It doesn’t feel like the third Sunday of the month…this one snuck up really fast. So what bluegrass news do I have, what CBA philosophies to peddle, and what updates are pending? I will be able to tell you more this afternoon. The CBA Board is having our annual FDF Retrospective today and the agenda looks long and intimidating. This is when we look at the past festival, see what went wrong, what went right, what went sideways, and try to make any festival course directions for the next year’s 2020 festival. This has become a really important meeting especially since our festival is much bigger and more complex to produce than it was some 44 years ago.
One example, that keeps some of us awake at night is worrying about our Fire Marshall inspections. It has been a learning experience not only for us but for all the festivals at the Nevada County fairgrounds, and even a learning experience for the fairgrounds itself. This year was much easier to manage than the 2018 inspection in part because Montie Elston and Tim Edes and a small team of CBA board members worked really hard with the other festivals and the fairgrounds to make sure we all knew what to expect and be in compliance before-hand. This paid off and our fire inspection was about as good as could be expected. There are always a few glitches; one was pretty amusing having to do with inflatable sofas and some adult beverages, but in the end it worked out. One silver lining is that we now have some good channels of communication with the other music festivals that use the fairgrounds, especially Strawberry, and hope to keep working with them and the fairgrounds to make it better for all the festivals and their attendees.
Since I have to run to a board meeting in about an hour I’m going to post up this short welcome column. I’ll end with on a bit of a sad note…for those of you who had the opportunity to meet Batso-the-wonder-dog, my Cardigan Welsh Corgi, well he passed last week at the age of 15 years and 8 months. If you would like to pick a tune, raise a glass of beer, throw a frisbee, or roll in something really smelly in honor of his time here on this green ball, it would be much appreciated.
