If the Fayetteville Town Center had been booked the last weekend of August, the Fayetteville Roots Festival would have been without a home.
Bryan Hembree, co-organizer of the festival, does not hesitate when he acknowledges what would have happened.
"We would have canceled," he says.
But the venue was available, thankfully, meaning Hembree and his festival partners could swoop in and prevent the festival from taking a year off.
Routine maintenance work this summer at the Walton Arts Center revealed something more pressing -- a roof in need of major repairs. The building was promptly closed until the repairs could be completed.
But that left all the shows scheduled for that venue in flux. Hembree learned in late June he would need to find a new stage for the Fayetteville Roots Festival, which had used the WAC for several years. He'd already sold hundreds of tickets and booked dozens of acts, including headliners The Wood Brothers and Lucinda Williams. The festival team had less than two months to alter the arrangements for seats, food vendors and musicians to suit the Town Center. Acoustic panels and curtains were also added at the last minute to make the listening experience a better one, Hembree says.
"We had explored the idea of using the Town Center (as a venue). We didn't know we were going to use it that quick," he says.
The festival continued without major glitches. Although the seating capacity at the Town Center is slightly less than at the arts center, part of that was due to the configuration of seats Hembree and his colleagues chose. The idea was to keep people comfortable, even at the expense of fewer seats.
"We had great feedback. It never felt compressed," he says.
To build on the success of the 2014 event, Hembree says the festival's main stage will return to the Town Center in 2015.
A roster of artists for next year's event is expected some time in February.
-- Kevin Kinder
NAN What's Up on 12/19/2014