THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406010165
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: S04 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JANIE BRYANT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940603 LENGTH: Long
The Seawall Festival guests kick back and relax - and they don't think too much about all the work going on behind the scenes to make sure that the festival mood prevails.
{REST} Sometimes it's the details that give the event class and quality. The gift bags that get motored out to boaters in the harbor. The shady cool spot under a tent where mothers stroll their babies and help themselves to the free diapers provided by Hoechst Celanese.
Sounds like the kind of niceties that add up to big money. It could be, except for the fact that a lot of those little details get worked out by some 600 people who don't receive a dime.
They are the backbone of the festival - volunteers who come back year after year, many working up the ranks from one shift at the beer pumps to chairing a committee that meets for months.
Once they make it to the top of the volunteer ranks, volunteers are pretty much married to the festival. The only way to leave is to die or to recruit and groom one's own replacement.
``You certainly wouldn't leave if you weren't comfortable that the person you were leaving behind was going to do the job as well as you,'' said John Collins, who heads the beverage sales committee.
It's an understood requirement.
So committee chairmen are encouraged to develop their own staffs, to call on friends and family that they know they can depend on. That family element is part of the glue that holds the volunteers together and makes every festival a kind of reunion.
And if the sun shines on those three days, those key volunteers still gather afterward and take it apart, trying to make sure the next year's event is even better.
``Usually it's logistical things like maybe we shouldn't have put the first aid tent here, maybe we should have put it here,'' said Linda Lamm, director of Ports Events.
``Then there's always the sharing of comments overheard from the crowd,'' she said. ``Did they like the entertainment? Who is not as good as they used to be? What did the kids like in the children's area?''
And every year there are the little refinements that most people don't think about.
Like the golf-cart size vehicle that has been equipped the same as an ambulance, even to the box for transporting people. The vehicle will be easier than an ambulance to get out into the crowd, said John Williams, who heads the first aid committee.
Last year Williams' volunteers, made up of Portsmouth General staff, treated about 77 festival-goers with problems ranging from scrapes and sunburns to high blood sugar and even one broken foot.
While Williams puts the last touches on his festival contribution, Sarah Mays will be holding a bag-stuffing party to prepare the 500 bags of sponsor-donated freebies that will be given out to boaters.
There are only four people on her committee, but she's not worried.
``You sweat it and then it all comes through at the last minute.''
Not that there aren't some hitches in the festival history.
There was the time the main beer truck burned up in the tunnel and never made it to the festival. Another time an ice truck didn't show, and the beer stayed hot and the meats started to spoil before a substitute was found.
And no one forgets the man who has gone down in festival history as ``snake man'' - a festival-goer who showed up with a boa wrapped around his neck.
``You can imagine the stampede,'' said Diana Prather, chairman of beverage ticket sales and the designated-driver program. ``(People) either ran toward him or they ran from him.
``You should have seen the look on Linda's (Lamm) face,'' Prather added. ``She pushed a button on the walkie-talkie and said `I need a friend,' which means `get a policeman here now.'
``It's one of the things we laugh at now, but it wasn't funny at the time,'' she said.
But the one thing that really bothers festival workers is the factor they can't control: the weather.
``I remember last year we had this big rainstorm and we were wrapping things up at night,'' said Collins.
By the time Collins could get out of the rain, the bright hat he had worn so volunteers could find in the crowd had turned his hair hot pink.
``By the end of the day, that's the last insult,'' he said.
But getting wet is part of being a volunteer.
``The worse thing is when it gets dangerous,'' Lamm said. ``I remember the year that it was so windy . . . there were hot dog buns flying through the air.
``It started just raining cats and dogs and we were running around to tents unplugging lights and equipment.
``The pole that held up the center (of one tent) started to wobble, and I remember like a fool screaming for everyone to get out and me trying to hold the (pole) up like a fool.
``That was scary.''
With Nature so ready to spoil the day, why do so many volunteers return year after year to broil in the sun or get drenched by the rains.
``I think working a festival is as much fun as going to them,'' said Prather, who was recruited by Collins, her boyfriend. ``You get to meet a lot of different people and you're there the whole weekend.
``You're in on everything,'' she said. ``To me it's about the cheapest form of fun there is.''
Collins agrees.
``We normally get there beginning on Friday,'' he said. ``By the end of the festival, we're ready for it to be over.
``But the strange thing about it - by January you can't wait for it to start again.''
{KEYWORDS} PORTSMOUTH SEAWALL FESTIVAL
by CNB