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Thanks! Thanks to everyone who made this festival such a great success. We won't know how successful it was financially for several days. But from a staging and planning and musical standpoint, it was a raging success! And I thank you all for showing up! Posted by JAmberg
Final 2 days! You know, I really meant to write more. But then the Sasser Worm arrived as an unwelcome guest on my new computer and well..that's how it goes. I am so excited. The weather looks great, I really think we'll have a good turn-out. Still lots of details to deal with, but we'll do it one at a time. I'm looking forward to being on my old radio station, Rock 92 tomorrow morning. Demm and I are going to do a Put Up or Shut Up trivia contest. I have a nasty feeling that Chris Demm will mop the floor with me. Hey I'm in sales at a soul station, gimme a break! But it will be fun. If you are reading this blog and you have not yet purchased festival tickets, please do so now. Don't miss out! Posted by JAmberg
Jump, Jump, Jump For Joy! One of my new favorites by Big Jack Johnson. Mark Rivers played it on the Blues Hangover tonight along with "Festival Time Boogie," by Sista Monica. That always puts me in the Festival mood! Mark Rivers is doing a fabulous job on the Blues Hangover. Tonight my daughter Jessica and I went to the Y for a swim. I hadn't been in almost a month and it felt good. Really relieves the stress (stress? What's that?!) I'm feeling good tonight. Everyone seems to be doing what they need to do to get ready. We've scheduled a final walk through on Tuesday; the tents go up Wednesday, DGI puts up their perimeter fence on Thursday, and we do final set up Friday and Sat. morning. I have composed a very thorough time line so that everyone knows what is supposed to happen, who is supposed to show up and at what time. Posted by JAmberg
I will NOT look at a long range weather forecast...I Will NOT look at a... Excited and nervous. Mostly excited. Things are taking shape but we still have a lot to do. I'm trying to pace myself and stay organized. We are currently in negotiations with the owners of the parking lot next to Center City Park. We need that lot to park the beer trucks, performers vehicles, etc. If we can't get it, we'll have to park everything on Davie St. and it will be a headache. Our goal is to troubleshoot as much as we can in advance so we can deal with the last minute snafus that invariably occur. Of course the one thing we can't control is the weather. Therefore I am not worrying about it. At all. Really. Posted by JAmberg
Friday, April 23, 2004 We're BLUES MOBBING TONIGHT! At the Next Door Tavern, downtown Greensboro, 219 S. Elm. Hope it goes well. It's part of the Arts Alive event. We're out early from 6p-9p. Picked up my CD copy of the "Blues Under The Big Tent" program that will air this weekend on Rock 92. (and again next Sunday). It really turned out well. Marcia Gan did an excellent job with it. Eugene Sims, my old mate from my Rock 92 days, also worked on it. Eugene also produced the :60 festival promo and it turned out very nicely. Those guys have been in our corner since the '92 festival. It's a fine partnership. Hmmm...will we have enough space for what we need to do downtown. I'm getting a little restive about the number of large vehicles that will be downtown. I'm certain we will figure something out. Posted by JAmberg
April 21, 2004 So do I hope this warm weather stays with us through May 8? You bet. But I know I can't worry about the things I can't control (although I still do). Thanks to Spencer Andrews, Bluesletter editor, Trustee and good friend, we now have another cool publicity piece to mail to our members today. The Festival Bluesletter looks good and is a nice companion piece to the glossy brochure that got mailed out last week. The Rock 92 radio campaign goes into full gear this Friday, too. Ticket sales are a little stronger than at this time last year, but the numbers are not impressive. At this point in time, they never are. Our folks like to see what the weather looks like before they buy tickets. I'm hoping all our publicity will pay off, because we really need a good crowd. I've been reminding the folks on the e-blast list (the hard core blues lovers) that if every one of the 500 or so recipients of the e-blast buy a pair of tickets, we'll be set. All we can do is put the information out there and hope the folks show up. I am confident this will be a great festival for us! Posted by JAmberg
