Nothing to worry about.

In staff meeting today, we went 'round the table and each shared one thing we were excited about and one thing we were worried about with respect to this Friday's sold out Super Duper Groovefunkathonic Concert Extravaganza: Dr. John and The Neville Brothers.

This is a huge show for us on many levels:

• It's expensive. I'm not gonna lie - it's tied for the most expensive show we've done here. Legendary artists demand - and get - large sacks o' cash to play.
  
• Despite that, it's a fundraiser, with a silent auction and a raffle (the prizes are cool: two winners, and each winner gets backstage passes to all of the Summer of the Arts events AND two "Golden Tickets" to the Englert that will get you in the door for anything all year).
• It's our first collaboration with Summer of the Arts.
• It's essentially two whole shows, back to back, each with all of their own gear (which is coming in from Chicago that day), their own management and their own quirks.
• Each act has an incredibly long and comprehensive rider (do you know how long we spent trying to find someone who had a specific rare kind of fish who could also cook it a particular way? No, you don't.).
• We have more coffee makers and tea pots (thank you, Board!) than what would reasonably seem to be necessary.
  
• It's sold out.
• People are literally begging for seats.
• There will most likely be a lot of people in line that night for standing-room-only tickets, so crowd control will be key.
• There are a lot of sponsors, which means a lot of work to make sure everyone gets their benefits and is thanked in the right way.
• It might snow.
• ...and so on.
  

it is safe to say that this show has dominated our collective attention over here for quite some time. There are certainly a great many details that have to go exactly right to pull off the event without a hitch, and a great many of those details are outside of our control.

Despite that, around the table today, the worries people expressed were all minor enough that I think I can say that we're not really that worried at all. We're anxious, sure. But more than anything I think we're excited.

Excited to see this place bursting at the seams with people. Excited to experience two musical legends on our stage. Excited to do what we do.

In other news:

• I'll be at the Twestival tomorrow night, at least for a little bit. We donated a couple pair of Mason Jennings tix to be given away. If you're into Twitter, stop out. If you don't know what I'm talking about, start here.
• We just booked Lez Zeppelin for April 8th! Tix on sale... soon.
• We're getting some people together tonight for a first meeting about a reeeeeeally cool thing happening this October.
• I have 8, um, tubes? things? of lip balm on my desk, courtesy of one of our board members who works at Raining Rose in CR.
• One of our window microphones in the box office is broken - again. C'mon, Telex people. Get it right this time. Please. Thank you.