festival woes

Subject: festival woes
From: black walnut
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 10:12 AM

i've been going to folk festivals for over 25 years. yesterday my husband and i went to 'festival of friends', in hamilton ontario, for the first time in many years. i love festivals. i could write books about all the good things about festivals. but right now i have a few wee complaints to share.

the same problem which bothered us in the audience back then is still a problem at the festival of friends....SOUND BLEED from the main stage to the smaller stages. it is very annoying to the audience, and creates a problem with concentration for the performers. tanglefoot, a 5-man band, were able to outloud the mainstage, but some of the solo performers were obviously having trouble.

second issue....UNWANTED AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION. there was a woman in the audience who played spoons and bones through almost every song. she was a 'sweet old lady', who didn't catch on to glaring looks. she ignored my evil glances, and i didn't have the guts to talk to her about her rudeness (i do believe it's rude to play percussion instruments from the audience unless the performer requests it), and found that moving closer front and nearer the speakers helped me focus more on the music coming from the stage.

one more thing....RECORDED MUSIC BETWEEN SETS. when you're at a festival for hours upon hours, i don't think it hurts anybody to have a bit of peace and quiet during switches on stage. i feel the same about concerts, coffee houses, bars..... one of my other recent horror stories was having to endure 1 1/2 hours of extremely loud reggae music which eliminated conversation (i still have a sore throat from trying) before the opener for kelly joe phelps.

i read a lot here, but don't write much on the mudcat. and here i am complaining. maybe i'm just grouchy because i couldn't go to the celtic festival in goderich this weekend. o well, at least a pack of friends and 'catters will be whooping it up at 'the Woods' starting this tuesday....waiting for 'the Woods' is like waiting for the ketchup to fall, but as tony burns points out, ketchup ain't near as good...

~black walnut

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Peter Kasin
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 10:44 AM

As one who coordinates music for a festival, I appreciate your thoughts. I don't care much for recorded music between sets either, and wondered whether I was alone in that. Someone from festival staff should have approached the audience player who was annoying so many people. There are polite ways to let people know that their playing is distracting others - which doesn't always work, because sometimes they think it's their right - but I don't think audience members should have to carry the burden of being the ones to confront the offender. My 2 cents worth.

-chanteyranger

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 11:12 AM

Great thread 'nut. I've got some thoughts, but first I have to teach "Italian style" mandolin to an 11 year old!! Oi! What have I gotten myself into? Been practicing "Sorrento" and theme from "The Godfather" for the last half hour. I'll catch this thread later.

Rick

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: GUEST,Rich(stupidbodhranplayerwhodoesn'tknowbetter
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 12:21 PM

I notice it seems that often there are perfomers on 4 stages that I really wanna see, and then nobody I wannna see, and then performers on 5 stages that I realy wanna see, and then nobody I wanna see and then....

Also, I hate audience persecution, or I mean percussion (including clapping and hard shoe dancing). I saw Beginish (great band, check 'em out)down at the Washington Irish Fest last year with a little girl being pushed up in front of the stage in TAP shoes!!!! On cement!!!! AaAaGgGgHHH!!!
Rich

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 02:13 PM

Let me echo Rich's "ARGHHHHHHH!"

But what the hell are ya gonna do? We've already had many threads here about "Music etiquette", and inevitably most folks side with the people who are causing disruptions. It seems to be human nature. Would YOU want to be the one to tell the "spoon playin" lady that she's making it hard on the performers? Stan Rogers (or Gordon Lightfoot, or maybe Gordon Bok) would, but most wouldn't want to risk the ire of part of the audience. Sure, a festival volunteer SHOULD deal with it...but 10 to one they don't want to look bad either. Bottom line....Spoon lady continues. Just pray that she's got timing!

That's a minor problem compared to trying to deal with VERY active children running back and forth in front of the stage. Just TRY dealing with that, and see what kind of trouble you get into.

Rick

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Crowhugger
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 02:31 PM

'nut: ditto ditto ditto!

As for kids running around disrupting things, I've had excellent success by simply speaking to the kids myself. I prefer to do it away from the parents in a friendly yet clear and direct manner. It isn't 100% effective but it's pretty darn close.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: SINSULL
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 03:50 PM

Of course, one of the performers could have grabbed the Shirley Temple Wannabee and tossed her back at the audience screaming "Mosh!" Then invited the old lady on stage to share her talent and then grab her and scream "Mosh".

