Soggy summer drenches region
Outdoor markets, performances, dining fight for re-emergence
In upstate New York, it has been a wet, hot American summer in its first full month, but for most regional residents, restaurateurs and operators of outdoor entertainment and activities, it hasn’t been nearly as much fun as for the characters in the 2001 comedy of the same name.
Although a critical and commercial flop when it was released, the film “Wet Hot American Summer” became a cult favorite in the years after. It seems an unlikely verdict on the first half of summer 2021, when emergence from the pandemic was hoped to mean freedom from lockdowns and abundant time to enjoy the outdoors for a few months.
That has so far been true for ducks and steam-bath aficionados. And people who like rain, aka pluviophiles, who presumably revel in the fact that we’ve had twice as much precipitation in June and so far in July as during the equivalent period last summer, according to National Weather Service records at the Albany International Airport.
As for the rest of us? Erin Pihlaja has a few thoughts.
“This is definitely a tough weather year for sure. No doubt about it,” said Pihlaja, a Troy resident who owns Make It Up State, a market showcasing local, handmade goods and prepared foods. It has midday out
door markets on Second Street in downtown Troy on Sunday and on the plaza in front of the SUNY System Administration building on Broadway in Albany on Thursday.
Since the beginning of last month, half of Make It Up
State’s Albany markets have been affected by rain, and last week’s market saw attendance depressed by extreme heat and humidity, which discourage downtown workers from leaving airconditioned offices for a lunchtime stroll. Rain has so far dampened multiple Sunday markets in
Troy and forced two full cancellations, Pihlaja said via enail. The situation is similar for the Saratoga Farmers Market, which has seen slightly decreased attendance as a result of rain during between a third to half of its market sessions, on Wednesday and Saturday in Saratoga Springs and Monday in Clifton Park, a representative said.
It’s a sad irony of 2021 that when many performing arts venues, such as Shakespeare & Co. and Glimmerglass, moved much of their summer programming outdoors because of COVID concerns, they have been forced to grapple with a continuous threat of evening deluges. Nearly half of the all-outdoor performances at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival (17 out of 33 performances to date) have been canceled due to rain, according to a Pillow spokeswoman. Many free weekly musical events as well, such as Alive At Five, have had to take shelter at their alternative rain sites.
After three weeks of Park Playhouse’s run of the musical revue “Ain’t Misbehavin’” in Albany’s Washington Park, nearly all scheduled performances have been affected by bad weather, according to Owen Smith, producing artistic director of Playhouse Stage Company, the parent organization of Park Playhouse. Performances have been canceled prior to curtain and called off during the show, and about half experienced rain during the show but were not halted. Recent nights have been clearer, leaving Smith
This is the wettest season I’ve ever seen, but except right when a storm is passing through with high winds, people still want to sit outside.” — Jason Pierce, owner of Savoy Taproom
hopeful for the final week of the show, closing July 31.
As a result of the weather, Park Playhouse attendance is down 54 percent, but extra donations from patrons mean income is off by only 24 percent, according to Smith. While any decline in projected income is financially painful coming out of the largely revenue-free pandemic year, “Folks are buying reserved seats and donating in such a way that our income per attendee has (helped) closed the gap,” Smith said via email.
Ticket revenue at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center is 50 percent less that in past summers, but that was expected because of lower attendance as a result of pandemic-related capacity restrictions put in place when the classical season was planned earlier this year, according to SPAC President and CEO Elizabeth Sobol. None of the classical events so far this season have been significantly affected by rain, Sobol said. The effect of wet weather on SPAC concerts produced by Live Nation could not immediately be determined, because the promoter does not release attendance figures. But online reports from recent concerts suggest staff is allowing inside admission for lawn patrons on rainy nights when the amphitheater is not sold out.
Restaurants, too, are suffering from the rain’s effect on outdoor dining. Some, including Savoy Taproom in Albany, have covered walkways from restaurant to patio for patrons and staff, allowing al-fresco meals except during the worst cloudbursts.
“This is the wettest season I’ve ever seen, but except right when a storm is passing through with high winds, people still want to sit outside,” owner Jason Pierce said. Savoy has a covered rear patio that seats about 50, plus a few more tables, also sheltered, on its Lark Street sidewalk.
