GABBF draws record crowd

By HERB BROCK
Staff Writer

Jerry Boyd, longtime logisitics chief for the Great American Brass Band Festival, has always said that the "weather more than anything else dictates the size and mood" of the crowds that attend the annual early-summer musical extravaganza in Danville.

Following Boyd's crowd-counting rule of thumb, then the great dictator must have ordered big crowds in festive moods for the 12th festival, held this past weekend. Sunny skies and warm but comfortable temperatures provided a great meteorological backdrop to the sounds of 22 bands.

Boyd said today the crowds for the festival totaled between 42,500 and 46,500, making it a record for the event that began in 1990.

While things got off to a stormy start Friday evening as high winds forced postponement of the hot air balloon race until Sunday, good weather on Saturday helped produce the largest crowd ever for that day, which is highlighted by the parade and picnic.

"There's no question, from talking to my people (volunteer logistics staff), that we had the largest Saturday crowd ever. We had between 27,000 and 32,000 people for the whole day," said Boyd. "The crowds for the parade and picnic were the biggest we've ever had, and the areas around Weisiger Park and Constitution Square were packed for the concerts held at those venues.

"And the crowds at the main stage (on the Centre College campus) may have not looked as big for a period of time Saturday, but that was misleading. A big crowd went inside Newlin Hall (in the Norton Centre for the Arts) for a three-hour concert there."

The Sunday afternoon crowd was "down a bit" from past festival Sundays, and that may have been
because of it was Father's Day, he said. But the community worship service Sunday morning drew an "excellent crowd," he said.

Boyd said he believes that no matter what the weather, good crowds will always attend the festival because most people enjoy the music, food, fun and fellowship too much to stay away because of some bad weather.

"We've had thunderstorms, and we've had extremely hot and humid weather, but those conditions have not kept people away before. So it's not surprising that near-perfect weather would result in a record turnout," he said.

George Foreman, festival founder and organizer, also gave Mother Nature kudos.

"We had an excellent festival, and I was particularly delighted that the weather was so good," Foreman said today. "I can't remember a festival with better weather than what we had for this one. We had the best weather and the biggest crowd. The two go together."

Foreman said he was pleased with the quality of the nearly two dozen bands that performed. It's one thing to have a big number of bands; it's another thing to have each and every one of them put on excellent concerts, he said.

As usual, the annual Saturday parade was one of the biggest hits of the festival. "This year's parade was exceptionally good, and it was wonderful that so many people were there for it," he said.

In addition to the parade, picnic and other traditional festival events, a few new things were tried, and they all worked, Foreman said.

"I believe the concert in Newlin really went over well, and I also think the Panasonic Astrovision screen was a hit," he said. "The screen added a new dimension to the festival and the way people can follow it, and many people responded favorably, telling me that it made the festival experience even better for them."

Foreman said it is way too early to predict what "experience" will be in store for festival-goers for No. 13 next year. But he and Boyd agree that if the weather is anything like this year's, the attendance record set in 2001 could well be broken in 2002.