We’ve wrapped up everything backstage at Chevy Court this week…whew – what a crazy couple of weeks!
Everyone thinks it’s so much fun to work backstage at a big venue – because we’re just hanging out getting our pictures taken with famous bands, right?
Not exactly…
We have fun because we have an amazing team, but that’s not what it’s about.
Our job is to make our guests feel comfortable, ensure they have a smooth visit to Syracuse and stay out of their way as much as possible. The visiting artists have to be “on” when they are in the public eye, so our goal is always to help them relax as much as possible behind the scenes – it’s sacred space, and a lot of effort goes into making sure nobody bothers them, including a pretty serious security perimeter and seasoned support staff. If anyone were to ask for autographs or pictures, they would quickly find themselves escorted out the door and blacklisted.
No fanboys (or girls) allowed.
Our little team worked our butts off to make it happen, with most of us working 12+ hour days for 20 days in a row. There were 10 of us dedicated to hospitality, catering and ground transportation, but by the end of the Fair we were down to 8 thanks to the grueling schedule.
FUN FACTOIDS:
We took care of 2 bands every day on the Chevy Court stage, plus a handful of national acts on the NY Experience Stage: Mir Fontaine, Blondie, Dave Mason & Steve Cropper, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Ravyn Lanae, Ludacris, Live, Counting Crows, Jackyl, Hunter Hayes, Herman’s Hermits, Smokey Robinson, Temptations, Dropkick Murphys, Moriah Formica, L’il Yachty, Jukin’ Bone, Hanson, Spirit of Johnny Cash, Big & Rich, Collective Soul, ZZ Top, Brownskin Band, A Boogie wit da Hoodie, Maren Morris, Niall Horan, Eddie Money, Foghat and Steppenwolf.
We provided meals for the bands and crew, but we also shopped for hospitality items. While there were certainly some oddball requests – like protein chips, powdered peanut butter and balsamic vinegar – many of the lists were very similar and surprisingly simple. A hospitality rider “starter kit” would include peanut butter, jelly, lunchmeat, loaves of bread, Tostitos and salsa.
We did get a few requests for M&Ms, but thankfully nobody requested that the brown ones be taken out.
We had a Fiji water shortage in Syracuse for the last 2 weeks of August…EVERYONE wanted square water this year, so I was vacuuming it off the shelves.
Sorry!
A few of the tours had some seriously sticky fingers. Two of them stole (or tried to steal) everything that wasn’t nailed down – towels, trash cans, soap, shampoo, display baskets, etc, and one drummer of an iconic band liked our photo of BB King so much that he tucked it into his wardrobe case and left with it.
Rude.
By the time the show starts, most of our work is done so we can watch the concert from backstage or the pit if we want to, which is pretty awesome. I took full advantage of that perk and got to see some killer performances from less than 10 feet away.
Did you know that you have to do a soundcheck for a chainsaw?
Foul crew language and dirty jokes sound positively elegant when delivered in a British accent.
We used a common hospitality area for meals with disposable paper plates and plastic utensils. Crew and band members from the national acts always cleaned up after themselves. The local bands often didn’t.
It is possible for a grown adult running a major tour to have a meltdown over tacos. Seriously.
I made 65 trips to Wegmans over 15 days, averaging about 4 visits per day, often to multiple locations.
In related news, I’m working on finding a therapist to help me overcome my grocery shopping induced PTSD.
According to my Fitbit, I averaged about 7 miles a day – most of it in the grocery store.
I have blisters on my blisters.
Did you know you can make an emergency, makeshift table out of cases of water, gaff tape and a tablecloth? We call this “guerrilla catering”.
We went through 14 gallons of my cold brew coffee in 11 days…it was a big hit!
I wrote about our first batch HERE, we made it with La Colombe Corsica. We are required to purchase all of our supplies for Chevy Court from Wegmans. While they have a really nice selection of higher-end coffee – Counter Culture, Intelligentsia, La Colombe, and Death Wish – the Corsica was the only one available already ground. Since our little home grinder wouldn’t easily handle 7lbs of coffee, that’s the route we chose for Batch #1.
It was a really fun experience exposing the team to real cold brew for the first time – most of them were drinking iced coffee and didn’t realize there was a difference. Within a day or two, they were totally hooked!
When we blew through that first batch in a few days, I decided to drag the grinder we bought for the Listening Room back to our house and try that out. For Batch #2 I picked up 6lbs of whole bean Counter Culture Forty-six (a dark roast) and 1lb of Death Wish to give it an extra caffeine kick.
The used grinder we found on Craigslist worked great – YAY! – and we used a coarser grind this time around. The results were incredible. While the first batch tasted great, it was a very clean, somewhat neutral coffee flavor. The second batch was far more complex, with delicious chocolatey tones in it. It got rave reviews, and I think using a darker roast is totally the way to go. I’m super excited to try out different recipes to find the perfect cold brew for our place.
While working at Chevy Court was a blast, and I always learn a ton every time I work for my friend Stacey, I’m really looking forward to getting back to my “normal” life. We have some progress happening with our permits and our plumber is back from vacation soon, so we’ll be going full speed ahead to get 443 open for business in the next month or two. Stay tuned!
