Gala Gal

I had a great time at the Preservation Hall at 50: Celebrating Jazz & Old U.S. Mint Jazz Venue Debut Gala last Friday night.  I was on my feet for the first 2 hours, greeting & directing guests for the “Patron Party”…aka the schmoozing event for the city’s extra elite.  Believe me, it wasn’t easy keeping a smile on my face while greeting all of these guests, but at least I didn’t have to rub elbows with them at the party.  It’s amazing how much you disappear into the crowd when wearing staff/volunteer black & whites.  Fortunately, I put in my time & then got more than compensated with plenty of food from numerous restaurants around town, excellent jazz music from the Preservation Hall Jazz Band & Rebirth Brass Band.  That said, I don’t know if I’ll volunteer for LMF again, I wasn’t too impressed with how they organized their volunteers or the event…wait, let me rephrase that…I wasn’t too impressed with how they did NOT organize their volunteers or the event.  Behind the scenes, it was a total cluster fuck, there’s simply no other way to put it.  Everyone was running in circles, 4 volunteers would be given the same job & then they’d be looking for volunteers to do something else & didn’t have anyone available.  They gave us absolutely no direction; even before the event, the volunteers had to call & find out what was expected of us (dress code, arrival time, assignment, etc.), when we arrived, they still didn’t know what they wanted each of us to do. Thank god I had 2 of my other tour guide gals to roll my eyes at when things got really messy.  We decided that we need to run our own events company, because we can certainly do a better job than that!  I overheard a few of the staff members talking early on about how they ran out of serving spoons & they had to run around to neighborhood restaurants to borrow more!  All of the food, plus the Rebirth performance, were outside.  However, it was freezing outside (relatively speaking, 50 degrees is COLD to New Orleanians) & there were a total of 5 outdoor space heaters that could barely stay lit because of the wind off the river.  Thus, the coat check room at the door was useless.  Everyone was freezing & the chafing dishes weren’t able to keep the food warm…at least Café Dumonde had hot café au’lait in an insulated canister & an amusing Café Dumonde server flirting with all the ladies to help warm them up! Nonetheless, the event was a success, for the most part…primarily because the Preservation Hall at 50 exhibit is fantastic & everyone loved the live music performances.   And, the gala marks an exciting renaissance for the Mint.

I’ll be back at the Old U.S. Mint this Wednesday evening for another event, but this one is organized by Friends of the Cabildo, Hidden Treasures: Music Edition; FOC’s special events coordinator arranged for free tickets for all of the volunteer FOC tour guides that guided tours during Tauck’s Ken Burns Jazz Experience…what a way to show his appreciation!  He’s even invited us to a happy hour before the event at the Spotted Cat, drinks on FOC & he’ll be handing out Tauck’s thank you gifts…I’m very curious to see what those will be.  So, Wednesday should be a great night; more free food, drink, music, & history, but I don’t have to put in any work to partake in it this time! 

No tours on the schedule this week, but that gives me time to work on my other tours.  Gotta start prepping for all the culinary tours that I’ll soon be taking on.  Plus, there’s the Jewish history tour.  I’m starting from scratch on that one, gotta do a lot of research & reading first.  The difficult part will be routing, most of the historically significant Jewish sites in the city are spread out all over the place, but I’ll work it out.  Then, we’ll see if anyone actually signs up for it, I hope all my efforts won’t be for nothing.  But, I’m willing to take the risk, I think it could be a really interesting tour, I’m curious about learning more about nola’s Jewish history myself, & it’s cool to think I’ll be creating the first tour of it’s kind in the city!  In the meantime, if anyone out there has ideas/suggestions for the Jewish tour, I’d gladly take them…