IT vs. IT, Inc. August 14, 2003 - The Republican Journal By Doug Hufnagel Just what does "IT" mean? What kind of a name is that for a music festival? Not that the names of the other two Maine Phish extravaganzas; "The Great Went" and "Lemonwheel," were any more comprehensible. But IT? Why do Phish fans and other happening hounds endure 16-hour traffic jams stuffed into their SUVs and crawl along the back roads of Aroostook County to get to the old Limestone Air Force base? There has to be some reason. For myself, the reason I was heading into Caribou on Thursday afternoon (a day early, thus no traffic) with 120 pounds of coffee and 25 gallons of half-and-half was relatively simple: money. With 60,000 people in one place for 60 hours, the chance of selling a bunch of coffee, tea and hot chocolate looked pretty good. "Coffeeman" was at the Great Went back in '97 and met with some success. But I found the organization that runs the Phish shows, Great Northeast Productions (GNP), overbearing and greedy, so I skipped Lemonwheel in '98. This time around, Coffeeman was penciled in to be a satellite of another vendor willing to sign an up-front contract to turn over 35 percent of gross sales to GNP and, as we learned only days before the event, purchase all supplies of food, drinks, cups, etc., from Sysco, (the giant food distributor) who had 10 18-wheeler trucks on site. In other words, these Phish Shows are huge corporate revenue funnels, raking in millions from fans and vendors. With ticket sales alone accounting for $8.4 million and the food sales probably ringing in another $10 million, IT probably generated $15 to 20 million for the promoters over three or four days. They paid the Loring Development Authority a paltry $500,000 for the site. The constant money tug of war between the organizers of any event and vendors makes for endless conversation among the vendor community. Some organizers understand the plight of the vendor and some just don't get the fragility of a bare-knuckles capitalism scene where a day or two of rain or a bad location can break the bottom line. But I can say this: After 14 years in the vendor biz, Great Northeast is the worst by far; corporate, greedy and thuggish. My pickup truck and Airstream trailer were searched for food and supplies as I passed through vendor check-in and security. Luckily, the coffee, cups and cream were well-hidden and the low-level security team was more focused on the babe-o-rama in the next car and their new walkie-talkies to bother with one old guy in a camper. This behind-the-scenes, high-security stuff translates directly into the big headlines in the newspapers and the frustrating waits most of the people who came to IT experienced in the traffic jams. Ever wonder why they can get 80,000 people in and out of a football or baseball game in a few hours and it took 36 hours for less people to get into Limestone? The gates opened Friday morning at 8 a.m. and fans slowly drove down the three-mile long runway toward the highly organized camping system. That was the last mile of a 20-mile snake line which finally ended Saturday afternoon - 36 hours later. So what was the problem? The bottleneck began and ended at the front gate, where all cars were stopped and searched. The reason given this was "national security" and the usual alcohol, drug and weapon frisk. This search was backed up by a combination "off duty" local, state and county law enforcement and executed by GNP's private police Gestapo who were really looking for the supplies of the illegal vendors who swarm the site and center around "Shakedown Street." Shakedown (which gets its name from an old Grateful Dead song) evolves into the likeness of a Calcutta street market, where every kind of food, article of clothing, bead, alcohol or drug is available. It's a tradition that has been going on for thousands of years (camp followers who trailed armies on the march). But this modern version was developed by followers on the old Dead tour who support themselves traveling from show to show by selling T-shirts and bumper stickers. The classic version is a guy with a Coleman stove and one frying pan selling grilled cheese sandwiches out of the back of his VW van for a dollar, or a guy on a skateboard towing a cooler filled with beer on another skateboard. Shakedown takes money from GNP's pocket so it is viewed as a problem, therefore there is the long car-by-car searches and resulting backed-up traffic. At a certain level, all the crowds, litter, mud, rain, clogged Port-a- potties and traffic are part of the noise that one must pass through to get to IT. On a large board near the entrance to the concert field was a long quote from Jack Kerouac's beat novel On the Road. On it the word IT is explained by one of the book's central characters - Dean Moriarty. He describes a man talking to a room of people. He goes on and on talking about this and that, but not saying much. Then he suddenly gets "IT" and starts to speak the real truth and explain the essential complexity of the human condition. The room, which has been ignoring him, hears this and all at once turns and begins to listen to the guy who is now in touch with IT - the creative force of the collective unconscious. They know they're hearing something new, something great. It's the jazz musician who taps into new riff, the artist who paints the great picture or writes the great novel. IT is the creative flow that comes along only once in a while. For those who went to Limestone, IT might have been seeing Phish play a 45-minute unannounced encore set from the top of the wildly lit, old air traffic control tower at 2 a.m. Moments like that don't come along every day and often it takes a heap of wading through a lot of IT, Inc. to get to the real IT. Copyright © 2003 The Republican Journal