Friday, November 17, 2006
First Annual Troutown Riverfest CXXXVII a Bust
Well folks, I was hoping to be able to write an article about how successful the First Annual Troutown Riverfest CXXXVII was, but I can’t in good conscience, considering the turnout we had.
By the way, if you’re wonderin’ why it’s called the First Annual Troutown Riverfest CXXXVII, it’s because the festival used to be called Fishfest, ever since it started back in 1870. But as you know if you’ve even been to a Fishfest, the stench of rotting fish on the riverbank is quite powerful, and is believed to be the reason we can never get good talent to perform at the festival. So this year, the festival committee voted unanimously to change the name to Riverfest. But we also wanted to acknowledge that the festival is still a storied tradition, as old as Troutown itself. So we carried over the roman numerals from Fishfest (people really like the roman numerals!). In other words, although this is the first “Riverfest”, it’s the 137th festival. If you’re still confused, just give a holler to festival chairperson, Dort Priffle, and she can explain further.
Anyway, back to the Riverfest debacle. We started out thinkin’ this would be the best festival in the town’s history. We had what seemed like a great idea to solve the fish smell. The festival committee got together and went to the Stumpville Wal*mart to purchase 100 pedestal fans. We figured we’d use the fans to blow the fish smell back toward the river, and over into Stumpville. P.S., we went to Wal*mart instead of Troutown’s own Johnson Hardware (voted best hardware store in the Tri-Country area!) because we were going to return all the fans after the festival to get our money back. Take that Wal*mart!
We even put the word out to the community that this year’s festival would be fish-smell free. Because of this we were able to get an AMAZING lineup. We got musicians Collective Soul (for the young adults and alternative music crowd), Foghat (for the classic rockers), and comedians Sinbad (for diversity), and Gallagher II (for everyone!). It truly was an all-star lineup -- a real coup for Troutown -- and everyone was set to thumb their noses at Stumpville’s annual Woodfest. For once we would have the better lineup, and the better festival!
Well, the events that ensued were terrible. Just awful. Here’s what happened. We had all the fans lined up in rows, all connected into power strips and plugged into an outlet near the Gazebo & Picnic Area. Everything was working great for the first day -- the fish smell was barely detectable. Foghat was singing their heart out, and Sinbad managed a few laughs here and there. The real trouble started when Gallagher II took the stage on day two of the festival. Instead of doing the watermelon smashing gag (which I guess is owned by his brother, the original Gallagher), he thought he’d spice it up and smash some fish. Long story short, when Gallagher II started hammering those fish, the pieces flew out into the audience and into the back of the fans. As you might imagine, the fans started chopping up the pieces of fish and spraying it all over the crowd. It was horrible. The crowd started booing, but apparently Gallagher II is quite used to that, so he didn’t stop his act. More and more fish were brought on stage and smashed, until the grounds and attendees of Riverfest were completely covered in fish puree.
The smell was the worst in festival history, and we had to shut down in the middle of day two, before Collective Soul even had a chance to play their first hit.
The lost revenues and attendance from the early shutdown, combined with the fact that we couldn’t return the fans to Wal*mart (apparently their “no questions asked” return policy doesn’t apply to the questions “Hey why do these fans smell like fish?” and “You expect me to refund your money for these fish fans?”) made the festival a real disappointment.
Hopefully we can redeem ourselves when the Second Annual Troutown Riverfest CXXXVIII rolls around. I can tell you this, their will be some shake-up in the festival committee.
