Aerial dancers on the roof of Glasgow Science Centre and cellists playing aboard a moving sailing boat are just two of the weird and wonderful items to be ticked off Cathie Boyd's to-do list.
Then there's making arrangements for a Viking longship to sail down the Clyde, finding enough fireworks to give Guy Fawkes a run for his money and the delicate matter of ensuring Sound to Sea, one of the biggest events of the city's 2014 cultural programme, doesn't clash with a flotilla of 250 boats all vying for space on the water.
While others might baulk at the prospect of organising a large-scale outdoor event at the mercy of the notoriously unpredictable elements in the west of Scotland, the founder and artistic director of Cryptic is embracing the challenges. Even the prospect of including the troubled tower at the Science Centre, nearly four years after it closed to visitors.
"Cryptic has a history of working with musicians and presenting music visually. What's fantastic about Sound to Sea is that it is an opportunity to work with more than 140 performers and such a wide genre of music from techno to traditional, classical and opera," says Boyd. "One thing that is very important for me is rather than having a fixed stage I was interested in the idea of Glasgow's history - the Clyde and shipping - so I thought, why don't we have boats as the stages for musicians?"
Canting Basin will be the setting for the evening nautical extravaganza on August 1 and 2, with the arching curves of the Science Centre the backdrop.
The musicians appearing on the boats range from Frightened Rabbit and Treacherous Orchestra to Rachel Sermanni and the Glasgow Phoenix Choir with a splash of bhangra-pop and opera in the mix.
Pyrotechnic specialists Walk the Plank, aerial dance company All or Nothing and the Royal Navy are joining forces with the Science Centre and Cryptic, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary, in the production.
Boyd adds: "It's important to remember that Cryptic's tagline is 'ravishing the senses' and I really hope Sound to Sea does that.
"What's fantastic about the 2014 cultural programme is that it is enabling large-scale projects to happen that we could only dream of in the past."
Since Belfast-born Boyd set up Cryptic after studying at Glasgow's RSAMD, the company has toured to more than 22 countries.
Cryptic associate Dan Ayling will direct Struileag as part of the Year of Homecoming, while Josh Armstrong will premiere new work These Delicate Things in Glasgow in the autumn.
Worries about high winds affecting aerial dancers on the roof of the Science Centre aside, Boyd is bubbling with excitement about the tower.
"It is on schedule and will be opening mid-June. All I can say is we will be using it as part of the performance but I don't want to give too much away," says Boyd, explaining that a bigger problem is working around the flotilla of boats organised by the Royal Yachting Association that will be on the Clyde at the end of July.
"Our time on the water is restricted and all the pontoons have to be removed. There are so many challenges, but I believe there's a solution to everything."
And that to-do list grows and grows ...
Ticket registration for the free event opens on Monday at www.glasgowsciencecentre.org/soundtosea
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article