“Swooping Vengeful Susan of Justice!”
Nice title, Dean… 
Well, as I mentioned in a previous post Seelie Court was performing at the Fountainside stage. As they started their performance Susan Scott Fry walked up and sat in the audience, clipboard in hand taking notes. About halfway through the set, I started noticing a loud bell and annoying whistle coming from down the hill. I assumed Dextre had switched to a bell in place of his chainsaw, however later it was mentioned to me that the bell was one of the town criers. After a few seconds of this mildly annoying interruption (On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being chainsaw, this was no more than a 5 in my book), I saw Susan’s head snap to the right, she stood up and took off towards Lord Mayors Forum at a brisk pace. The moment she arrived both the whistle and the bell fell silent. By the end of the song Susan had returned to her place in the audience, and there were no more interruptions from the Lord Mayors stage. By the end of the set, when she left, Susan seemed to be in a good mood and had laughed at some of the antics of the show.
As for which crier it was, I do not know, and I am also not sure if it was actually Dextre, or one of the other acts on the Lord Mayors Forum stage. I did not have my glasses on and so all I could see were various moving blobs of color. What I do know is that Susan has now personally witnessed how disruptive acts on the Lord Mayor’s Forum can be to acts at Fountainside even when just hawking for a show.
Thanks for the story!
Go Susan Go!!!
Comment by Di — 7/26/2007 @ 2:38 pm
Well, there were only two acts on that stage, Dexter Tripp and Geoff the Juggler, and I don’t remeber Geoff using a whistle at all.
I do know which Towne Cryer it was, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t think it would be fair to blame her, she was doing her job of hawking for the stage shows.
Fountainside is in an unfortunately place. Two larger stages face it directly, so you can hear everything up there. But Fountainside itself is a shell that faces away, so nothing can be heard from the other stages. Plus, it’s hard to see into the Fountainside shell from the others and there’s usually people lounging on those benches since it’s nicely shaded there. That makes it hard for anybody to tell from the other stages if there’s still an act going.
I think the best solution would be to schedule things so that there’s always a 10-15 minute gap between shows on Fountainside and Lord Mayor’s Forum. Of course, balancing that with making maximum use of the stages for all the talented acts they’ve brought in is a challenge as well.
Comment by Carl — 7/26/2007 @ 2:48 pm
I wsear I proff red me coments b4 postin. Were’d teh tpyos come frum?
Comment by Carl — 7/26/2007 @ 2:50 pm
You are on my blog.. It probably is so used to typos that it’s now inserting them automatically for people.
I agree that the location of Fountainside is unfortunate. It’s a great location for a stage because the breeze and shade naturally attract audiences. I also don’t blame the towne crier. Honestly, compared to a chainsaw their bells barely register. they are a very natural sound.
Scheduling changes would seem to be the best choice for resolving problems.
Comment by admin — 7/26/2007 @ 2:56 pm
’twere Geoff, who had his own bell with him, and who was joining with the Crier in hawking his show, both with bell and with whistle.
Susan had also been asked by someone to quell the criers somewhat when acts were a’stage. That morning, in fact. She was a bit hypersensitive to the fact, methinks. She was also sitting on the side nearest the commotion, and as such, it was a bit louder to her than most of the crowd (I was right behind her during, and noticed that noone had seemed to notice from the other side of the crowd).
Also of note, for the festival at large, is that the fact that few acts are amplified makes it easier for any noise to take stage from a music act, unless the vocalist has a powerful voice.
(there was, conincidentally, a third act on the stage: Dowland and Daughter)
Comment by J — 7/26/2007 @ 2:57 pm
Yep. I know the crier, too. She came up and profusely apologized. (apologized profusely?) Anyway, she said that she felt terrible about it. I had checked with Lindsay and neither of us had noticed the interruption. Poor Crier. It wasn’t her fault. She was hawking the show like she’s supposed to. Poor Susan because scheduling those stages is tricky. This year she didn’t put us up facing major drums or during loud acts…on purpose. (We might have run a touch late or they started a touch early when we overlapped.) 15 minutes between shows would be nice, but dang – we’d take up the 15 minutes then and do a 45 min show instead of getting off the stage.
Comment by Jess — 7/26/2007 @ 3:59 pm
I tend to agree with Jeremy that it probably wasn’t noticeable on the side farthest away from the Lord Mayors stage. I happened to be on the same side, and well, my ears are uber sensitive anyway so I noticed it.
Comment by admin — 7/26/2007 @ 4:15 pm
It is interesting to not that the Fountainside’s predecessor, the Gazebo Stage was the first of the three stages in the discussion. Next came the Lord Mayor’s Forum stage, then Bessie’s Harbor. They’re certainly maximizing their space, but unless they build some stockade fences to channel the sound, the overlap will always be a problem.
What they really need is a performance stage on the street that runs from the original mushroom booth to the Tuscany Tavern. That would relieve the congestion and would draw people down that street. I know they tried it in the past with some small stages (I believe the frame of the Fountainside stage used to be down there), but they need to bump a booth or two and make a stage the size of the Lord Mayor’s Forum stage. IMHO.
Comment by Dean — 7/26/2007 @ 4:27 pm
What they really need is a performance stage on the street that runs from the original mushroom booth to the Tuscany Tavern.
That would be Guild Hall Row. There’s actually an open space in there that’s been used for smaller musical acts, but it doesn’t work out very well. Of course, it’s not very deep, so it’s mostly “street music” rather than having a sit down audience.
Putting in a larger stage on Guild Hall Row would be a challenge because of the depth required. I think it would completely block the south access road, so it would have to be on the north side of the road. Those shops sit on top of a ridge, with another access road right behind, so putting a larger stage in would be a challenge.
Comment by Carl — 7/26/2007 @ 5:17 pm