Phish festival expecting to lure 50,000 fans a day July 29, 1996 - Amusement Business By Rob Evans In preparation for a two-day festival featuring Phish, the equivalent of a small city is sprouting on the decommissioned Plattsburgh Air Force base in New York. Dubbed "The Clifford Ball," the event is scheduled to take place Aug. 16-17. Organizers are anticipating well over 50,000 dedicated Phish-heads each day, most of whom are expected to camp on the site, which is located west of Burlington, Vt. "I think it's going to be a one-of-a-kind event, and there aren't many bands that would be capable of doing something like this," said the band's agent, Chip Hooper of Monterey Peninsula Artists. "We certainly have had high hopes for it from the very beginning, and it appears that it's going to work out just fine." Instead of embarking on their usual late-summer tour of the Northeast, the band has focused its energies on the single summer festival. A new studio album is due on Elektra Records in mid-October, then a national tour will follow. Promoter David Werlin of Lexington, Mass.-based Great Northeast Productions wouldn't say how ticket sales are going, but predicted the festival will be one of the industry's best-attended events of the summer. All tickets are general admission and priced at $25 per day There will be a $20 charge per vehicle for campers, with no restriction on the number of people in the vehicle. Parking lots will open at 1! a.m. each day, and the doors will open two hours later. Campers can check in at noon on Thursday, Aug. 15, and will be required to clear out by 10 a.m. on Sunday, Aug. 18. The band, which has been compared to the Grateful Dead both musically and because of the loyalty of its fans, will play three sets of music each day. The band will take the stage at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 16 and at 3:30 p.m. on Aug 17. THE PRODUCTION Werlin said production costs will run well over a million dollars. Since 50,000 people may camp onsite, the band is building a temporary town square, which will contain a general store, a post ofrice, and food and drink vendors. "We're creating all the infrastructure a town would have," Werlin said. "All the power is being brought on-site from outside generators; we're bringing phone systems on-site to service production needs and audience needs." Almost 1,000 portable toilets have been ordered, and $40,000 worth of potable water has been purchased to cover the needs of concert-goers, he said. Designer Russ Bennett, with lots of input from the band, is creating facades for temporary buildings to be constructed in the town square. He's also working on design continuity "There's a spectacle element to this that's a lot of fun, not to mention that during the show there's a lot of surprises," Production manager John Girard said. "There will be some fun emcees and a number of attractions in the air and on the ground." PREPARATIONS Girard said preparations for the show began last winter. The combination of large paved areas and large grassy areas make the site a natural for such an event, he said. "I can pretty much guarantee that, particularly during showtime, the entire crowd will be in the grass," Girard said. "The same is true for the camping." Event organizers are erecting 8,000 running feet of steel fencing that will enclose the concert area. The fence will be 8 feet tall in most areas, and a plywood skin will be affixed to both sides. The camping area will be outside the concert area gates, Girard said. Near the front gate, the fencing will be up to 16 feet high. Staging will be handled by Wilkes-Barre, Pa.-based Mountain Productions, which is scheduled to start work Aug. 9. The stage will be about 160 feet wide and 60 feet deep. A wind wall, to be erected in back of the stage, will be 80 feet high and 21 feet long. Live-in trailer accommodations are being created for the event's key personnel, who will be on the site for more than a week. "Because of the sheer size of the Air Force Base, if we were out in a hotel somewhere it would be a problem logistically," Girard said. Basketball courts and horseshoe pits are being built on the backstage compound as well. "There's going to be so much work happening back there, but we're going to try to make it a fun place to be as well," he said. TRAFFIC CONCERNS Girard said the size of the Air Force Base is a big advantage when it comes to traffic control. "We do have the luxury of being able to get a lot of vehicles off the interstate as quickly as possible because we can feed them into lanes on the Air Force property," he said. A planned system of 40 toll booths on one side of the facility and 30 toll booths on the other should keep traffic flowing, he said. "Phish Radio" will be broadcasting on-site to direct concert-goers article © 1996 BPI Communications