I flew in two days before the show started. Luckily, I had no issues along the way. That's surprising since it seemed like every surrounding gate was asking for volunteers to bump and take the next flight. I was glad to have the opportunity to fly at least one leg of the trip on Southwest! I hit the ground running and caught up with the staff and getting checked into the hotel. The next day I spent the entire day at the fairgrounds, "moving in". I set up my office, took care of paperwork and continued organizing the schedules with phone calls and computer work that I've been working on for a month. Shockingly, I was already working on the New York State Fair, the next stop. I found out about noon that the furniture for the dressing rooms had not been ordered. Thankfully the decorator was willing enough to spend hours tracking down two sets of furniture for our dressing room trailers. Unfortunately it had to come out of Chicago and didn't arrive until this afternoon, halfway through our first show day.
The fair decided to upgrade one of their free stages this year. The Budweiser Stage used to live in a tent. It was a very small stage, hardly any production but every band that played there loved it. They were always packing people in there. This year the fair decided to utilize a grassy area and bring in a large stage, upgrade the production and really do it up right. That they did! I'm responsible for working with one of the fair staff to book the acts for all of the free stages besides the grandstand. My boss books that and I'm here to produce it. So we really focused the budget on the Budweiser Stage that usually features classic rock bands. I've heard several comments about how great the lineup is. I got to sneak over there during Blue Oyster Cult's set tonight. The lawn was PACKED and the stage looked great. I think it will be a success all week!
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| Blue Oyster Cult at the Budweiser Stage |
Back to my world, the grandstand. We always kick off the fair with a Christian show. I think we need to flip it and put it at the end of the fair because after a couple of doozy days, I'm going to need some worship time. :) We had Casting Crowns and Jeremy Camp today. I've worked with both of the bands and they've always been phenomenal to work with. It would have been a really great day except the cell reception has been horrible. I suppose the tower has been overloaded. I pretty much had to do a handstand on the dressing room trailer in order to make a phone call and forget about receiving or sending text messages. It's really puts a cramp in your style when you're having 20+ people trying to communicate with you by phone throughout the day and not being able to do that. The lead singer for Crowns was trying to get a hold of their tour manager for over an hour to get a ride back from the hotel. Ovey! I'm praying that's fixed tomorrow because I haven't been able to accomplish much without it.
One special thing about the Casting Crowns act is that they have their families on the road. I honestly can't tell you how many people are living on the two buses that we have here today. But I do know there are probably 5 or 6 kids that I've seen floating around. The take the morning for "school" time. They home school the kids so that they can all be together on the road. Now that takes dedication and patience on both the kid's and parent's part. I had to go into the dressing room trailer to reset some food. I was moving it in to the "school" room. Moving very quietly as to not interrupt I hear behind me a confident, "Hi, What's your name?". I turn around to see a little boy and his dad (one of the artists) sitting there with a workbook in front of him. He introduces himself and proceeds to tell me it's his last lesson. His Dad mentions that he's looking for any type of distraction. It was sweet to see how normal their live can be.
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| Casting Crowns at the Iowa State Fair Grandstand |