Maybe not.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Nynia
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 04:26 PM

I've just asked Diva to post to this thread you'd hardly believe her story.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Diva
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 05:15 PM

Oh ok Nyn since you asked so nicely. We were at Newcastlton festival this year and having a grand time. Sunday night we were in the ante room of the village hall all sitting round the room waiting for the session to start. Well, there were these 3 hippies, 2 guys and a dame in a floor length frock and they started and sung 3 one after the other,well as we all know that is not the form. So we were all sitting there glaring at them and before they could start again one of our chums breenged in with a particularly long ballad. So it turned in a who could sing the longest ballad. Now I know a few but the other two culprits know even more than me. Now the hippies didn't care for this one bit and had a wee chat amongst themselves,had a paper tearing competition and even a look at what I bought this afternoon;which meant lots of twirling. I'm not making this up...ask Nynia he was there too. The funniest bit was the tying the silk scarve round the ankle game,where she had to hike up the floor length frock half way up her backside. As one of the usual crowd was singing and playing a guitar one of the hippies decided to join in,although it didn't really compliment the song or tune. Our chum carried on regardless,never heeding it. Now this was bad enough but the straw that broke this camel's back was the accompaniment of the B flat whistle to a ballad not in the same key. We all sat round doing our best Paddington stares to no avail. When I could stand it no longer,I strode across the room and removed the offending whistle much to the surprise of the "player". He was still playing after I sat down,now I don't know if you've ever seen anyone playing air whistle before....... I gave him the whistle back and before he could say anything one of my friends launched into a rousing song. But it gets better...my friend the whistle player decided to pack up and leave noisily as I was singing. As he passed me without missing a beat I said "Bye" and continued with my song. He slammed out of the room and we just laughed like eeejits. And yes I did finish the song. Oh and we had a power cut too but thats another story.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: IvanB
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 06:56 PM

My wife and I spent yesterday evening and this afternoon at the National Folk Festival (East Lansing, MI, USA). Didn't have any problem with wannabe performers in the audience, but it DOES seem that at any outdoor festival, long lost friends seem to think it's OK to carry on conversations in a normal to loud tone of voice while the performances are going on. (This is in the midst of the audience, not on the fringe.) As to the recorded music between sets, at least they were playing recordings of artists that are performing at the festival, so we got to hear a few that we might not get to see in person.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Morticia
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:46 PM

I think one of the episodes that pained me most in a folk festival session was a very drunk woman ( with a terrible voice) who started up.....not her turn but it happens....was too drunk to remember the words so started over.....and over......and over......and over.....must have taken up half an hour or more before someone finally had a word with her....which she clearly resented because she went off, stocked up on more drink and then came back and repeated the performance later......sometimes I think folkies are just too bloody polite.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 03:42 PM

I was performing at a festival in upstate NY a few years ago. There was a dance floor between the stage and the audience which parents used as a day-care center while they buggered off to the bar-tent. Well, fifteen or twenty rlings started running around, playing trains and yelling and screaming while my audience were craning their necks and shifting in their seats to try and see and hear me over the cacophony. In a stern voice, I told them to stop running around, and made them sit down in front of the stage . Then I sang a few kids' participation songs for them which they got into and enjoyed. My audience appreciated this and got into the kids' songs as well. Then I finished the show for the adults. Someone complained to the festival organizers that I had verbally abused the kids and that I was not the kind of person that this festival needs, and I wasn't invited back. Seamus

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Morticia
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 06:23 PM

God Seamus, that stinks.......seems like No, Sit Down, or You can't have it/do it are taboo phrases around children these days.....and as a social worker, I get to 'reap' the benefits of screwed up people who have never been taught or shown what is and what is not acceptable behaviour.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Sorcha
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 07:10 PM

I guess I'm just weird,or maybe I go to different festivals, but the only thing in this list that bugs me is sound bleed. The festivals I go to have non stop live music 16 hrs a day--no taped stuff at all, so I don't know about that.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 07:39 PM

One time at an indoor festival, a woman behind me was singing harmony in every song with the group onstage. Packed house plus I had a good seat so I didn't want to move. But finally I turned in my seat and in a friendly (grrrr!) voice I said, Please. You have a lovely voice but right now I want to hear them. She was apologetic and hushed up. Might not always work, though.

Ebbie

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 08:03 PM

I got glared at for coughing a lot at one concert. They stopped when the ambulance came for me..... asthma attacks are fun aren't they?!

LTS

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Tony Burns
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 06:45 AM

Good thread 'nut and interesting timing. I'm just back from Goderich. It is still my favourite Ontario festival of the year but it did have two problems this year that have been mentioned in this thread.

Talkers! It was a real problem this year at the main stage. We actually got up and moved on Friday night when the guy behind just wouldn't shut up.

Sound bleed. They changed the orientation of 4 of the 5 workshop stages this year. I think they'll probably go back to the old set up next year.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: sophocleese
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 08:23 AM

black walnut, I was at The Festival of Friends this weekend too! As a relative thing I found sound bleed far less of a problem there than at Mariposa, but it still existd. I got pissed off with a Bell trailer that played canned music: with six stages of live music and amplified buskers why bother?

The only other annoyance was that there was no food stall that sold falafel. That festival is where I first tried it and fell in love with the food, it always tastes best for me there.

