Playing - a little - for the Vapers Exhibit

We played the 2014 Vapers Exhibit this weekend, and it was an interesting experience. The exhibit is an expo for e-cigarettes.

If you don't know what e-cigarettes are, they're an alternative to regular cigarettes. With a regular cigarette, tobacco is rolled in paper, and the smoker lights the roll, inhaling (then exhaling) the smoke. E-cigarettes are battery-powered tubes that hold a mixture of liquid and nicotine. The e-cigarette vaporizes the mixture, and the smoker inhales (then exhales) the vapor. Until Saturday, that's about all I knew about e-cigarettes. Now, I know more than I ever thought I would!

The cool part about the expo, other than getting a convention gig, was that it was held at the Austin Music Hall. The music hall has a real stage and, almost as good, green rooms!

Conventions are great work if you can get 'em. Like all private gigs, they pay better than public gigs, and they're usually indoors, which is nice. Sometimes you play a party associated with the convention, but other times, you're smack in the middle of the action. That's how it was for us with the Vapers Exhibit. We were in the hall where all the vendors and attendees were:

Note the haze. That's not smoke - it's vapor. So, it doesn't smell bad. In fact, it can smell pretty good at times, because people put flavorings into their cigarettes that smell like the flavor. When we were outside the hall, waiting to load in, I thought they had cotton candy inside. Turns out, it was just the smell of sweet "juice" (that's what they call the flavorings).

I didn't get a chance to see all of the products that vendors were selling, but they gave away a lot of juice. There were also all kinds of fun, mind-expanding activities, like vaping contests (you don't "smoke" an e-cig - you "vape"):

You may notice that everyone is in black. No, they're not in uniform - black just seems to be extraordinarily popular in the vape community. And I'm pretty sure that the length of your vape cloud directly reflects the length of your...breath.

There was also a panda.

PANDA!

It was interesting to learn about this whole world I knew nothing about. The downside was that one of the vendors (a "diamond" sponsor we were told) was hosting what can only be described as a hip-hop party upstairs in the main hall, right in front of us:

This party involved video screens and loud music that they actually turned up throughout our set in order to drown us out. Toward the end of our set, they had the organizers shut us down so they could have a rapper with sexy dancers perform in their booth area without having to compete with our music.

The organizers were very nice and very apologetic, and the truth is, it was a relief to stop the battle of the speakers. But it was definitely an unexpected development.

At a club gig, you are very unlikely to have another band playing right next to you at the same time. At most private parties, the odds of one of the guests showing up with their own sound system and instruments and competing with you are astronomical (though the odds of a guest trying to get on the mic with you is surprisingly high). But there it was. Someone else at the expo wanted to be the musical entertainment, and apparently they didn't inform the convention organizers that that's what their booth would involve.

But being the accommodating professionals we are, when it was obvious that the diamond sponsor had no intention of relinquishing the microphone or massive speakers, we agreeably packed up our stuff and vacated the premises - check in hand.

If I planned on ever vaping, I would've found out who the sponsor was so I could refuse to ever buy their products in protest to their rudeness. But since I don't plan on putting anything into my lungs that shouldn't be there (besides your garden variety smog), I guess I'll just have to be satisfied with getting paid the full amount for a short set.

So be it. And for the record, I wish all smokers would switch to e-cigs. You want to pollute your lungs, knock yourself out - at least with e-cigs it doesn't bother mine.