It's 2035. A Winter's Tale is opening in the round in 4 weeks. A calendar alarm goes off for the 2nd e-tech meeting, ahead of the venue being clear. There's a festival showcase that's been in there for a month - we've been able to take a peek, but there are so many shows on it really can't be for long. Rehearsals have gone well on the other side of town, actors off-book, with daily capture on-site being successful, receiving signoff for general movement and pacing. There's a poetry that's beginning to emerge. The vast ceiling of the venue echoes above. As the last lighting cues get tweaked - a follow-spot and a blind to end Act 1 - a mixture of blank avatars and flat video-panes begin to pop in and potter around the 500-seater venue. The SM is joining via audio, muting every once in a while to greet actors who are warming up in the vicinity, which feels like it should be confusing. The Voice of God echoes through the venue; "Right, we're in a great place so I will have to leave you to it, but just thought we should play back a few of those last scene, as we'll be rehearsing them here soon". A junior AV designer, not long out of training, is late - but it's alright, they had dropped in their final cues out of hours, and with a bit of realignment- they're ready to go. The team, some working from home, some borrowing desk controllers from their home venue - are in their rhythm, carefully placing cues, synchronising moments between sound, lighting, and the actors on stage - their spatial playback giving enough of an impression to be properly lit and tracked throughout the scenes. The LD is very proud of their new headset, more like a pair of sunglasses, really - and they have been able to sketch out cues in between tweaking the musical in Dubai for the new lead. This is a big show, so it will be 2 weeks of full tech when we land in the venue proper. But we work 8 hours usually- and the time is most valuably spent tweaking what we already have. Most of the prop work we can see through spatial, so there's a bit of readjustment there When a scene needs to get get replaced in-person, but there's usually an option that we have pre-built that serves as a basis. There were even a few auto-suggestions for scenes that worked straight away. The director leaves early, the vision of the venue fresh in their mind. The buzz of the company swells in their voice channel just before it cuts off- but a little blue light indicates an iPad feed is still in their room somewhere, in case anyone fancies a peek. We step through Act 2 that day. An uneasy peace is comes over the team - we are living and breathing this show, but that usually goes into working on variations, or refining what we already have - not fixing tech issues like back in the day. Feels good to be ahead of schedule. But we earned it!