Why Sunday’s Concert on the Square was Cut Short
Decatur Metro | September 6, 2010Larry English of last night’s Concert on the Square band, “Zydeco T” wrote in this morning recapping the events of yesterday evening and requested I try to obtain an explanation for why the sound company pulled the plug on the concert at 8p with little warning.
“There were 1000 people expecting us to play til 9:00. dancing kids, grown ups, it was shocking. The plug was just pulled at 8 pm. No amount of money or begging would change anything.”
I sent a note out to DBA president Scott Drake and Decatur Book Festival Executive Director Daren Wang earlier today for clarification.
Scott returned my email, confirming English’s account of how the sound crew was unwilling to stick around, adding…
I offered to buy his crew dinner or pay extra so we could have another hour, but he said no they were leaving.
Daren also replied promptly, accepting responsibility for the Sunday night event not being listed on the sound company’s task list for the weekend, and apologizing to the city’s Katie Abel for putting her in the position of having to break the news to an unhappy crowd that the concert was over.
However, Daren admitted he was also surprised by the sound crew’s “unwillingness to make things work”, noting that Ron Simpson’s sound company “has earned the highest accolades in the festival business.” According to Daren, Simpson was “off the grid last night, otherwise this would have had a significantly different outcome.”
Simpson chimed in shortly thereafter, verifying Daren’s statement. He apologized and accepted full responsibility for the incident, promising to make things up to the festival as soon as it could be arranged.
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nice reporting!
Nice to see a vendor accept responsibility and apologize. That counts for a lot.
And does anyone know why the sound system wasn’t set up and ready to go until more than 30 minutes late?
it was the same problem
sound guy planned to leave, so they were packing up at 5:00
daren wang showed up, convinced them (under duress, apparently)
to throw together a minimally sized system,
but that didn’t get started early enough to be set up by 6:30
wle
zydeco t
Once the sound was set up (even in mini-form) y’all sounded great!
Can’t chanky-chank music be played without amplifiers? I know the sound waves would carry for some distance, so maybe the band should have just kept on playing anyway for the enjoyment of the crowd. Bummer of a sound company, apparently. Sorry to hear about that part…
without amplifiers
no, not really
i mean yes but the ‘some distance’ would have been about 10 feet in open air
also zydeco is more dependent on bass and drums than cajun music
the accordion and vocals cannot be heard over those, even if some sound would carry a while
without them, it’s not really what it’s supposed to be
also, we were distracted by trying to get the sound guy to stay
a lot of other bad things had happened before that, too
wle
zydeco t
we had considered playing acoustically, at 6pm,. when it looked like there would be no sound system
then it appeared, in a diminished form, so we didn’t have to figure that out
we also considered going home to get our sound
but that would have meant starting at 730
and the sound guys didn;t tell us they planned to leave at 8:00
wle
zydeco t
One thing I’d like to mention is just how many times Ron Simpson and his company have saved the day when I didn’t get something right. Year after year, his crew has covered for things I’ve gotten wrong. Because he’s that good, most folks don’t even notice there was an issue. Ron was one of the first people I called when we started talking about Eddie & Agnes, and I hope to use him again next year at the DBF.
Funny, I thought it was one of the best concerts I’d attended on the square! I loved the energy and loved seeing all the *older* folks dancing! Was a litle startled to hear the concert close so early, but…I had been on my feet all day at the children”s tent and I was exhausted!
thanks!
wle
zydeco t