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-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen John Finical, of Omaha, Nebraska, strings out cabling Friday afternoon while working to set up the stage lights for the annual Shellabration concert.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen One of the hundreds of volunteers required to set up for the annual Shellabration concert helps unload equipment from a truck onto the stage Friday afternoon.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration volunteer Pam Passow, of Fort Dodge, holds onto a string of lights and a vinyl record decoration Friday afternoon while helping to set up inside the VIP tent. The lights and record mobile would eventually end up suspended in the peak of the tent.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration stagehand Hunter Niemand, of Fort Dodge, contemplates how the last floor panel is going to put in place Friday afternoon while working to set up for the annual concert. A strategic application of hammer blows and someone jumping on it got it into place a few minutes later.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration stagehands Rusty Gregerson, at left, Hunter Nieman, center, and Shane Simonson, right, all of Fort Dodge, move one of the over 100 portable toilets required for the event into position near the stage Friday afternoon.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration committee members Brad Niemeyer, at left, along with Craig Schlienz, both of Fort Dodge, fill a tub of ice with bottles of Gatorade Friday afternoon to keep the volunteers working to assemble the stage well hydrated.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen John Finical, of Omaha, Nebraska, strings out cabling Friday afternoon while working to set up the stage lights for the annual Shellabration concert.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen One of the hundreds of volunteers required to set up for the annual Shellabration concert helps unload equipment from a truck onto the stage Friday afternoon.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration volunteer Pam Passow, of Fort Dodge, holds onto a string of lights and a vinyl record decoration Friday afternoon while helping to set up inside the VIP tent. The lights and record mobile would eventually end up suspended in the peak of the tent.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration stagehand Hunter Niemand, of Fort Dodge, contemplates how the last floor panel is going to put in place Friday afternoon while working to set up for the annual concert. A strategic application of hammer blows and someone jumping on it got it into place a few minutes later.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration stagehands Rusty Gregerson, at left, Hunter Nieman, center, and Shane Simonson, right, all of Fort Dodge, move one of the over 100 portable toilets required for the event into position near the stage Friday afternoon.
-Messenger photo by Hans Madsen Shellabration committee members Brad Niemeyer, at left, along with Craig Schlienz, both of Fort Dodge, fill a tub of ice with bottles of Gatorade Friday afternoon to keep the volunteers working to assemble the stage well hydrated.
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Shellabration President Jim Reed was a busy guy Friday afternoon as a beehive of volunteers worked to set up the stage, tents, portable toilets and fence needed for today's Shellabration concert at the Harlan and Hazel Rogers Sports Complex.
One little detail forced him to leave the site for a few minutes.
"I'm going to go check on the tiki lights at my office," he told a committee member as he got into his car, "We got no cans, we got no wicks."
The tiki lights are just one of a thousand and one details that have to be tended to during the setup, which in the music industry has a different term.
"In the business it's called load in," he said. "We have two days of load in and then load out."
Doing all that work requires a lot of volunteers.
"Right now we're north of 400," he said. "They're doing everything from putting up fence to stringing lights across the Portapotties -- now there's a glamorous job -- but somebody's got to do it."
For the record, there's 105 portable toilets on the site -- that's a lot of lights.
What may look like a chaotic beehive getting ready for today's concert featuring Huey Lewis & The News is actually the end result of planning that started before last year's Shellabration concert.
"What you see here is the execution of a game plan that's a year in the making," Reed said.
That includes booking the band -- highly classified information at this time -- for 2018.
"We made the offer for next year's artist back in February," he said. "We work a year and a half out."
He was expecting a rather long day of it.
"Call was at 8 a.m." he said. "If things go well I expect to be out of here at 8 to 10 a.m. tomorrow morning."
It's all worth it.
"You get to see it," he said. "Then for five hours, how many people we got together in unison."
Brad Niemeyer, of Fort Dodge, is a member of the Shellabration committee who was spending the day investing a lot of sweat equity in the project. Among his tasks was filling several large tubs with soda, water and Gatorade for the volunteers.
He's proud of the job they do.
"We had a group of Cargill people out that absolutely knew exactly what to do," he said. "Our volunteers are always great."
Hunter Niemand, of Fort Dodge, is a stagehand for the concert.
He stopped for a few minutes Friday to contemplate one of the few problems that cropped up as the stage was being assembled: fitting the last floor panel into the spot it was supposed to go into.
"It's just really snug," he said. "We were going pretty smooth the whole time."
The issue was resolved with some "minor adjustments." -- a judicious and careful application of hammer blows and the efforts of one large stagehand jumping on the piece to get it into place.
Niemand's tasks for the day were varied. A few minutes later, he found himself working with fellow stagehand Rusty Gregerson, of Fort Dodge, to relocate two of the portable toilets. closer to the stage.
Fortunately for the pair, not only do they come with handles, there were also several others available to help.
Pam Passow, of Fort Dodge, was helping a crew of volunteers putting up decorations inside the VIP tent. She found herself holding onto a string of lights with one hand and holding up part of a vinyl album mobile with the other before they were raised to the peak of the tent.
"When you're doing this," she said. "You prepare for anything."
She was happy to do whatever tasks were available for her to do.
"I'm kind of a 'gofer'," she said. "I go for this, I go for that."
Once their work is done, the lights will shine brightly, the sound system will sound perfect, the beverages will be cold and food ready to eat and Reed will be one rather tired individual who will have slept little during the day.
He sums up the behind-the-scenes work simply.
"Production ain't sexy." he said.