Earthwise CEO Mark Weiss and Tim Bluhm of the Mother Hips, at CoHo, circa 2000

I have 10 concerts on sale at Mitchell Park Community Center, between March 6 and May 3, so best case scenario I will be sharing some incredible musical experiences (and escape from tension) with 2,000 of my neighbors and friends and fellow travelers (dancers, singers, people moved to near ecstasy by sound and sight).
Worst case scenario: I will refund all no-shows for people who are feeling under the weather. I will be renegotiating all 10 shows, mostly via the agents — I want to ensure that if a performer feels under the weather, he or she will rather reschedule than appear in Palo Alto.
For me this whole issue is an opportunity to develop my relationships with artists and audiences, and something to build on moving forward. The show must go on, but only in a safe healthy and fun environment.

I presume personally I will get a cold and then get over it. (I won’t work if I’m sick — I will either have a sub run the show or maybe cancel and refund — It could be slightly different deal with each headliner, for each date, but I will have a plan going forward).

I presume many Palo Altans and Californians will get this virus but few will die of this. Fewer than 2 percent.
God bless.
God bless you.

Keep on rockin’ in the free world.
Mark Weiss
Earthwise Productions of Palo Alto
(indirectly speaking for The Mother Hips, Akira Tana, Jenny Scheinman, Allison Miller, AJ Lee, Sullivan Tuttle, Wayne Horvitz, Lisa Mezzacappa, Marcus Shelby,Valerie Troutt, Tiffany Austin, Mike “that1guy” Silverman, The Dartmouth Coast Jazz Orchestra, Motoko Honda, Laura Veirs, Myra Melford, Liberty Ellman, Ron Miles, Rudy Royston et al)

I’ve had the experience of being CURED by live music at a concert.
I’ll be constantly updating these policies based on what goes on with Stanford Live, The Sharks, SXSW, Fox Theatre Oakland, The Fillmore, et cetera. And yes, I noted that David Packard shuttered his theatre.

We’ve been selling, thru 15 events so far in the last year and a half, 80 percent of our tickets via EventBrite and so it’s really easy to issue updates on cancellations (one so far, last fall) or refunds.

and1:
I have another thread under another PAW / TS article on this topic.

Friday March 13, besides the Paly jazz concert, Stanford has a big jazz concert at Bing, plus my company Earthwise Productions is hosting a jazz concert at Mitchell Park Community Center with Akira Tana Otonanwa which is an all-Japanese and Japanese-American jazz group performing original music, part of the purpose is to raise awareness over relief efforts for the 2011 tsunami — Akira — a Gunn grad and incidentally the quarterback of the last Gunn team to win league — 1969 — !! — did a similar event last year.

I have 10 shows on sale at The Mitch between Friday March 6 and May 3 and am updating my policies for refunds and cancellation. Basically, if you are feeling sick, stay home I wil refund your money. If the performer is under the weather, I will try to reschedule him or her. Likewise, I won’t work if I get sick.

But music is healing!

edit to add:

two down, nine to go.