Serving up concerts at the Schell's Stage at the State Fair
by Luke Taylor
September 02, 2016
Backstage at the Schell's Stage at Schilling Amphitheater in the West End Market of the Minnesota State Fair, the Okee Dokee Brothers launch into a rehearsal of their cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams."
Across the room, stage manager Wallace Fleming looks up from the binder of stage plots on his desk. "I get all my own private performances," he jokes.
As the stage manager at the Schell's Stage, Fleming works with performers and a crew — comprising stagehand Bob Stein and sound engineer Ben Behrens — to make the performances happen. "All I have to do is help Bob and Ben get what they need, and the entertainers get what they need," Fleming says.
Getting to be stage manager gives Fleming a chance to stretch a bit. He's typically an audio tech at the Cowles Center for Dance and the Performing Arts in Minneapolis. Because the Cowles Center goes dark part of the year, the timing was perfect to take a job at the Minnesota State Fair. A longtime union member, Fleming saw the Schell's Stage job posted on the union website; he was hired by Nate Dungan, who works at the State Fair's Libby Conference Center and schedules all of the bands who play at the Fair's many free stages. "Nate does a great job booking," Fleming says. "All the bands have been awesome, and the 'in-betweeners' as we call them — the one- or two-person acts — have been spot-on, real professional."
On this day, the Okee Dokee Brothers have just loaded in for the first of their two-day stand at Schell's Stage; they'll perform three times each day. Most acts at the Schell's Stage are booked in two-day blocks. Fleming's binder of stage plots helps him prepare mic stands, monitors and cabling, and he uses a color-coding system to keep direct-box inputs organized for each band. "The second days are always easier," Fleming says. "Especially now with digital mixing boards, we can just take a snapshot of all the knob positions and reset them for each band."
Finding efficiencies and setting an even pace is critical for the job. Fleming began working at the Schell's Stage a few days before the Fair opened, and once the Fair begins, he works 12 days straight, 15 hours a day. The most important thing, Fleming notes, is keeping performances running on time, explaining that fairgoers have a lot to see and do, and many create strict timetables to structure their days at the Fair.
Stagehand Bob Stein has enjoyed many seasons working at stages at the State Fair. He's been at the Schell's Stage since it opened in 2014, and he single-handedly ran its predecessor when the area known as West End Market was called Heritage Square. "I've seen it packed numerous times," he says of the Schell's Stage seating area, noting it's nearly impossible to calculate the venue's capacity, given the large standing area in front of the stage, as well as the adjacent hillside and the upper deck at Lulu's Public House.
As the Okee Dokee Brothers take the stage, Fleming and Stein place all the mic stands and the monitors. They work with Behrens and the musicians to get the sound mix just right. When Okee Dokee Brothers' clogger Andy Lambert experiences a glitch with the audio from his purpose-built dance board, Fleming and Stein quickly scramble a tiny microphone stand and place an SM-57 near the board. Soon, dance steps are heard in the monitors. Lambert acknowledges that mic-ing a dance board can be tricky. "But sound crews deal with a lot more complicated things," he says. "With this,I just explain, 'Make it sound like a board.'"
Fiddler Jillian Rae performs with the Okee Dokee Brothers, and just a week ago, she performed at the Schell's Stage with her own band. "Playing outside in the open air is always wonderful," she says. "And here at the State Fair, it's such a cool rotation of people and such a mix of ages. The further reach the music is getting, and drawing people in — that accidental audience is all part of that State Fair craziness that is so cool."
For Fleming, the State Fair provides meaningful employment during the down time at the Cowles. It also feeds his vocation. "I've been doing this since 1983, and I was in the AV club at school before that," he says. "It's what I do."
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