ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — There is a whirlwind going on in St. Augustine.
Preparations are underway for the last and biggest weekend of the Sing Out Loud music festival.
It could be one of the biggest festivals the city has had.
"This is the biggest thing I’ve ever had the pleasure to work on, for sure," Carl Liberatore is the production manager for the St. Augustine Sing Out Loud Festival’s Francis Field Showcase.
It will feature a list of performers Friday and Saturday, including The Black Keys and Mumford and Sons..
"After five to six months of planning, and then to see this go up," Liberatore pointed at the field, "it’s insane."
As of Wednesday afternoon, 27,000 tickets had been sold for the two-day Francis Field Showcase of the festival.
"Yeah, it's big. It has to be," Gabe Pellicer said. "September is the slowest month." He is the General manager of the St. Johns County Cultural Events Department.
Sing Out Loud was started in 2016 to pump money into St. Augustine’s sleepiest tourist time of the year: September. While artists play in smaller venues all over town during the three-weekend festival this year, the last weekend’s performance at Francis Field could make it one of the city's biggest events ever.
The stage is huge. It's hard to convey its size on video. It’s bigger than the stage Mumford and Sons played on 10 years ago here, and Liberatore says that makes it the biggest stage St. Augustine has ever had.
"There are more acts, bigger acts coming in, so we had to have more space for them," he said.
All of the hustle and bustle Wednesday was on the Francis Field event space in downtown St. Augustine.
Liberatore noted, "As all the (production) companies came in to work, they'd say, 'So it’s really this kind of rectangular square in the middle of the city?' And I’d say, 'Yeah.' And they said, 'We’re going to use every inch of it.'"
There is a two story VIP area, a cooling tent, free water stations, concessions, merchandise stands, and even a food truck village with picnic tables.
And all of it needs preparation. Liberatore, who lost sleep and gained stress in the months leading up to this week, is in charge.
He added, "Wednesday morning, at 7 a.m., ten semi-trucks pulled in and I went, 'We got this. From that point forward, we’re good."
Good… for a big show.
