Live Music 30A Songwriters Festival, January 15 -17, 2010

[Here4Good]

This was an absolutely amazing event!
Only negative IMO was the incredibly rude behavior of many of my fellow attendees. Standing in front of people and refusing to move, talking during performances, constantly getting up and moving around, yelling at the performers for taking too long to set up - WTF?

Sounds like they are accustomed to attending events at Chastain in Atlanta...

 

[aggieb]

Sounds like they are accustomed to attending events at Chastain in Atlanta...

i've attended events at chastain, hmm interesting i must've missed this type of behavior.

how can you compare in the first place? completely different venues.:roll:

 

[scooterbug44]

Haven't been to the Chastain, but many o' the rudesters were familiar faces.

 

[Matt J]

I agree with SB, it amazes me how people can be so ungrateful for 3 days of world class entertainment at an incredibly affordable price.

Thanks to the founders, organizers, volunteers, artists, and everybody who helped to make this an event that I'm already looking forward to next year.

clap:

 

[Jdarg]

I agree with SB, it amazes me how people can be so ungrateful for 3 days of world class entertainment at an incredibly affordable price.

Thanks to the founders, organizers, volunteers, artists, and everybody who helped to make this an event that I'm already looking forward to next year.

clap:

Many of the artists we talked to are looking forward to next year as well!

I'm not sure where to start when writing about the weekend. To say the Festival put a big positive spotlight on our community is the understatement of the century. If you participated in any way, you felt the energy and heard the buzz and knew that this Festival is just going to get bigger and better every year. The organizers have given a beautiful gift to our community!

I also want to give a big shout out to Watercolor and Fish Out of Water, who had special affordable drink prices along with a great simple menu for the Festival- way to add to the experience of locals and visitors by doing this! People remember businesses that "adjust" to the event.

Also, Shorty's was a small space and it was crazy at times, but Henry and crew were very accommodating, and the artists that ate in the "green room" last night said they loved their food.

 

[scooterbug44]

Everyone who went had a GREAT time and is REALLY looking forward to next year!

This is going to be one of THE must-do 30-a events (like MountainFilm) that people plan their schedules around IMO. I know I certainly will.

 

[Foodlover]

Wow! What a great event! Shorty's would like to say thanks to Jennifer, the CAA and all the Volunteers!

 

[Bobby J]

I second that! What an amazing event. To all of you that put it together, a huge applause (standing ovation)! Thank you for bringing an event to the area in the off season as well!!!

To those of you complaining about crowds and not getting into see your favorite shows..... Try to be understanding. This thing was huge and they did an amazing job. Next year, arrive earlier or join CAA and help out.

 

[scooterbug44]

I didn't think getting in was so difficult - it was just a planning/priority issue.

My initial thought was that I was going to location hop - then that went out the window as we discussed the popularity of different groups. And I liked that my plan of getting to a venue early to get a seat meant that I saw a wider variety of artists/some I might not have seen otherwise.

Obviously there are always a couple minor tweaks that can improve an event for the next year, but I was quite surprised at how smoothly everything went considering it was the first year and the variety of potential issues that had been anticipated and planned for.

 

[bchtravlr]

Planning and Prioritizing

This weekend was all about planning and prioritizing!

There were several artists we didn't get to see, but we wanted to, but we also got enjoy many others with premium seats because we showed up early, and watched some musicians/writers we knew nothing about!

We chose to skip the Indigo Girls after we were still outside at 2:40, knowing the wait inside Shorty's would be better than the wind chill at Alys Beach ( in our opinion!). We had a great Shorty's lunch and got to see dynamite performances from 5-9 pm.

With as big as this is likely to get, we are all going to have to encourage other venues with appropriate space to participate next year! If Shorty's small area could do such a great job, then certainly others like Pandora's, Loui-Loui (coming soon), etc. Red Bar could probably do some daytime venue's that wouldn't conflict with the neighborhood ordinances!

Cudos for a great first impression!