Toro Cantina on Wolf Road in Colonie has commodious outdoor patios that in ideal condi
tions can seat more than 60. But since outdoor tables have individual umbrellas, intended more for sun shade than rain protection, a sudden shower means relocating everyone indoors, as servers working outside tables would have no shelter from rain. Consequently, Toro must keep an equivalent number of diningroom seats available for patio refugees if needed, owner Jaime Ortiz said.
“It seems like 70 percent of days have been terrible, rain-wise, in the last month.”
Over in the Berkshires, the Williamstown Theatre Festival programmed its first post-pandemic summer with a reduced schedule of only three productions, all outdoors at different places around Williamstown, Mass. On Tuesday morning, the festival announced that Tuesday night’s opening of the show “Alien/nation” was being postponed as a result of continuing bad weather. Further, the company announced Monday that its world premiere of “Row,” a musical about the first woman to row solo across the Atlantic, being performed in the
reflecting pool at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, had lost so many rehearsals and preview performances to rain that the creative team will not allow the show to be reviewed by critics at any point during its monthlong run. The Los Angeles Times later reported that conflict between management and the show’s technical staff contributed to the difficulties.
Summer storms can be changeable, fleeting and highly localized, as evidenced by the July 14 storms that devastated parts of Rensselaer County but left areas less than 10 miles away largely dry. Pihlaja was executive director of the Troy Downtown Business Improvement District from 2014 to 2016 and was responsible for overseeing outdoor events including the Rockin’ in the River concert series, the Troy Pig Out barbecue festival
and Troy Night Out.
“There would be days where it was so touch and go,” she said. “We would be on one side of the Hudson River in Troy with one weather pattern and literally right across the water they were having different weather conditions.”
The Troy Waterfront Farmers Market is running at about 50 percent attendance compared to 2019, according to a spokesman, but the market attributes that to its
location in a Riverfront Park parking lot instead of its traditional spread along River Street, a pandemic-related accommodation made last summer. The market has been largely unaffected by rain, the spokesman said.
Attendance for the opening weekend at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs was up 7.1 percent over 2019, according to Pat Mckenna, senior director of communications for the New York Racing Association. It likely would have been higher were it not for steady rain last Sunday that held attendance down 30 percent over the prior days’ average attendance, Mckenna said.
No groups scheduled for cruises on the two Tiki Tours boats on Lake George have canceled because of rain, said cofounder Larry Davis. Pentup demand from last summer, especially among bridal parties, makes people intent on going regardless of the rain, and the boats have covered areas for passengers. After Tiki Tours launched its second boat last weekend, it used waiting lists to fill
up the schedule to the point that the company is booked at about 50 percent capacity for the rest of the season, Davis said.
The time of day matters, too. The Washington Park Farmers Market, held midday on Saturday a few hundred feet from the Park Playhouse stage, has been unaffected by rain on the same days “Ain’t Misbehavin’” cast, crew and audiences got wet. The farmers market owner, Scott Abraham, said it and its sibling Sunday market in Guilderland have suffered little more than sprinkles during their respective hours so far this year.
And summer rain upstate is hardly unprecedented. Pihlaja recalls that seven of the eight weeks of Rockin’ on the River concerts during her first summer, in 2014, were affected by storms. She
said automated reminders on her social-media accounts lately have been bringing back the anxiety of that summer, when an expected festive night for thousands could quickly become a soggy, sorry clean-up session for a few.
“It is coming up in my Facebook memories daily how tormented and distraught I was,” Pihlaja said.
She and others who intently follow forecasts and consult weather apps on their phones as their events approach say they hope that the end of July and the month of August and later will be drier and more conducive to make up income lost to last year’s pandemic and this year’s rain.
Said Pihlaja, “We are running (markets) through late September, so I am hoping it’s a summer thing.”
There would be days where it was so touch and go. We would be on one side of the Hudson River in Troy with one weather pattern and literally right across the water they were having different weather conditions.” — Erin Pihlaja, executive director, Troy Downtown Business Improvement District