|
In reality, it's four people, a stack of applications and a long, often stressful, afternoon.
This year's scheduling meeting lasted 4 1/2 hours and took place in a meeting room at KTOO. At the end, 136 performance slots were filled and 22 acts were on stand-by.
"I expected a few more," festival secretary Michael Sakarias said of this year's applications. "There were a number of names and applications of performance groups that had played in previous years that didn't show up in the mix. And there were a bunch of people that turned up that never had before."
In mid-February, Alaska Folk Festival board members were bracing to receive a record number of performer applications for the 30th annual event. By March 5, the deadline, it hadn't happened. For the 20th annual festival, there were 160 possible slots, and 44 applications too many - a grand total of 204.
However, many acts don't even play on stage, preferring instead to hang out and jam informally during the week.
"The playing is actually secondary," said Sally Freund, a longtime performer who splits her time between Palmer and Hector, N.Y. She was on the schedule last year and will make the trip this year. But she did not apply. "I'd just as soon talk or dance or listen to somebody else. I'd rather just play at the Alaskan late hours or in a bar or in the street."
Still, the questions remain: How is the folk festival scheduled? Who decides why someone plays at 7 p.m. Monday, rather than 8:45 p.m. Saturday? Who decides which 22 acts are placed on stand-by?
The process starts with the application - sent out in a newsletter and available online. It doesn't ask for an audition tape, just a simple description of each act. It asks how many people are in the group, whether and when the act has played at the festival before and what days the act is unable to play.
"By the time I got to the festival in 1982, the fact that you sign up to play by filling out some simple form was a real attractive thing," Fairbanks musician Will Putman said. "There was no audition tape, no questions about how experienced you are or what kind of music you played. If you felt like something to show or say or do in 15 minutes, you could do it. I really appreciated the effort to make that opportunity available to as many people as possible.
Scheduling begins during the weekend after the application deadline - March 6-7 this year. Board members met for 41ˇ2 hours at KTOO.
Normally, the members place nine manila folders on the table, one for each set (Monday to Sunday evening, Friday to Saturday afternoon). They begin arranging the piles by who can't play on certain days. Many out-of-town acts have to arrange their trip around the weekend and can't play early in the week. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, then, are often dominated by Juneau groups.
The board attempts to spread out genres and band sizes for variety, to ensure that some nights aren't filled with stretches of bluegrass or solo songwriters. The board also tries to avoid putting anyone on standby two years in a row. This year, a draft schedule was typed into a computer by Tuesday, March 9. It was taken to a printer on Thursday, mailed to performer applicants on Friday and on the festival Web site (www.juneau.comˇaff) by Saturday evening.
The entire scheduling process is inexact, board members say. For the 20th, the board met for 31ˇ2 hours, then held another 90-minute meeting and still hadn't decided on a schedule. Sakarias and Banghart finally hashed out the schedule during lunch.
"The process got to be more cumbersome when the number of spots, the number of days and the number of people expanded exponentially," said Bob Banghart, a former board member who helped with scheduling for 20 years. "But if you look at the form, it hasn't changed much. It's pretty basic: When can't you play? If everything is out but Saturday night, then good luck. If you played on Saturday night last year, you aren't going to get that spot next year. You're going to go to the front of the line or the end of the line."
There are cancellations every year, and fill-in acts are chosen from the stand-by list. The average number of cancellations varies from eight to 12 and was high as 16 one year, Sakarias said. As of Monday, March 22, four acts had canceled.
"We'd love it if people were calling in as soon as they knew they weren't going to make it, so we could put someone in their spot as soon as possible," Sakarias said. "The longer they wait for cancellations, the more likely it is that somebody from standby will give up waiting."
Even with standbys, some people are left out. Occasionally, that's created hard feelings.
"If we point to the program and say, 'Who should we take out,' and if they can point to someone, then maybe their ego is a little bit too big for the folk festival," Sakarias said.
"One guy called me up and chewed me out because he didn't get what he wanted," Banghart said. "I said, 'How many years have you played?' He said, 'I've been playing for 22 years.' I said, 'You know what, if it came down to giving you a spot, or giving some kid a spot, guess who would get it? That kid, because he hasn't been there.' Precedent is set by who hasn't played, who's new to the community."
But even if you're new to town or the festival, it doesn't mean you're guaranteed a spot.
   
|