Monday, April 19, 2004 My day job is account executive for Entercom Radio. The stations I sell advertising for are WQMG and WEAL AM. This past weekend, I was at our 3rd Annual Kids Carnival at the Greensboro Coliseum. On my feet in the sun for about 12 hours. It was a good warm-up for the upcoming Festival. I kept thinking as I watched the over 20,000 people at this event, "oh if we could just get 50f this crowd at our Festival!" Fortunately, we're doing something fun for the kids this year at the 18th Annual Carolina Blues Festival. Our kids area should be a lot of fun. Check out the details of the kids area at our festival page, www.piedmontblues.org Posted by JAmberg
Saturday, April 10 You need to pace yourself as you head down the home stretch. Last night I completely unplugged and watched the Cubs outlast the Braves in 15 innings. Very relaxing and, since I'm a Cubs fan, very enjoyable! Plus when you spend as much time on the Festival as I do, you need to give your family a break, too. My wife Julie is an amazing woman, very supportive and patient when it comes to this time of the year. We have a full board of trustees meeting on Tuesday. Before that, Jeff Farran and I need to meet with Ray Gibbs with Downtown Greensboro, Inc. A Cinco De Mayo festival is going to take place at the park on Sunday May 9 and we have some new logistics to work out. But it's all good. Ray is an ally and we're getting a good deal on the park. Work continues and we're all very excited for Saturday, May 8. Hope you are, too. Posted by JAmberg
Thursday, April 8, 2004 Pretty good Blues Mob last night at the Blind Tiger. Not the biggest crowd but the taping of the cable access show "Beat Street" went very well. It was great to see Bump & Logie acoustic; they're great! BWO is always a pleasure and Bryan Smith had the lime green Gretsch sounding good. Any chance to promote the Carolina Blues Festival is a good night. Ogi Overman did a brief interview with me so I could talk about May 8. Went well. The publicity piece is out for the Carolina Blues Festival and it looks superb. Loring Mortensen did an excellent job on the brochure and poster. I just got back from the Bulk Mail center, where I mailed out 435 of these pieces to current and past PBPS members and our comp list. It's starting to come together. Much still needs to be done but right now the whole committee and Board of Trustees are energized and focused. I have not felt such unity in some time! Posted by JAmberg
Welcome to the Carolina Blues Festival Web Log (Blog) Hello, blues lovers. John Amberg here and welcome to my web log (blog) for the 18th Annual Carolina Blues Festival. Over the next five weeks or so I'll be making regular entries as we draw closer to the 18th Annual Carolina Blues Festival, Saturday May 8th in downtown Greensboro at Center City Park. A lot of planning and preparation goes into these blues festivals. This will sort of give you a behind-the-scenes look at how we pull this annual event off. From time to time I might inject some personal opinions and philosophy that are mine alone and in no way reflect the opinions of the PBPS. The idea is just for you to see the people behind the festival. I'll introduce you to some very good friends of mine who are working hard to make this blues festival the best one yet. Hope you enjoy! I try to do a little something every day for the blues festival. Today, aside from starting this blog, I wrote the first draft of the script for the radio show, tentatively titled "Blues Under The Big Tent," which will eventually air on Rock 92 on Sunday, April 25 and again on Sunday, May 2 (at 7am and 9pm respectively). On Tuesday, I will lay down the voice tracks for this show at the Rock 92 studios. I'll be working with Marcia Gan, a rock radio veteran whom you may remember from the old 94.5 Rock Alternative station. This will be the first year I will produce this show without my old friend Pete Bunch, who left Rock 92 at the end of 2003. But Marcia is a pro and I look forward to putting together an entertaining and informative show. We do the voice tracks first (simply recording the narrative parts) and put the music in later. I am a little concerned that right now, I do not have any Waymon Meeks music. He is sending me a CD of his in the mail. Whether it arrives in time for production remains to be seen! Posted by JAmberg |
