So many things were different during 2020 and the Alberta Street Fair did not escape that fate either. I have been doing the booking and stage managing for the Alberta Street Fair for about a decade, and I love getting the chance to go out and see bands that apply to perform, discover new music, meet new people, support the local scene, and get to put a bunch of great musicians in front of people. Plus getting to hang out at the stages and listen to great music and be a part of the whole Alberta Street Fair vibe and experience. It’s fantastic. 2020 said no crowds this year, and just like everybody we weren’t sure what to do or even if the event was going to be held or how or what.
In the end Alberta Main Street decided to go virtual and partnered with the Alberta Rose Theatre in a very intimate gathering of musicians and skeleton crew to stream live music to the Alberta Street community. It wasn’t as many bands as usual or all day on multiple stages, but it was still fantastic to get to support the music community by having Cabin Project, Mbrascatu, DJ Brzy and Farnell Newton and the Othership Connection all taking turns to show up and deliver some great music on stage.
The event was part of Alberta Main Street’s Summer of Alberta and they asked me if I could create some video pieces to use in the promotion and lead up. Also to have some pre-recorded footage for thanking sponsors and the Alberta Street business as well as providing information on how to contribute to the organization. The idea was to use this content to run before we went live and for some of the band turn overs. It was a lot of different deliverables in a really short window, but was a lot of fun to go up and shoot video up on Alberta Street for a handful of days. Such a great neighborhood in Portland. There are so many friendly people and it was great to capture so many of the businesses and get to briefly meet so many people.
This project I got to wear many hats including conducting interviews and making instrumentals for backing music, as well as shooting and editing all the footage. I was helped out with audio by Don Farwell out of Earwig Studio, who came down from Seattle to help me with the audio portion of the live interviews. We wound up using some instrumental numbers we had been working on for the background tunes and sounds as well. It was a lot of fun to get to work together on something with so much creative leeway. The whole event was a blast and it made up for (partially) not having an actual Alberta Street Fair.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for 2021 🙂
