What’s the story on why concerts start at 8:30p!
The 2022 concert season is going extremely well. The weather has been fantastic and the audiences have been large and very responsive. The band continues to get stronger and stronger!
Of late there have been several listings that concerts would start at 7:30p. Lu Ann (Gresh), Sue (McLaughlin), and I have been doing triple duty to get things corrected. PLEASE excuse the errors, they have not been from MCB! I was told by many Medina residents that the reason why band concerts were at 8:30p was that the sun set below the buildings on the West side of the Square and did not blind the musicians. Another reason, as you will read, is that merchants on the square desired the concerts to allow them to keep their establishments open longer! Perhaps a little of both reasons are what the actual reasons were/are.
The Community Band performance night has changed over the years, in most cases at the urging of the business community. Season concerts have been given on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. In the late 1940’s, Friday evenings became the day of choice for Uptown Park concerts. In 1901, Band, once again, was a regular participant in Medina’s Memorial Day parade ceremonies in the Spring Grove Cemetery and in the Uptown Park Square. The Band played off and on at the Fourth of July festivities, Medina County Fair, several times a year for their sponsor, and occasionally a political rally. Perhaps the activity most enjoyed by the citizenry where the regular, hour-long, Saturday evening concerts from 7:30 p.m. (give or take a half-hour or so). “sun time” (27 minutes slower than Eastern Time) on the Uptown Park Square from May or June into September or October. This resulted in a concert season of from 10 to 17 concerts a year from 1900 until 1914, produced by rain-outs, conflicts with the Medina County Fair, or other major activities in town, or the occasional times when several players could not be there.
The summer concerts from about 1910 on started at 8:30 p.m., were well received is always by the villagers. For example, “by actual count there were at one time during the Band concert last Saturday night 423 automobiles on Medina’s public square around the park” at a late June concert in 1915. In June 1923, “an actual count showed more than 400 automobiles part in or around the square at 8:30 p.m.” it was not until 1926 that parking was band in the middle of the streets around the square. The National Reconstruction Administration (NRA) caused a bit of turmoil over the Band’s concert hour in 1933. According to NRA dictates, businesses were required to close no later than 9 p.m. The Band concerts had been running from 8p until 9p and the merchants felt that “crowds of possible purchasers were being kept away from their stores.” A compromise for the succeeding week had the concert running from 8:30p until 10p.
All that was left were the seven, usually eight, to as many as 11 annual, free, open-air evening concerts in the Medina Uptown Park Square on weekends sometime during July, July, and August. The hour-long concerts started from 7:30p to 9p, on Saturdays from 1943 to 1951, and on Fridays thereafter because merchants had decided to keep their establishments open on Friday nights instead of Saturday nights as before. Retail merchants still paid attention to the summer concerts. In June 1954, “member stores (of the retail division of the Chamber of Commerce) voted unanimously to remain open until 9 p.m. on Fridays during the summer open air band concert series.” Most businesses had been closing at 8:30 p.m. on Friday evenings.
During the modern era, concerts started at 8:30p, at least from 1972 through 1975. From 1975 until 1996 (21 years), the City of Medina hosted their July 4th fireworks display at dusk. Band concerts were moved to 7:30p during those years to allow folks to leave the concert for the fireworks display. The only moved back to a 7:30p start was during the pandemic concert in 2021, when the concert moved to the early time. The time was moved back to 8:30p in 2022.
Marcus L. Neiman, conductor
Posted Friday, July 1st, 2022
