Neither Waterfront Concerts nor the management of the Cross Insurance Center knew the other planned to hold a major rock concert on June 8 before the acts were booked — the Dave Matthews Band at the Darling’s Waterfront Pavilion and Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band at the indoor arena just up the street.
Despite the scheduling surprise, Bangor officials said Tuesday they’ll be prepared for the almost simultaneous events and the city will be able to handle the large influx of concertgoers.
Alex Gray, president of Waterfront Concerts, said he had an inkling the same-day coincidence might happen when he saw that Starr and his band were playing at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion (aka Meadowbrook) in Gilford, New Hampshire, the night before.
“When we saw Meadowbrook was promoting Ringo, we thought that might happen,” said Gray. “But Dave books an appreciative amount of time in advance. They are a very organized tour operation, and sometimes they book up to a year in advance. This [show] has been in the works for a very long time.”
Joe Imbriaco, general manager of the Cross Insurance Center, said he was surprised to hear about the two shows coinciding.
“We had no idea,” said Imbriaco. “It’ll be a crazy day, yes, but I think it’ll be an exciting day. We’re regularly in contact with the Bangor Police Department and Parks and Recreation and with Waterfront Concerts, and we all work together to make sure everything runs business as usual.”
Both Gray and Imbriaco shrugged off suggestions that Bangor could not handle a potential influx of 20,000 or more people into the city at around the same time on the same day. Dave Matthews starts at 6:30 p.m., while Ringo Starr starts an hour later.
“This isn’t our first rodeo. We’ve been doing this for several years now, and we know what to expect when there are big events happening at the same time,” said Gray. “It takes people time to get used to it, but I think we are now. Our staff is polished, the Cross staff is polished, city staff is polished … Yes, there will be traffic. Don’t drive downtown during two monster shows. You wouldn’t do that if the Super Bowl was going on. It’s just common sense.”
In fact, multiple events on the same day have happened before, though perhaps not on the scale of the competing June 8 concerts. Gray pointed to the fact that this Saturday the Cross Insurance Center will host a Waterfront Concert with country star Brad Paisley, while next door at Bass Park is the Paul Bunyan International Sno-X SnoCross event. Imbriaco said there are regularly concerts and other events that happen during the Bangor State Fair.
“This has happened before. I remember a few years back there was Cirque du Soleil and Willie Nelson at the same time, and we’ve had the State Fair going on at the same time as Waterfront Concerts,” said Imbriaco. “We’re pretty fortunate to have a main thoroughfare right through the center of town. We can handle quite a bit of traffic.”
Bangor City Manager Cathy Conlow also pointed to the city’s past experience handling multiple large events in the same day at the city’s main entertainment venues. For another example, the Cross Insurance Center has hosted Bangor High School’s graduation on the same night as a major concert on the waterfront.
In past years when large crowds were expected, Conlow, parks and recreation Director Tracy Willette, Bangor police Chief Mark Hathaway and others have sat down together to plan traffic flow and staffing to prevent gridlock and ensure someone was available to respond to any issues that cropped up.
“We didn’t get any complaints,” Conlow said. “We’re pretty good at working together.”
City officials expect to meet again in advance of June 8 to come up with a plan. They’ll also likely release information before the concert about the expected traffic situation. Concertgoers will want to plan to arrive well in advance of the start of the show, as problems could result if too many people show up 10 minutes before showtime.
“Certainly, it will be a busy day here in town,” Willette said. “It’s kind of a neat problem to have. We’ll certainly be able to deal with it.”