As far as I know, yes. Figure we can put two right by the loading dock (so long as the parking spaces are still open), and possibly park two more in the side-drive by the cafeteria (so long as they are far enough back that they don't interfere with the sinking asphalt near the steps).
And of course, there's never an issue with loading or unloading back there. We just have to move our cars when we're done, because they don't want us taking up all the parking spaces that the teachers/administrators use.
Remember the very first pre-SELEM dinner party at The Artist's Cafe? I left to go pick up Steve Roberts at the hotel, and when I returned my son was drunk off his ass, Haden Hale was still buying people shots, and the bar was all out of Patrone... Not bad for 45 minutes! The bar tab that year topped 4 figures. (Thankfully, Pangolin footed the bill for us that year!)
That being said, if we tried to kill 5 bottles this year, I think we'd all end up in the hospital! For sure I can't drink like I used to...
By the way - an interesting little wrinkle has cropped up regarding this year's plans for the auditorium:
I got a panicked call from John at the venue the other day. It seems that the large movie screen that hangs in front of the main curtain just fell down and damned-near killed some poor sap who was standing on the stage. (Fortunately he heard the axle detach above him and jumped out of the way at the last second.) But the screen is ruined (torn in a few places, and the hoist mechanism and axle is hopelessly broken). So there is no movie screen in there now. They will be getting a new one, but not in time for SELEM.
Fear not! We have a solution...
Remember the cyclorama scrim at the back of the auditorium? (The one we used to use for graphics years ago, back when SELEM was just a weekend event?) The plan is to move that whole thing to the front of the stage (just behind the proscenium but still in front of the main curtain) and hang it there so we will still have a display screen. The good part about this is that we will have a much wider space to project on (basically the entire width and height of the proscenium arch). The bad part is that it will be a little more difficult to move things around from back-stage to front-stage once it is in place.
Given that we need to get a good bit of gear loaded onto the stage, I told John to hold off on mounting the cyclorama scrim until after we got everything positioned on the stage. Then we can hang the scrim sometime in the afternoon or evening on Tuesday. We may end up helping to put this up, just so it goes smoothly, but John assured me that it wouldn't be a big deal and he could do it himself. We'll see I guess. But once it's up, we can close the main curtain behind it to fully-separate the auditorium from the rest of the stage area.
I've already spoken with a few folks about this, and I don't think it will be a problem at all. Truthfully, having the larger canvas to display on should be pretty cool! Only real difference is that the cyclorama isn't quite as reflective as the movie screen was, but given the amount of power we have in the auditorium I don't think it will be an issue.
(It will also give us a bit more space back stage for the buy-and-sell area, which is cool.)
Adam