Salt-N-Pepa and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals

Opening day of the Great New York State Fair!  I have the pleasure (yeah we'll call it that) the free stage at the fair.  Now, you might think oh free shows it must be some little local bands or up and coming bands.  No, we will have 25 bands perform on this stage in 12 days, along with the local ABC station shooting their morning show live on weekdays and a Catholic mass on Sundays.  We have two bands a day with shows at 2PM and 8PM with two different bands.  That's loading in one band, do a show, load out; loading in the second band, do a show and load out.  Each band is squeezed into about a 3 hour setup time.  Most of the bands are fine with that restriction.  There are few that have a hard time getting everything they need done in that time.  They're used to coming in at 10AM or earlier and having all day to work.  It makes working out all the logistics a fun time.

Today was going to be an easy day.  Track show for the 2PM show meant their load in was pretty much nothing.  Turns out they had equipment in their audio requirements rider that someone else should have provided.  I didn't catch it because I just forwarded the information.  The audio company didn't tell anyone about it being there.  So the band was about to show up, I had for some weird reason checked the rider and realized it might be an issue.  Sure enough the ball had been dropped.  I rushed to get a hold of the person that supplies that equipment.  He was able to send a guy to his warehouse to pick it up and deliver it to us and save the day.  Unfortunately we had issues with a couple of the turntables but the DJ was able to make it work.  Since the equipment was delivered later than it should have been and then the issues of it not working properly they didn't leave to go back to the hotel to ready until much later than expected.  So a group of them was LEAVING the hotel five minutes after they were supposed to start the show.  When they finally arrived the DJ sauntered across the yard, 25mins later.  I was afraid we were going to have a riot with the crowd.  They were chanting Salt-N-Pepa!  It was a good show.  They had about 6,500 people here for a 2PM show!  I ended up having someone in my office venting about some issues so I didn't get to watch the parts of the show I was hoping to see, Push It and Shoop. That's part of the job though.

Even though S-N-P started a half hour later they still ended and were cleared off the stage in time for the next band to begin their load in on time.  I was really excited to see the show with Grace Potter and The Nocturnals.  Their crew was amazing to work with.  Extremely easy and we ended up doing the advance with detailed emails and a couple of phone calls.  They had no problem with the load in and actually were finished in like an hour and half.  Their show was two hours long!  Packed with their original music and covers.  They have a rock, almost classic rock flair with a little folk mixed in.  Grace's voice is perfect and her stage presence is over the top.

Grace Potter entertaining Syracuse

It just baffles me that we are surrounded by State Troopers as our security here and the place smells like skunk all day...use your imagination.   We had some weather come in today, a really rough storm in the middle of the afternoon.  It blew over pretty quickly and didn't really affect us.  However, I think the crowd for Grace Potter would have been larger had it not rained.  Anyone need a rain jacket?  They are stored in my office.

This is a new sign at the main entrance desk in the backstage area.  I might just take it with me when I leave.