They said, "Sue me." And so I will.

2008-05-22T12:09:00.000-07:00

REFERENCE:
Web site for Veggie Pride Parade
http://www.veggieprideparade.org/

When the Veggie Pride Parade that I organized made its way into Washington Square Park on Sunday, May 18, 2008, there was no rousing music from the stage.

(NOTE: Our parade had 600 people in number w/ 18 police officers on duty for us in attendance.)

My friend Cheryl Hill, who heads the Cheryl Hill Band, and I had it all planned. At roughly 1 p.m. when the parade reached the park, Cheryl was to be playing her new song, "Get Your Green On." Cheryl had written it just for our parade, and, well I think it's a great tune.

But no "Get Your Green On" when parade participants got to the park. Parade participants looked up at the stage and most just moved on to see about getting some of that free food at the exhibitors' tables in the area. Many people just left and went home -- perhaps half of them.

By this time I was at the stage area, and there was Cheryl, wild eyed. (I had been in the parade, myself, so I was only at this time just finding out about the situation.) "We have no sound," she said. I could not believe it.

The tent was up, but the sound people had not finished hooking things up. In fact, they obviously didn't know what the f*** they were doing. As Cheryl put it when I later asked her in a nutshell what was going on: "Incompetence."

And not only that, the sound people neglected to bring three mic stands specified in the tech rider. But tech rider or not, mic stands are standard gear.

The main sound guy from Festive looked fairly unperturbed about this, lashing back when members of the band lit into him.

I said, what can we do? Then, next thing I was given an iPhone with the sales rep at the other end. She asked me, why was I yelling at her people? I had yelled, yes. I was not happy about the situation, and I yelled a bit.

I replied, "We have no sound. You need to fix this situation, now." She hung up on me after saying something I don't remember.

When she called back, I apologized, because I felt, despite my anger, I needed her help. I said, "I'm sorry; I'm sorry. You need to do something." She never did. She did nothing to rectify the situation.

Meanwhile, Cheryl, the band leader, is shaking her head. She's beside herself; the rest of the band, incredulous.

Suddenly, I see someone before me, Lief Erich, someone I know who knows how to hook up a sound system. He's a musician himself. I say, "You know sound, don't you? Can you be of some help here?" I explain the situation, and he rolls up his sleeves.

in fact, if he had not happened on the scene, we would not have any sound at all. He jerry-rigged the system, using makeshift stands (camera tripods, for instance) for the mic's and other techniques (trade secrets, really) to help get the sound working. Lief Erich is our primary witness, by the way. He knows the nitty-gritty technical situation in this case.

I spoke to Lief Erich the day after the event and he observed that if this sound crew knew what it was doing the head guy would never have allowed him to help. "He would have said, 'get the heck out of here' if he had had things under control," Lief Erich said.

In a nutshell:

Festive Productions botched their job providing sound for the Veggie Pride Parade post-parade rally in the following ways:

* At 1 p.m., the time requested, sound was not available, not even microphones for speeches.
* The company sent too few crew to handle the job at hand, which also included setting up a 20-foot by 20-foot tent.
* The company had neglected to bring three mic stands and other miscellaneous equipment. (Lief Erich can fill you in on those things.)
* The main guy handling the job for Festive was not up to the job. According to Lief Erich, an expert in sound hook-up who happened on the scene, there were numerous telltale signs of this guy's incompetence.
* Lief Erich stepped in to help; the help was not rejected. Without Lief Erich's help, there would probably have been no sound at all.
* Sound checks were still being made during the speeches. But the sound never got right, not even near so.
* The sound was never properly audible, and at times loud and distorted. Many witnesses can attest to this fact.
* Ultimately, a policemen came up on stage to stop the show. Cheryl was playing by this time. The music was at this point super, super loud. The head sound guy was on break. At this point, the show was over. It was raining by this time, also. The defense may pull the rain thing on us, but this should not be an issue.
* The crew drove their truck right into the park. The company had been informed that no truck could come into the park. Park personnel told the crew repeatedly that they needed to get their truck out of the park, but they did not comply. The crew finally pulled the truck out of the park, but this was only after the parade crowds had filtered in and removing the truck was many times more hazardous.

The people who run Festive Productions are unscrupulous liars. I spoke with one of the owners today and after twisting my words and misreading the situation, she said, "Okay, sue me," and then hung up. I think it was the same person I spoke to on the phone the day of the event -- noted above.

On our side, Darney, we have honest, upstanding, honorable people, many of whom are happy to testify. There is no one who has not said the sound was bad: inaudible, distorted, and/or blaringly loud.

We have many punitive damages we can pin on these people. We not only didn't get our sound as paid for. But because we had a crisis on our hands, I was not able to conduct our program as planned (I had to on-the-fly re-order the program), nor manage other aspects of our post-parade rally and expo. Several of my obligations to other party's were, in fact, not met as a result. Some of these un-met obligations have a dollar cost associated with them. Some are intangible.

Pamela Rice
President
VivaVegie Society
501(c)3 tax status

My Lawsuit

They said, "Sue me." And so I will.