Symphony in the Flint Hills 2017

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Ching under Events, Things to Do.

Here are a few pictures from our fun volunteer day at Symphony in the Flint Hills…

Krystee and Faith talking to Ben, THE Green Team guy…

This is Ben.

Krystee, Faith, and I were super excited to help.

We went on Wednesday and not all of the tents were up yet.

Faith and I played with taking some panoramic photos while we waited for Ben to return with gloves.

Retiree Bill Heins had the master plan gave us our instructions.

Bill Heins.

Some of the volunteers worked on the hay bales.

The rest of us worked on the tables. Over 200 of them.

We worked hard but took some breaks also.

This is my friend Mo.

There were volunteers from various areas of the company.

People from Wichita and Topeka came together to help.

I carpooled with Krystee and Faith.

Shane, also from Wichita, drove up separately with his daughter Claire.

We took advantage of breaks from working to take some fun photos.

Here’s Krystee, Faith, and Teresa with the official company gator.

It’s pretty fancy. 😉

Faith and Teresa taking a break…

We finished setting up the main tent just in time for lunch.

Lunch was provided by the Tasty Traveler, a food truck from Manhattan (Kansas, not New York). It was pretty tasty.

I had the Philly cheesesteak and cheesy hashpuppies.

I also ordered a thing of brownie bites to share.

The brownie bites were just okay. The Philly cheesesteak sandwich was just okay, too. The highlight of the meal was definitely the cheesy hashpuppies. They were delicious! I could eat those all day long!

Ben gave us a little briefing while we enjoyed our break and lunch.

Of course, break time means selfie time.

I took a couple of me and Shane, and me and Shane and Claire.

We worked a couple more hours after lunch before calling it a day.

We walked from the parking area to the work site that morning but in the afternoon Ben was nice enough to give us a ride back to Faith’s truck in the gator.

While the Green Team’s portion of the work was finished, I wasn’t quite done because I volunteered to help at the ticket gate on the day of the event. Brian and I went back on Saturday and worked for another six hours. We arrived at the Symphony in the Flint Hills site at 12:30 PM, well ahead of our 1:00 PM shift.

Of course, since Ben is a rock star, he was already there when we got there.

Brian and I got the opportunity to work with this lovely young lady from Council Grove. Kara happens to know my friend/coworker Amy who moved from Valley Center to Council Grove not too long ago. What a small world, right?

My job wasn’t too hard. We were at the regular ticket gate so I just had to take general admission tickets and, if I came across any guests with patron tickets, send any patrons to the patron gate so they can get all of the special treatment and services that they are entitled to as patrons.

It wasn’t a tough job but, man, we were busy!

Brian’s main job was to install the official Symphony in the Flint Hills gray wristbands. Yes, I said install. I said it all day long. People got a kick out of it because it sounded like I was installing software or something. Wristbands are kind of flimsy. I suppose it works. LOL.

Anyway, our gate stayed open after they closed down the other ticket gates so then we really got flooded. And then one of the guys carding people and installing yellow alcohol wristbands left because his shift was over. So then Brian ended up having to do that part and I ended up having to both take tickets and wristband people. I was really slow at installing the wristbands at first but I got pretty efficient toward the end. I was cranking them out like a pro after a while. It just takes practice.

Our shift officially ended at 7:00 PM but, by the time our gate was closed and we grabbed our stuff, it was fifteen after and the concert had already been going a half an hour. There was no point going back to the car to get our lawn chairs.

The walk from the parking are to the concert site is the shortest that it’s ever been but it’s still quite a ways away. There was no point sitting with the crowd anyway because by then the lawn chairs were parked all the way back to the food tent. We just ended up hanging out at the food tent instead. We weren’t getting that much closer with chairs.

I’m not sure what the final attendance numbers were but there were a lot of people this year. I even recognized a few people who came through our ticket gate.

Here’s a panoramic photo to give you a better idea.

Brian and I were both grateful for the volunteer opportunity and were glad that we could help but we’re thinking next year we are just going to attend the event and not work that day. I really would have liked to have been able to watch the concert from beginning to end and get a good spot.

We also couldn’t bring a picnic dinner because we had to work for six hours so we ended up spending $40 on dinner that wasn’t that satisfying. It supported a great cause so we didn’t mind chipping in but for the same amount of money we could have packed a really nice picnic!

Working at the ticket gate was a great experience, though. We got to see some Symphony in the Flint Hills pros with their wagons loaded with stuff. We have a really good idea of what to bring and not to bring and how to bring it so that walking from the parking lot to the concert site isn’t a big ordeal. We will be ready for next year. That’s for sure.