It’s that time of year again — the end of the tournament season — and as usual, I am scrambling to throw together an event at Lincoln Center. Every year I think this is absolutely ridiculous and that next year I won’t leave everything until the last minute. And each and every year, I manage to leave things until even later than the previous year.

I think I just like to feel the burn. I can’t get anything accomplished unless it’s an emergency. Which is why I am writing at 11 pm instead of getting together the twelve billion things I need to get together before I leave for New York (via Chicago - have to drop off Molly!) tomorrow before the crack of dawn.

By this time of year, I have had to respond to many a dissatisfied customer. You know: Dear Somebody’s Mom, I’m sorry your son’s group didn’t win, appalling as it was for you, and even though everyone in the audience around you thought your son’s group was robbed, but I do stand by our judges’ decision, because, you know, they’re musicians. Not to mention, you know, UNBIASED.

Reminiscent of last year’s Easter fiasco is this year’s scheduling conflict between our finals in New York and the first night of Passover. Sedergate 2008, as it is now known in my brain, because that’s how my brain works, goes a little something like this:

Can you tell me why you scheduled this New York event for the first night of Passover??? This is exclusionary and insensitive, and causes a conflict for participants, families, and spectators!!! We come to your show every year and can’t believe you would hold your event on a sacred holiday. Optional ending: I would strongly recommend that you consider rescheduling this event so that everyone can attend.

Now, as a disclaimer here, I understand this person’s fury, just as I understood that last year’s scheduling of a semi-final event on Holy Saturday was worrisome to many a Christian. But what is absolutely exhausting and enormously frustrating is having to explain to people why our event is on Passover. The response goes something like this:

Dear disgruntled lady,

Do you think I WANTED to schedule our concert over Passover? I’m not a complete idiot. Why would I intentionally seek to invoke the fury of a group to which at least a good half of our performers and patrons belong? In New York City, no less?

Or did you assume that I simply overlooked Passover, forgot about it in my willy-nilly scheduling of this, the biggest, most important concert of the entire year, the pinnacle of the entire season, the raison d’etre for, I don’t know, owning and operating this whole business?

That’s right — I just flipped the calendar, picked a date at random, and called Lincoln Center to say, “Yo, b*tches, sign me up for this date. I don’t care if Itzhak Perlman is giving a concert that night, tell him he’d better reschedule now, because A CAPPELLA is comin’ to town!”

You are KILLING ME HERE!

In harmony,
Amanda

P.S. The Mormon kids from Brigham Young won their region but couldn’t make it to finals because of religious conflicts for, like, three years in a row, and I didn’t hear THEM complaining!!

Then I delete that and begrudgingly explain:

Dear Sir,

Thank you for taking the time to write in with your concerns. I assure you that I share your frustration with the scheduling of this year’s finals.

Unfortunately, we had no choice but to book our concert on this date. Because Alice Tully (our usual venue) is under construction this year, all the regular events for Alice Tully AND Avery Fisher were clamoring for dates in Fisher. And, as you can imagine, we are at the bottom end of the totem pole, because we are just a one-night event as opposed to a regular event at Avery Fisher whose production requires additional dates for rehearsals, extensive staffing and equipment rental, and so on. All of these things are financial considerations for Lincoln Center, and they come into play when they are deciding who they will book and on what priority.

Then there is the issue of timing. The date must be long enough after the last semifinal so groups have enough time to prepare and we have enough time to sell tickets, but early enough that we don’t have final exam conflicts for the college groups.

Finals also must be a Saturday night, as we struggle with the ticket sales on a Friday night or Sunday matinee, which is particularly troublesome this year because Avery Fisher is about twice as expensive as Alice Tully. That leaves us needing one of two dates — the last or second to last Saturday in April.

The second to last Saturday is Passover. And, of course, the last Saturday went to the NY Philharmonic.

It is difficult to begin to explain how much effort, finagling, pleading and so forth went in to securing that date. In fact, we were lucky to get that date, even though it is Passover, or a date at all!

And mind you, this all went on in the fall of 2006. These halls are that competitive to book.

I would like to point out that having a concert on this date is not entirely extraordinary — all the other large-scale venues in New York City are open and operating on the first night of Passover. We did take this into consideration when deciding whether or not it would be appropriate to schedule our event on this night. Unfortunately, with the first night of Passover falling on a Saturday night during the start of the prime concert season, the show must go on.

I am sorry that this date has caused a conflict for you. I hope you can see from the length of this email my personal and professional frustration with this situation, and that we did everything possible, within reason, to avoid this conflict. I hope you will join us for this event next spring and that you will continue to support a cappella.

Kind regards,
Amanda

And it pains me to write it that nicely. It pains me.

Here’s another new one this year - a request that has come in several times, if you can believe it:

We are unable to attend the upcoming finals at Lincoln Center. Will there be a webcast or other broadcast of this event? There are many friends and families that would like to tune in to the performance.

I’m biting the insides of my cheeks the whole time I write in response (some edited version of) this:

Dear Some Parent Who Is Not Using His Noggin,

Unfortunately, we will not be broadcasting our event. Avery Fisher is a union venue, and consequently the fees involved to videotape even for archival purposes are exorbitant — as in, upwards of $15,000. (I know, I thought they were kidding at first, too!)

Add on to that the need for a lot of well-connected people to be willing and able to spend the time and money to film our event, license it, produce it, pitch it to a network, and broadcast it … well, it’s nearly impossible.

In other words, are you f-ing kidding me?!?!?

I too am looking forward to the day that a cappella gets the media attention it deserves. It will happen some day, maybe sooner than we think, but unfortunately, this is not our year. Thank you for your suggestion, and for your continued support of a cappella and our programs.

Love and kisses,
Amanda

Honestly, just when I thought that it was college students who have the smallest capacity to reason, here come their parents. No reasoning skills whatsoever.