When entertainers are on the road, they try to book smaller appearances around their big ones. For several years, we planned the University of Delaware Summer Arts Festival that way-we were one of the smaller places booked around bigger venues," Gary Simpson, assistant director of University relations, said. "Now, the Summer Arts Festival is the larger venue, and we can book the acts firstthey fill in their time around us. That's a nice situation to be in."
The mild-mannered Ed Sullivan of Sussex County is the former general manager of the Delaware State Fair. He's as at home with the locals as he is rubbing shoulders with big names like Gloria Estefan, whom he booked at the fair just before she hit the big time.
This year, he'll be meeting and greeting the Temptations, the Marvelettes, the Kingston Trio and Christian singers Jonathan Pierce and Patty Cabrera. As always with stars of this caliber, he says he expects they will all be nice. Those stories about rock stars demanding bowls of M&M's (no brown ones please) in their dressing rooms, generally don't apply to the people who come to Lewes.
"The people we've had in the past, like Bobby Rydell and Fabian, were absolutely down to earth. We've not had a performer here who was out of the way in their requirements. Generally, I think it's those performers who can play venues of 75,000 and up that are more demanding. The people we book have always seemed to have a lot of common sense.
"Most of them require good food and they are due a hot meal-it's hard living on the road the way many of them do. Generally speaking, I've found that the better you can be to the stars, the better the stars will be to your audience."
The Office of Alumni and University Relations started sponsoring the Summer Arts Festival several years ago, Robert R. Davis, director of alumni and University relations, said.
"The event has been growing ever since under Gary's capable leadership," Davis said. "We have focused on developing a wide range of audiences-children and their parents, music lovers of all tastes, minorities, residents and visitors to the area. I believe the event brings together-in a happy way-University resources, attractive entertainment and alumni and friends in Sussex and Kent counties."
Simpson agrees that developing those different audiences has been the key to the festival's growth and success.
"I learned from my experiences at the fair that you can't draw the same audience out every night," he said.
And, no matter how great a reputation the event has, Simpson still has concerns each year.
This year, for example, he has to hope that The Temptations' reputation will overcome the fact that they are booked on a Wednesday night. He has to hope the contemporary Christian singers will draw a crowd, and he has to bet on people loving the Cape Concert in its different format-with the Kingston Trio instead of cannons and the 1812 Overture. There's always a little risk.
"The Delaware Symphony was performing the Cape Concert before we started the Summer Arts Festival," Simpson said. "This year we had to weigh the chance of crowds starting to dwindle because they hear the same concert each year or take a chance of offering something a little different. There are always those people who want the cannons.
"Once we decided to bring in a headline act to appear with the symphony, we had to find one that does symphony concerts-one that has its music arranged and scored for an orchestra. When I heard that the Kingston Trio did and heard the review of their appearance with the Salt Lake City Symphony, I said, 'Let's go for it.' The Delaware Symphony was agreeable. They've always been great to work with."
Actually, it was after the symphony moved its Cape Concert from Cape Henlopen State Park to the grounds of the College of Marine Studies that the idea of a summer arts festival really took off.
"The symphony ran their own event on a full-sized, covered stage with a wonderful sound system, and we were still running our events on a little stage only 12 inches high and built from a series of risers," Simpson said. "We'd have folk singers and a lecture series, but we didn't have the facilities for anything larger.
"It seemed obvious that if we could use the larger stage and sound system we could bring in some major talent. Not artists who draw 100,000, but bigger name acts."
While Simpson worked with a committee of 16 people to choose acts for the fair, at UD he's pretty much on his own, bouncing ideas off his staff and other University personnel.
"It works both ways," he said. "It's difficult to get 16 people to agree on an act, but once you do, you have a pretty good cross section of audience members. Working alone, I pretty much know the budget, who I think will appeal to our audiences and who's available."
So far, his instincts have been right on target, booking acts that have been successful in terms of both ticket sales and audience appeal.
UD faculty musicians from the Newark campus are often included in the festival. In the past, the Elderly Brothers and Marie Robinson have performed. This year, Harvey Price's Royal Palm Steel Band will perform as the opening act of the Cape Concert.
-Beth Thomas