SpringScape//MudScape 2011
SpringScape 2011 landed on eARTh last Saturday. For many years we have been staging arts events at eARTh —everybody’s ART home, aka the country club for the rest of us. Last summer we ran into Alex. We were at a West Biddle Street-sidewalk July birthday party for Deb staged by our buddy City Babe in West Chester. Alex was sauntering up the street, guitar slung overs lanky shoulders, on his way to busk—play for tips—in front of the old Historic Court House. Deb stopped him as he walked by, and having had a glass or 3 champagne, asked him to serenade her on her birthday. And he complied, to a standing O. He turned out to be part of a much larger network of arts fans and performers who live in Chester County, esp. West Chester. If you want to stage an outdoor event with your friends, we told him, let us know. Why not, we thought to ourselves, expand our music network with new generations of talent as we’ve always been doing? Well, it took a while, but 3 weeks ago on the Dead Beat Bats of West Chester Facebook site came the call. Help! The 2nd annual SpringScape music fest had lost its venue - 2 weeks before the event!
Out of the blue, Greg gets a phone call from Ryan,and impressed w/ his pitch Greg said let’s meet and discuss details. So we were able to step in to the vortex but did not realize it would come only one week after the After Taxes Piano Lounge, a major indoor event for C3A. That’s when it rained inches, causing people to hydroplane getting here, and told us after parking that they were stuck up to their hubs. Their ruts were left behind. Ya know… those April showers. Did Ryan & Co. really want to have the event so early? But the fest had been planned for months. So we met with the 3 organizers, Ryan, Emily and Emma, and were impressed. Nice, smart, respectful, artistic.
Ryan, Emma and Emily getting ready to roll out SpringScape
We outlined the many pitfalls of staging events here that every event planner has nightmares about: weather, parking, behavior, weather, parking, behavior, and then there’s money and what else? oh yeah, money. We hoped for great weather. They said they would a “dance a sundance,” and said they had a friend named Sundance. Greg joked, “You’d better sacrifice him to stop the rain” and he warned Ryan: Be ready for rain. Be ready with pushers to get people out of the mud. Be ready to come back and repair the damage to Greg’s pride and joy lawn. Ryan promised the sun would come and the day would be beautiful. Speaking of lawn, the Monday before the Sat. event, Greg got out his mower to get the lawn all sweet and sculptured - first cut of the year. Battery dead. WalMart 3 hours later. Battery in, engine starting. Hurrah! uh-oh, transmission unworkable. Panic call to Hensel’s where we bought it. Can you get it repaired in 3 days in the midst of lawnmower hell season - when everyone is going through what we are - dead mowers. Hensel’s kinda laughed about the 3 day thing. They did get it to us in 6 though, great service from a cool hometown gem of a business. Solution? Hillbilly lawnmowing. Use Deb’s weedwacker, “Wheely” to run through the long sections to even up w/ the shorter sections. To Greg it still looked like shit, to everyone else, it was beautiful.
Faye w/ Jason early BBQ detail
It rained buckets last Friday, the day before, and dawned gray and angry, raining intermitantly throughout the morning. The ground was a soggy mess and visions of large mud-ruts gloomed in our mind and Greg’s heart and soul. And then, voila!, the day cleared as the the lovely Faye took to the stage with her throaty blues tunes. It was a great day as the sun became permanent guest—or so we thought. Our own friends came, the Fb network came with hula hoops, burgers vegan and otherwise, and positive vibes. Faye Hoek, Family Band,Grandma’s Cookin’, Frequency Bender, Happy’s Rocking Rodeo, Julius Hoek and others put out wonderful music. Ryan said at one point that he had never heard his name said so much in one day. Which meant he had next to no time to relax. That’s the way it is in Event Organizer Land. Everyone comes to you and not always in a good way…
Paula with her cute bunny art pin.
Greg and Deb were set up near the house with our buds, as person after person from the festgoers we didn’t know came up to us with words of respect, interest and appreciation. They loved the place, loved the outdoor eARThArt by Layton and Kates, and were all-round sweethearts. We were happy.
The day swam by like a minnow in a tsunami.
Suddenly it was Breakdown Street. Everyone was saying goodbyes, so longs and happy trails. And Ryan asked what Greg thought and Greg said,” Great!.” The breakdown began. And the deluge started. Up-oh, cars were stuck in the lower field. Although we had asked to be informed about any problems we didn’t know that the crew had been pushing people out all night. But now there was not only a car up to its hubcaps, but the pickup behind it that was mired in as it tried to nudge out the car—all the trash to be taken away behind in the bed. So already, no pleasant Easter Sunday the next day, when the crew would come and have a easy breakdown and cleanup, and we could sit back, give a few directions, feel the Easter spirits of rebirth and love, watch the Phillies, recover ourselves, and eat chocolate. Ohhhh nooo.
Greg walked down Easter morning to survey the damage. Multiple 12” rows of ruts up and down the field. Worst case scenario for the lawn. Of course the best luck was that no one had gotten hurt. Not Triple A but Triple J—John, John, and John w/ Tori as Mudscape crew #1 came early Easter morning to get out the honkin’ truck , which was no easy task. First pushing with muddy plywood under the wheels. Many times. Then, counter-intuitively, arrived the idea to empty the truck bed of all the festival trash. Then Greg came up with the smarty idea of wrapping the plywood with our orange plasticdeer fencing. And it worked! And they fulfilled their promise to take shovels and metal rakes and do their best to smooth out the ruts. Then Jenn and her Dad came to get out her sedan—the one in front of the truck, with success! Then arrive MudScape #2 crew to breakdown what was left of the stage, take down signs and…more mud-rut detail.
Work detail on worst-case-scenario lawn and a Ryan’s car to prove it!
The organizers had their spirits and hearts in the right place, but until you do it regularly, you can’t imagine the work and worry involved in planning such events. And we couldn’t imagine how much one crew could set up so quickly and in such fine moods. Greg was right about the mud and Ryan was right about the sun. Yay for all sides. On to new Dead Beat Bats & others events. Hey, Grounds for Music is Saturday June 18th and talk about a great muzik mash-up, we’ll feature some SpringScape acts and some of our GfM faves we already know, and a few surprises too. What’s not to like?