These griefs, however, were small for me compared to the overall enjoyment of the Festival.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: black walnut
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 08:51 AM

sophocleese ~ one of these days we're going to have to meet!

i wasn't going to mention this woe, but since you brought it up.....FOOD: the first food i bought at the festival of friends this weekend sent me complaining to the information desk...the chicken was very raw. ugh. i got my money back, and bought chocolate fudge instead.

back to the topic of CHILDREN: if you don't have children, or teach children, you will never really understand the challenge of bringing your children to a weekend-long folk festival. our children were raised on folk festivals. we believed that it was really important as parents to expose them to live music, and this was a wonderful and inexpensive way to do it. i think we tried our best to ensure that our children were not a distraction to the audience or the performer. i don't think that a child dancing to the music should be seen as a distraction, and we encouraged that, in appropriate places. our best plan was for one or both of us to take our kids to the childrens' music and craft and playground areas all day (some festivals are FABULOUS at this!), and then they would be tired enough to sit and cuddle with us for the evening concert. sometimes they still overflowed with energy.....i remember a special night at 'Songs of Sail' when my son and daughter danced together unendingly to the sound of voices and whistles and bodhrans just outside the music tent, under the northern lights....

~black walnut

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 09:36 AM

We had three festivals so far this summer that were ruined by heavy rain. Organizers should know by now that rain happens, and prepare for the possibility!

Covered areas should be standard practice, either inside a building or under large tents. Muddy roads that require campers to be towed out should be gravelled. Year after year this happens, and year after year they don't improve the roads.

The most recent event was a one-day festival at the Bethlehem Fairgrounds in Connecticut, which was called off because of the forecast of rain. Don't those fairgrounds all have buildings?

Sound bleed is also a major problem, especially when the sound is bleeding into our campsite where we're trying to jam. The Grey Fox festival (formerly Winterhawk) has a dance tent that plays loud, electric, zydeco party music, pointed directly at the RV camping area, and also interfering with sound at the main stage and several workshop stages. After a long talk with Mary Tyler Daub, who runs the festival, we convinced her to move the dance tent next year.

And while I'm whining, what about those goons who smoke cigars in the audience? Podunk festival (East Hartford, CT) had a jerk who cleared an entire area of the audience, and he was left sitting there alone with only his long-suffering wife.

Complain. Let your issues be known to the people who can do something about them. Speak up.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Midchuck
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 09:59 AM

The children thing isn't limited to festivals. You get it at concerts in the winter too. The perpetrators (parents, that is - you can't blame the kids for not knowing how they're supposed to act if nobody told them, and enforced it 'till they got the idea) are, IMO, usually one of the following: 1) aging hippies who think that any restraints on their children at all will impair their goddam natural creativity, or 2) yuppies who (both parents) work long hours and feel that teaching their children the basics of civilized behaviour should be the day care provider's job, because they're busy and need to relax on their time off, or 3) divorced parents trying to be extra nice to the kid so it will like him/her better than the other parent.

Our civilization in the next generation will be interesting. I'm glad I'll be dead or too senile to notice.

I only see the food thing as a problem at festivals like NEFFA (we had a thread on this last spring) where all the food available is "organic"/exotic/vegetarian because they figure meat-and-potatoes rednecks like me shouldn't be at their nice sensitve festival anyway. If I can get a hamburger and fries, I'm happy. If I can only get a platter of vegetables I don't recognize as food, I complain.

Playing spoons or bones along with the music shouldn't be a problem. Every normally constructed person has a convenient orifice where the spoons or bones can be placed for safekeeping until the set is over.

Singing along is more of a problem because I see it as an annoyance if other people do it, but I'm liable to find myself doing it if I know the song well, and not even being fully aware of it. Certainly, if anyone is annoyed by people singing along on the chorus, if the song has a chorus, the person annoyed is the one with the problem, not the person singing - that's what the chorus is for. If someone sings all the way through, it's probably reasonable to ask him/her (politely, the first time) to stop.

Sound bleed should be able to be worked around with careful planning of the stages, and directions which stages point, unless some of the stages have loud electrified music - in which case, it's no longer a folk festival, and outside the scope of this discussion.

Just my gut reactions.

Peter.

Subject: RE: festival woes
From: Noreen
Date: 14 Aug 00 - 02:29 PM

No real woes from my first Cropredy, two days (for me) of almost continuous, wonderful live music, in an unbelievably friendly atmosphere, excellent weather and meeting a fellow Mudcatter for the first time.Hi Bron!

The point black walnut raised about recorded music reminded me though, that the same CD was put on between acts several times. No complaints with that as such, as it was Bob Fox's new CD 'Dreams Never Leave Us' which I love- but- they put it on at the beginning every time & so we got to know the first couple of tracks extremely well but never heard the ones near the end!

BTW, anyone who is wondering whether Beatles songs are becoming 'folk' (as mentioned in a thread somewhere, or was it on HearMe?) should hear Bob Fox's version of 'From Me To You' on that CD- it's really lovely.

Noreen