An Imperfect Storm.
Jul. 16th, 2014 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogTonight was a rare Night Out for the three of us (down from four because Cameron couldn't get off work): Sara Bareilles scheduled a gig at Artpark, a mostly-outdoor venue half an hour to our north, and I got tickets a while back.
Seats would be our own, and would be outside, so I'd checked the weather forecast, which looked good. I also checked to be sure we could carry in our lawn chairs. Em got home in the afternoon, and went off to pick up friends to take Cam's ticket and an extra I'd ordered (they were all of 11 bucks apiece). I checked the directions and double-checked the yes-no list on their website, which is consistent with what the sign at the gate said:
So we were good with our chairs, a couple of pillows, maybe our water bottles (these posed no problem), and of course I had my phone and tablet with me, the latter mainly for reading if the main event went on late. We got to the parking lot about halfway through the opening act, only to find it full-up. Very little guidance on what to do from there; we parked on a neighbor's lawn for twice the state park price (but still quite reasonable), and looked up at a bunch of people climbing a very steep hill at the end of the block. Nope, not us; we walked the three blocks back to the real lot entrance, through it, and up to the ticket takers...
where I was denied entry on account of having a tablet.
I got a bit testy about it:
It's not on the list!
But you can take pictures and audio with it.
So can every one of the people on these grounds with a smartphone!
That's different.
Clearly, I was losing this battle, so I volunteered to walk it back to the car- it was still 10 minutes before Sara was scheduled to go on, twice that in my concert experience- and Eleanor stayed put outside the gate. (She spoke with the security people, who shared our frustration about them not making it clear enough until you were literally at the gate, and suggested that we take it up with management. Oh, which I will.)
I saved a lot of steps because Emily and her entourage weren't even parked yet, so I met up with them and parked my weapon of mass destruction in her car, then headed back just as the first notes of "Little Black Dress" were coming through the air. Unfortunately, they weren't alone: the rain, not due per forecast until well past 11, arrived just in time for the gig to start, and continued at a steady pace through her first three songs. From the moment I saw Eleanor at the gate, I could feel her misery, and we quickly turned tail and left- just as Em and her friends were coming in.
----
In all, we heard close to a third of her set from afar by the time we got back to the car- and then the final indignity turned into the most amazing moment.
Despite this being a major event, there was very little guidance on how to get back to our neck of the woods- two orange signs advised us that the ramp leading, eventually, to the 190 was closed, and that we should "follow 104."
In these parts, "104" is a once important east-west passage through the state's counties on Lake Ontario's south shore. In Rochester, it's a suburban strip road to the west and a full-blown expressway to the east, but in Lewiston and points east it's just straight, tree-lined, and, as we were just beginning to dry off, the host of one of the biggest and most beautiful rainbows we'd seen in years. We drove straight at it for a good ten minutes, something we would have totally missed in magnitude if we'd followed the usual route south.
We also saw plenty of hawks, and passed a buck on the off-ramp to our neighborhood.
So, not the night we expected, and one we're not likely to repeat in the not-so-great outdoors, but one where we did okay, not because of The Rules, but in spite of them.
Seats would be our own, and would be outside, so I'd checked the weather forecast, which looked good. I also checked to be sure we could carry in our lawn chairs. Em got home in the afternoon, and went off to pick up friends to take Cam's ticket and an extra I'd ordered (they were all of 11 bucks apiece). I checked the directions and double-checked the yes-no list on their website, which is consistent with what the sign at the gate said:
So we were good with our chairs, a couple of pillows, maybe our water bottles (these posed no problem), and of course I had my phone and tablet with me, the latter mainly for reading if the main event went on late. We got to the parking lot about halfway through the opening act, only to find it full-up. Very little guidance on what to do from there; we parked on a neighbor's lawn for twice the state park price (but still quite reasonable), and looked up at a bunch of people climbing a very steep hill at the end of the block. Nope, not us; we walked the three blocks back to the real lot entrance, through it, and up to the ticket takers...
where I was denied entry on account of having a tablet.
I got a bit testy about it:
It's not on the list!
But you can take pictures and audio with it.
So can every one of the people on these grounds with a smartphone!
That's different.
Clearly, I was losing this battle, so I volunteered to walk it back to the car- it was still 10 minutes before Sara was scheduled to go on, twice that in my concert experience- and Eleanor stayed put outside the gate. (She spoke with the security people, who shared our frustration about them not making it clear enough until you were literally at the gate, and suggested that we take it up with management. Oh, which I will.)
I saved a lot of steps because Emily and her entourage weren't even parked yet, so I met up with them and parked my weapon of mass destruction in her car, then headed back just as the first notes of "Little Black Dress" were coming through the air. Unfortunately, they weren't alone: the rain, not due per forecast until well past 11, arrived just in time for the gig to start, and continued at a steady pace through her first three songs. From the moment I saw Eleanor at the gate, I could feel her misery, and we quickly turned tail and left- just as Em and her friends were coming in.
----
In all, we heard close to a third of her set from afar by the time we got back to the car- and then the final indignity turned into the most amazing moment.
Despite this being a major event, there was very little guidance on how to get back to our neck of the woods- two orange signs advised us that the ramp leading, eventually, to the 190 was closed, and that we should "follow 104."
In these parts, "104" is a once important east-west passage through the state's counties on Lake Ontario's south shore. In Rochester, it's a suburban strip road to the west and a full-blown expressway to the east, but in Lewiston and points east it's just straight, tree-lined, and, as we were just beginning to dry off, the host of one of the biggest and most beautiful rainbows we'd seen in years. We drove straight at it for a good ten minutes, something we would have totally missed in magnitude if we'd followed the usual route south.
We also saw plenty of hawks, and passed a buck on the off-ramp to our neighborhood.
So, not the night we expected, and one we're not likely to repeat in the not-so-great outdoors, but one where we did okay, not because of The Rules, but in spite of them.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 10:44 am (UTC)Glad you got some joy out of it.
no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 10:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-07-17 11:02 pm (UTC)