Jazz Festival starts

Today is the start of the 24th Annual San Francisco Jazz Festival and runs through November 12. The fall festival is the trademark event of SFJAZZ. There have been several name changes to the festival and the organization, including Jazz in the City. We have volunteers who go back to the early years. Randall Kline is the Executive Director and Founder.

I am the Volunteer Coordinator and Sr. House Manager. Since we don't use any one venue (concert hall) there are alot of logistics that go into presenting the shows; and much of that is my job. I am responsible for the Front of House which includes scheduling volunteers (about 250), coordinating with house managers and venue contacts and working with the artists or their managers to arrange merchandise sales. Our Production Manager, Cecilia, handles the Back of House or everything that is on the stage. Each Tuesday during the festival I run the production meetings where all the information we've collected from departments is outlined and we make sure we're all on the same page. This weekend we have five shows in three days. Next week we have nine shows in five days. So one has to be ahead of the game. I've been assembling this miscellaneous information and scheduling volunteers for about three months. One season tends to either run into the next or overlap, as we just completed our free summer series. SFJAZZ presents about 100 shows a year.

On my mind today is our opening day concert with the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars, a free noon concert in Union Square. This will be followed by meetings, phone calls and the volunteer orientation at 6pm where new and lapsed volunteers will gather to get general information and be able to ask questions. It's going to be an especially busy day.

The pay-off of all this work is going to the concerts where I serve as the Front of House Manager for most shows, about 30 out of 35 concerts. I dress in a suit and tie, so I've gotten my shirts pressed in advance and organized a growing tie collection. At the shows I work with the volunteers I've scheduled, where I get to see all the familiar faces. We also present about 8 special events before or during the shows with wine and cheese which I help manage.

Hope you can come out the festival sometime. The website is www.sfjazz.org