McCartney concert boosts Conservancy's capital campaign

By BO EMERSON

Ecstatic fans and a happy Piedmont Park Conservancy pronounced Saturday’s Paul McCartney concert a success in the realms of art, money and that indefinable quality that turns the event into a “you should have been there.”

“The best entertainment, bar none, that I have ever had the privilege to attend,” said Andrea Stephenson, of Gwinnett County, who saw the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1965, but heard a lot more music this time on Saturday’s improved sound system.

Concert-goers who missed out on Woodstock felt like they had a taste of the famous outdoor happening on its 40th anniversary, with a little torrential rain thrown in for verisimilitude.

“I guarantee, Piedmont Park looked like the last day at Woodstock. Beer cans, water bottles, left-over food cartons, wet blankets, plastic rain ponchos, a couple of hung-over concert goers,” said Cathy Ogilvie, of Lawrenceville, who was only 10 when that other big outdoor concert took place in 1969.

A benefit for the Conservancy, the “Green Concert” helped drive the organization’s capital campaign to a successful completion, said Conservancy vice president Monica Thornton.

Certainly the mountains of garbage left over by 35,000 fans made the show seem less “green,” but Thornton said the garbage was not a problem, and even made it easier for the private garbage collectors to sort out recyclables and compostables. Thornton couldn’t quote figures on the amount raised by the concert, but said it easily covered the $181,000 left in the capital campaign. Success in reaching that threshold releases $20 million in challenge grants, she said.

Concert-goers complained about the lack of separate entrance times for those promised early admission with pre-sale tickets, but Thornton said 20,000 bought tickets from the Conservancy before they went on sale to the public, which might explain the rush to the gates at the earlier time.

Other complaints concerned late attendees who squeezed toward the front, in defiance of those who arrived early and spread blankets to claim space. “You couldn’t walk, and you couldn’t get to the trash receptacles,” said Janis Paul, of Atlanta. But organizers said that’s par for the course at a general admission show.

Sgt. Lisa Keyes of the Atlanta police department said there were no arrests made during the concert, but “medics stayed busy because of the heat and alcohol consumption.”

The Conservancy raised $1.5 million at last year’s Dave Matthews Band fund-raiser, but this show was more expensive to produce, said Thornton. The $80 ticket prices for the McCartney show were about twice as high as the DMB tickets, but attendance was limited to below 50,000.

Peter Conlon of concert promoter LiveNation said the sort of stage McCartney used -- a 78-foot-tall behemoth from a Belgian company, usually costs around $125,000 in rental charges -- not including labor costs. “That’s the biggest outdoor production we’ve ever worked with,” he said. “That’s 70 trucks.”

While McCartney asked the Conservancy not to discuss the share of profits that he offered from merchandising, nor the artist’s costs to the group, Conlon said, “Paul is very generous to the park. The deal he made them was a very generous deal, compared to normal deals.”

For fans such as Stephenson, connecting with such an important representative of her life’s music was worth every bit of the ticket price. “Last night the grown-up Beatle and the grown-up fan, interconnected in sweet moments of reminiscence.”