr. Robert Redford.
    A call came over the radio from a volunteer working the door to a publicists screening, Bob was trapped in a back hallway. “Bob? You mean, Robert Redford?” my boss asked over the radio. There was no answer. We stopped the line loading the theater.
    My boss and I ran to the hallway where Bob was supposedly trapped. I thought maybe people had rushed him as he was standing outside and he took refuge in the back hallway. What was confusing was that he was inside the building at all. According to our usual procedures he and his body guard waited in the car.
    When we got to the hall; we found that Bob and his new body guard had entered the back hallway and walked right into a theater full of journalists leaving a private screening. This was Bob’s worst nightmare. He’s never been much of public figure and constantly dodged the media during the festival but now he was surrounded by about thirty of them, all tossing questions at him.
    Bob looked distressed, as his body guard tried to move him out of the mass of media. My boss and I started pushing through the press and began to lead Bob and the body guard down the crowded hall to the theater, where his screening was half loaded. My boss, took him into the theater and I continued to load in the festival customers.
    Because of our rescue of Redford and his body guard, we were really behind in time. Rather than running people in a half dozen at a time, we were now rushing everyone in and trying to find them seats. My boss called me into the theater, Bob wasn’t happy with his seats.
    I found a couple of people who didn’t mind moving for Bob and they exchanged seats. While I was reseating Redford too many people had entered the theater, so we were out of seats and had to ask people standing to leave. Once people get by the ticket takers, it’s always a battle to get them to go out and so was this.
    During this re-arrangement of seats, my boss was dealing with the film makers, who have realized that Redford was going to this screening now want seats, but we were out of them. I found a couple of unlucky volunteers and asked them to leave, so that the film makers could stay. While all this action was going happening, the house lights were on so that everyone knew that Robert Redford was watching this film with them.
    As we were making sure that all the seats were filled, I looked over at Bob. He was openly giving me the stink-eye, obviously wanting us to start the film. Finally my boss took her place at the front of the audience and welcomed everyone to the Sundance Film Festival and introduced the film makers.
    Yep, they don’t go that bad often. I didn’t make much of it -- mostly it was Redford’s body