Pops Draws Perfectly-Pitched Weather

     While much of the state was contending with thunderstorms and torrential rain, the Mashpee Night at the Pops concert continued its unbroken 17-year streak of good weather.
     “Isn’t it amazing?” Meredith L. M. Kilpatrick, vice president of the Mashpee Community Concert Committee said. “It’s always the last Saturday in July, too.”
     The Friday immediately preceding last weekend’s concert by the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra was hot and humid, and made for less-than-perfect conditions for the committee’s team of volunteers to set up at Mashpee Commons, “but on Saturday we had a cloud-free sky. There were initially some predictions of a passing thunderstorm, but those vanished.”
     While crowd counts were not available, Ms. Kilpatrick said it was another packed house Saturday evening, with about 2,000 people enjoying the show from the reserved table seating area, and hundreds more setting up their own seating throughout Mashpee Commons.
     A team of about 100 student and adult volunteers escorted guests to their seats, kept an eye on the crowds, and worked the concession stand. Neither Ms. Kilpatrick nor the Mashpee Police Department reported any problems that night.
     A. John Renz, vice president of Mashpee Commons, also reported a problem-free evening. “It was great,” he said, “I haven’t heard a single complaint or criticism from any of our merchants.”
     Mr. Renz said that in the earlier days of the event, the availability of parking spaces created access issues that impacted merchants’ business throughout show day, but that was resolved when the preferred parking that goes along with the table seating was relocated. Reserved parking is now in the vacant lot across from the main Route 28 entrance.
     “That’s what made the big difference,” Mr. Renz said, and merchants now enjoy a healthy bump in their business on concert day.
     Emma Jo Mills Brennan, a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe, donated an acrylic painting entitled “From Our View” for the cover of the concert program, and the original art was auctioned off during the show.
     “It was a lot of fun,” Ms. Kilpatrick said, adding that she was pleased with the choice of Ms. Mills Brennan as this year’s cover artist since it adheres to the committee’s policy of keeping Night at the Pops community-based.
     Lisa Coyne of Mashpee won the auction with a winning bid of $505.
     The night also featured the presentation of the annual Donna Lynn Yanoff Memorial Scholarship Award, a $10,000 scholarship given each year to a Mashpee High School senior who plans to pursue an education in the fine, applied, creative, or performing arts. This year’s recipient was Patrick T. Orcutt of the MHS Class of 2008.
     With the 2008 show behind them, the concert committee is looking forward to 2009, but Ms. Kilpatrick said the committee is not formally considering moving the event to Mashpee High School. The high school was considered as an alternate venue this year as open space at the Commons was diminishing, “but the only reason we didn’t move forward with that is because the Commons invited us back.”
     “We like having the concert at the Commons because it’s a central location,” Ms. Kilpatrick said, and while the concert committee has not ruled out MHS as a future venue, “we’re taking it on a year-by-year basis…and as long as the Commons keeps inviting us back, we’ll come back.”
     Mr. Renz said the Commons is also taking things year-by-year as development in the retail complex continues. “Eventually there will be more buildings where we put the tent,” he said, “but as long as [the concert] seems to be run as well as it is, we’ll keep asking them back.”
     The committee is already accepting reservations for table seating at the 2009 concert at 2008 prices. Ms. Kilpatrick noted that table prices for 2008 went up from 2007, but people who had reserved their tables early voluntarily made extra donations worth the difference between the prices.
     For more information on reserved table seating for 2009, visit the Mashpee Night at the Pops website at www.mashpeepops.com/tabletickets/index.html.