Gentlemen:

I have a situation and I need help.

O.K. I'm booked at a festival and when I arrive I notice that the nearest seat is probably 35-feet away from the stage, creating this invisible wall between me and my audience.

To top it all off, 80% of the available seats are in the sun and because it's been so hot lately, hardly anyone wants to sit in the sun. Instead, most people decide to sit on benches that are in the shade. The problem is these seats are about 150 feet away from the stage.

I put on a decent children's show but it's not an illusion show with big props.

What would you do under these circumstances?

Thanks,

Gerry

Tell the kids to sit on the ground in front of the stage. No big mystery there.

I agree! Inviting a few to start there before the show usually makes it "OK" for the rest to do it.

Enjoy!

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

I've had the kids come up close to the stage and then I've aslo gone out to the bleachers and performed a little close-up/parlor type show up close and personal. The atendees loved it. I really preferred going out to the crowd. Derrick

I have had one show this year that the audience was diluted by the sun! Because it was so hot, there were only about ten people close by watching. There were some more very far away, under some trees, and anywhere there was shade. Very hard to perform for. Sometimes, you just plug away and do the show the best you can, even for two people.

At this particular show, I had a drunk couple and their teenage daughter (probably also drunk) walk by the stage. The mother started playing with the mics that were left for the bands at the front. The next 7 minutes of the show I played to them before they walked away. They were an audience, such as it were and they were entertained. I did my job.

Believe me I tried to get people to come closer. I tried many different busker tricks to get them over. Nothing could get people out of the shade. So you play to them best you can, and depending on your show, you leave the stage and go to those people if you can.

If you have the resources, you can also set up another tent directly in front of your own, for the audience to stand / sit under. You work under one tent, they are under the other.

(Sometimes I work under a tent at a festival, rather than on a formal stage.)

Although my customers are good at supplying a tent for me, sometime I should invest in an EZ-Up tent of my own (or two) to bring along.

- Donald

Gentlemen:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. All of this is helpful.

Gerry

Gerry,

How did it go?

Bob Sanders
Magic By Sander

Donald has exactly the right type of solution. I do festivals and fairs as 85% of the shows I do all year round. From April till the end of October my wife and I are working festivals every wekeend and enjoying every minute of it. This is not to say that you do not run into problems, you will and it happens more in this environment then in any other.

One of these problems is the sunlight and heat issue as well as rain and wind. They all factor in to the festival and fair markets and have to be handled and addressed differently.

When I perform at any festival, I keep in mind that most festival entertainment coodinators are hand picked by a gorup of people who are trying to help the community in any way that they can. In most cases (with the exception of the larger fair market) these people have never had to book entertainment before and are trying to do the best job possibe. With this in mind, you can really become a solutions provider to them. By listening to them you can usually spot some of the more problematic things that bother them and then offer solutions to address their needs.

One of the things my wife and I do is to educate our festival and fairs clients both on the phone and through our promo packet and an information sheet that covers off on some of the top things they can do to have a successful festival event. Many of these things are things that kelly and I experience first hand and we have had many clients tell us how much that sheet of peper meant to them and how glad they were that we went the extra mile to help them coordinate the event with them.

One thing I mention in this sheet is the area for staging. I cover off on the sun and having the stage in a shaded area if possible. I mention about having seats and chairs in the area with an asile to allow tfor ease of people coming and going. I talk abut having the stage near the food vendors so that people can grab a bite to eat and se a show at the same time making it easier for the festival to draw a crowd in this manner.

I can go on if anyone would like with some more examples of how kelly and I solve this issue if you would like. I have also started a large thread that may be of some help to you. You can check it out by going to:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......forum=44

I hope some of the information contained within may answer a lot of the festival questions you posed. If I can be of further help to you, please just let me know.

Kyle