Local color Folk festival gets vital goods, services from Bangor-area businesses

BANGOR – Though it’s a national festival, several local businesses are playing small roles in this year’s folk festival, providing organizers with everything from ice to maps and shade to light and sound.

Enjoying sucking on an ice cube left over from a glass of homemade lemonade? Thank Getchell Bros. Inc. in Brewer. Having a hard time navigating the grounds? Grab a color map printed by Northeast Reprographics in Bangor. Looking for a little stronger libation and shelter from the sun? Duck under the beer tent provided by Acadia Fabric Structures of Bangor.

While most business owners acknowledged that the much-anticipated festival, now in its second of a three-year run in Bangor, does not seriously affect their bottom line annual revenues, they are grateful for the business.

“It’s a pretty nice bounce for us,” said Don Farnham, a manager at Getchell Bros., which will be supplying the festival with about 12,000 pounds of ice during the three-day event. “That’s a good sale for us at the end of the summer. It’s a nice bounce late in the season, when some tourists are leaving and kids are heading back to school.”

The ice-making company, which sits on the riverfront across from the festival grounds, produces about 90 tons of ice a day, Farnham said. So while 12,000 pounds may not be the sale of the century, “it’s 12,000 pounds more than we’d have sold if the festival wasn’t here. And plus we’re excited about it and excited to be part of it.”

John Bronson, president of Bronson Communications in Bangor, is providing lighting for the main stage on Railroad Street as well as sound systems for four different areas along the festival grounds.

“Certainly a lot of their equipment and such comes along with the national organization, which is based in Washington, D.C., but it’s great and we certainly want to encourage them to use local businesses whenever and as much as they can,” Bronson said.

Bronson, whose company also provides the lighting and sound for the Bangor State Fair, said the gig was a “good piece of business for us,” and said he hoped the festival would continue on a local level even after the end of the three-year national run.

“We hope by doing some of the work now, some of which we are contributing to the festival, that they will think of us after the national run is over and the festival continues into the fourth year,” Bronson said.

On Wednesday, Daniel W. Leaden, a certified master fabric craftsman and owner of Acadia Fabric Structure in downtown Bangor, was busy sewing the final seams of a “tensile structure” that will provide shade at the dance area behind Fleet Bank.

Leaden had made a tabletop scale model of a prototype “tent” that he is hoping will be selected to serve as the permanent home of a church in California. He said he walked into the folk festival headquarters in downtown Bangor with his model and “they liked it.”

The unusual structure resembles an “upside-down funnel and is smooth and curvy,” Leaden said as his sewing machine tattered away Wednesday.

The tent behind Fleet Bank will be a scaled-down version of the tent Leaden hopes to make for the California church, he said. The company also will be providing the shelter for the beer tent, he said.

“We don’t really do any business in Maine, so it’s nice to have a local project. Plus I’m renting the tents to them, so I’ll now have them in inventory to use again,” he said.

Orders from the folk festival for banners provided “more than a good day’s work” for two employees at Bangor Neon, according to Grace Treworgy.

“We are certainly grateful to the business and so thrilled to have the festival here,” she said this week. “It’s nice to have visitors from out of town staying with us and having a place like that to take them to.”

Bangor Neon, which employs 15 workers, provided a 4-foot-by-20-foot banner advertising the folk festival, as well as a 3-foot-by-12-foot banner for Heritage Stage. The Bangor company also provided about two dozen smaller banners directing festivalgoers to refreshment stands, police, and T-shirt kiosks.

“It’s not a huge order, but we are delighted to have the business,” Treworgy said.

Rod Hathawaym, vice president of Maine Trailer and Leasing in Hermon, said his company has provided five trailers to be used as temporary office space for organizers and for storage.

“We also get offshoot business, not from the festival directly, but from companies participating, such as two refrigeration trailers we are providing to Coca-Cola which will be set up at the festival,” said Hathaway. “It’s a great opportunity to take part. We have several employees who are also volunteering at the festival this year. It’s great to have any part in such a tremendous community event.”