READING, Pa. – It might look like an easy setup. A stage, some lights.<\/p>\n
But the team behind Reading Blues Fest took us backstage today to show just how big this weekend really is for the City of Reading.<\/p>\n
Inside the DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Reading, crews were in the middle of soundcheck for Friday\u2019s headliner, Devon Allman, the son of singer-songwriter Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers Band. As the music echoed through the ballroom, organizers with Berks Arts were preparing to welcome hundreds of visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re looking at 600 people to 1,000, we\u2019re hoping, coming through the city and having some local impact at our restaurants in the area,\u201d said Tish Davis, Executive Director of Berks Arts. \u201cWe had the Peanut Bar this morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Behind the scenes, it\u2019s a full operation. Hospitality volunteers prep snacks and water for the artists. Stage crews check cables, microphones, and lights.<\/p>\n
Production teams transform a hotel ballroom into a full concert venue, something they\u2019ve perfected over decades.<\/p>\n
Some volunteers have been part of Blues Fest and the spring Berks Jazz Fest for more than 30 years, making the festivals feel like annual reunions.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could not do these festivals without our volunteers,\u201d Davis said. \u201cThey\u2019re from all over, mostly Berks County. Our production team does everything behind the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n
With visitors coming from across the region, and performances scheduled all weekend, organizers say the festival brings both energy and economic impact to downtown Reading.<\/p>\n
The music continues through Sunday, with concerts, meet-the-artist events, meals, and jam sessions throughout the DoubleTree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – It might look like an easy setup. A stage, some lights. But the team behind…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[24823,24822,24243,736,128,130,129,24244,24245],"class_list":["post-41162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-blues-fest","tag-devon-allman","tag-doubletree-hotel","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-the-allman-brothers-band","tag-tish-davis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}