#foo fest

The volunteer coordinator, whom I met briefly on Monday at orientation, smiles and gives me a yellow Foo Fest Volunteer patch. I’m doing bracelets on the Westminster Gate, on the other side of the festival.

I push through a crowd of hipsters and college students and artists. There is some fantastic hair at the festival today: mohawks, undercuts, beautiful dye jobs. The tattoos are, likewise, many and varied, everything from flowers and bees to abstract cyberpunk patterns. I feel underdressed in a porkpie hat and an Evil League of Evil t-shirt, a little self-conscious, as always, about being so tall and stark. The street isn’t very long, though, and soon I make it to the gate.

The girl I’m relieving is coming off an eleven-hour shift. Mine is supposed to last for three, from ten pm until one am, and I was worried about my ability to get through even that since I’m not much of a night-owl. But the position seems chill, at least by 10pm. This is the back gate. People are entering in trickles. We have a tent, lights, and chairs.

There are three others at the tent. We have a bouncer, someone to take money, and someone to check IDs. On the table is a box with two different kinds of bracelets: yellow over-21 bands and red with a penguin print, both that durable paper-plastic hybrid, with one sticky end, that are ubiquitous in concerts, hospitals, and amusement parks.

The first person who comes through pays ten dollars and shows her ID, and then gets banded… by the ID-checker. I am momentarily horrified. Am I completely superfluous? I reach into the box, grab a bracelet, peel off the plastic at the end to expose the adhesive. I’ll be ready for the next one. But once again, the person before me is too fast. I smile awkwardly at the passing festival goer and perch anxiously on the edge of my chair.

Finally, the IDer looks at me and asks, “Do you want to get this one?”

Of course I do. I have ONE JOB.

The rest of the next-shift relief shows up, replacing the original two ladies with two gentlemen. I need to be quicker on the draw. Right there with the bracelets. Ready to pounce as soon as IDs are checked. I still lose a few, the dude checking IDs putting wristbands on them before I can, but, especially when groups of two or more people come through, I seem to be providing utility.

Once, I don’t fasten a bracelet tightly enough around the wrist of someone with even smaller bones than my own. She turns around to tell me it’s going to slide off in two seconds. I’m mortified as I replace it with a tighter one.

The bouncer, who, it transpires, has years of experience working security in venues all over Providence, takes pity on me. He explains how to hold a stack of bracelets in one hand so they don’t fly off in the wind and how to keep one finger between bracelet and wrist when I fasten them, so that they’re tight enough to stay on most hands but loose enough not to catch people’s arm hair.

I listen to the other two people on shift with me as they converse with other volunteers and visitors. Eventually I ask a few questions of my own. The man checking IDs is an AS220 production manager, in charge of scheduling and booking the black box theater and adjacent venues. He hooked the relatively cushy position of ID checker by dint of being TIPS certified - that is, trained for working in venues that serve alcohol. Among other things, they teach you how to spot a fake ID, although there is more to the course than that. It’s required for many bartenders and liquor store clerks.

The guy taking money, who has a smiley-face-emoticon Snitch on his shirt and sunglasses, wears a blue-banded bracelet, which means he’s a performer as well as a volunteer. He’s a member of the band Harry and the Potters. I missed their act, but apparently they’re big names in the wizarding world. We talk briefly about Quidditch, but between taking money for new arrivals, he’s busy trying to catch a squirtle.

Time passes. We fasten bracelets. The day’s heat bleeds off into the night, and a breeze picks up; I put on my coat. I’m an expert bracelet fastener now. Some people fail to show ID or don’t want to drink, so I assure them they’re getting the better bracelet as I fasten on the red penguin wrist band. A family that looks like two parents and a grown son buy tickets; our ID checker asks the parents if they’re going to drink, and as they hesitate, parsing our English, the son says, “they’re going to drink,” very firmly. We all laugh as I give them yellow bracelets.

At one point, a girl tries to show me her ID and I point her to my TIPS-certified fellow. “Show it to him,” I say. “I wouldn’t know a fake ID if it tapdanced on the end of my nose.”

“That would be a hint,” she responds. “Real IDs don’t usually tapdance.”

At about a quarter past twelve, it begins to rain.

The first drops are gentle, but the air has been heavy all night. We know what’s coming. Within minutes, the skies have opened. It’s not raining, it’s pouring. It’s coming down in sheets. This is apocalyptic rain.

The concert, Dan Deacon now, is still going. From behind the stage it’s just a vague ambient noise, but now it’s punctuated by thunder. Soaked festival-goers come running over, and we welcome them to share in the shelter of our tent. We pull the tables into the middle to make more room. Other volunteers join us as well. A pair of soused girls ask to take cover here while they wait for their Uber, and then ask what the address is. We’re at the intersection of Westminster and Empire. Our musician finds it on the map on one girl’s phone while the other tells me how a nice man handed her a poncho. “It was like he was a poncho faerie,” she says, petting the thin blue plastic, which is wrapped around her purse.

A poncho fairy of our own shows up, handing out yellow ponchos to the volunteers. The food trucks begin to leave, heading off into the drenched night. The concert ends. The festival-goers depart. “We’re going to run home,” one pair tells us, and we wish them luck.

By twelve thirty, the rain has slowed. We pack up the program booklets into boxes and heavy duty trash bags, discarding the drenched ones. I insist on dragging the largest trash bag. I’m not quite strong enough, but I stumble along stubbornly and ultimately make it.

We’re done - a little early, but close enough. I contemplate staying to help break down, but I’m spending the night with a friend and I don’t want to keep him awake any longer than I already have. The shift leader sends me off. I head to the front to tell the volunteer coordinator we shut down the Westminster Gate.

“Great!” she says, and gives me a volunteer pass to the next month of AS220 events.

“I only worked one shift,” I am compelled by honesty to say - and technically less than one shift, at that. The pass is the coveted award for two-shift volunteers. One shift was to be incentivized with a ticket for a free drink, although since I’m not crazy about beer, I hadn’t been sure what I was going to do with it.

“We’re out of drink tickets,” she says.

Sweet.