Adventures of the Sanctuary: Alternative Apparel & the ACL Festival weekend 2010
It was Friday October 8, 2010 and fall’s biggest party was starting at Zilker Park. The Austin City Limits three-day music fest would be overtaking the town for the next weekend. Talking to my friends, it seemed as if everyone had known and planned for this festival their entire life. I admit I was a bit bummed I wouldn’t be attending the festival this year. Little did I know, my time interning for Sanctuary at ACL would afford me the luxury of attending the festival without ever having to step foot in the park. (story continues below, after picture gallery)
When I arrived at the American Legion Hall on Friday, I was greeted with waves from my superiors. “Welcome to the hardest gig you’ll work,” my boss says. One of our job’s for the weekend: to screen print hundreds of shirts on site at the American Legion Hall on behalf of Alternative Apparel at the BMF Music Lounge. The design team at the Sanctuary headquarters had been working arduously that week, designing the four screens that would be used that weekend. The designs we used that weekend were immensely popular and everyone who stopped by to pick-up a freshly printed tee was excited about their new shirt.
The Miike Snow Band
It was my time in between the bursts of people stopping by our tent I began to take inventory of all the people attending. It wasn’t long before I recognized members from the cast of ABC’s My Generation. Members from the cast such as: Sebastian Sozzi, Anne Son, Daniella Alonso, and Keir O’Donnell (also from Wedding Crahsers fame) stopped by the tent to grab a few tees. Everyone was friendly and appreciative of the creative, homegrown designs.
The afternoon came and went in what seemed like minutes. It feels as if I had just ended my trek when all of the sudden it was time to turn around and do it again. Walking back I started to prepare mentally for the upcoming night. The screen-printing Camino was going to be printing posters for the Miike Snow and Dan Black ACL after show at The Belmont. My long day as Sanctuary intern was not going to end for at least another seven hours.
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The Sanctuary El Camino at The Belmont
After dodging and weaving through Austinites and out-of-towners alike, I made it to the El Camino parked in front of the doors to The Belmont. The doors were supposed to open at 10 p.m., but it was 10:30 and there didn’t seem to be any sign of life inside. As people were shuffling, waiting for the doors to open, we printed posters for the show. It’s so cool to see someone screen-print straight from the back of a Camino. It’s such an art, a lot of patience and craftsmanship goes into making each print. It wasn’t long after the doors began to open and the line started to diminish.
We made posters, free for the anyone to take. We had made over 500 prints for the occasion. As I passed out posters, I never imagined I would have to persuade some people to take a one-of-a-kind, limited edition, free, screen-printed poster. Most didn’t want to keep track of a poster during the show. I can empathize. I’ve lost many a poster at shows, but at the same time, I’ve got some badass autographs on posters I’ve brought with me, which always made it worth the while.
After a while, a good chunk of the posters had been snagged, and the line was almost non-existent. The show had started and it wasn’t long after that one the coolest moments of ACL happened. A couple was walking past our Camino and had taken notice of the Miike Snow posters we had been printing. They asked us a few questions about the poster and started to tell us their story. They had traveled from Dallas to ACL just to see Miike Snow. After encountering a few problems on the way, they had missed his set. After hearing their story, we told them the show had just started. A shriek and a squeal came from the couple and they jumped with excitement. They thanked and hugged us as they went inside. The show wasn’t very long and a few minutes later the couple came up to us again. They were so excited to see the show they had come to Austin for in a much more intimate setting than ACL. They thanked us again and skipped down the street. To think: if we weren’t there printing those posters, they would have never known about the show. It’s so cool we got to be a part of their special ACL moment.
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The author (left) working at the BMF Music Lounge on Saturday night
Here I was, on a beautiful Saturday, parked even farther than I had yesterday. This time I was in a neighborhood. I was petrified my car would be towed while working that day. I set-out for my walk. I let my mind wander and it wasn’t long before I found myself at the BMF Music Lounge again.
As I walked in, lines of people were gathering around to get their shirts. Midlake stopped by the booth to get shirts printed. Not too long after Midlake left, Gayngs, Ponderosa and The Henry Clay People all stopped by to grab some shirts. The bands soon left our tent and the lines began to dwindle. I left again that night. As I made my way back to my car, I prayed it was where I left it, unharmed. My prayers were answered and a tear of joy came to my eye.
As I drove back to the American Legion, I began to think of how exciting the night was going to be. Local Natives, Two Door Cinema Club, and Matt and Kim were all playing there that night. We’d have the shirts finished before the show would start and I’d get to see the Local Natives play. We started printing and it wasn’t long before every shirt had been given away.
As soon as the weekend had started it was ending. I was a bit sad to see the Camino go, because I knew after that, “the hardest gig I would ever have to work” was ending. I thought back on all the people I had met, all the fun and all the laughs I had shared over the weekend; I was happy, who needed to be at ACL, with all the people and chaos? I gained such valuable experiences that weekend and at the same token I was having so much fun. I was lucky to meet some very nice, very interesting and very exciting people. Now that all the hullabaloo’s ended and things have gotten a little quieter around here, I can’t help but get one thought out of my mind: SXSW can’t come soon enough.