Hammond getting another shot at hosting big events

Entertainment producer is now helping put together vaccination clinics at fairgrounds

For years Bill Hammond was used to producing big-stage events all over California — usually with A-list celebrities or acts.

However, Hammond’s mission has changed and the setlist at his most recent events are all quite similar.

Opening: Wait in line. Second song: Get a shot. Encore: Wait 15 minutes and then leave. Sixty thousandth verse, same as the first.

Thousands of people have been coming to the Solano County Fairgrounds each week to receive a COVID-19 vaccination shot thanks to Hammond and his business Hammond Entertainment. Even though Robert Smith is nowhere to be found, Hammond Entertainment and multiple business partners have been helping all the attendees see “the cure.”

“There have been no egos in

volved or people saying, ‘No I won’t do that,’” Hammond said. “Everyone wants to make sure this is a well-oiled machine and it is a well-oiled machine. It’s our goal to be working on this everyday.”

When the pandemic hit last year, Hammond Entertainment lost 70 percent of its projected income. Many of his freelance staff, personnel, and business associates in the industry have been unemployed and/or have seen most of their revenue shrink considerably. So when Hammond received a call from Kaiser Permanente in late January to help run a vaccination site, it took him about two seconds to say yes.

“In those two seconds I said ‘yes’ as well as ‘this is what I do,’” Hammond said. “I knew I had tour managers and other soldiers in the industry that were in the Bay Area looking for work who could make a blue print for this with their eyes closed.”

Within three days, Hammond had secured a location, enlisted six “Road Warriors,” 12 leadership team members, and packed up and moved back to San Francisco from Los Angeles where he was residing.

Hammond considered three places to hold the clinics, including Solano College in Fairfield, but from the get-go he knew the fairgrounds would be the most ideal place to hold the large events.

“We had worked there before and had a previous relationship with people there,” Hammond said. “It was perfect because it was a near two freeways, it had one way in and one way out and I knew we could make it work there. The next thing we had to do is coordinate with Ben (Gammon) and Solano with a lot of moving parts and getting through the politics and getting people to trust what we were doing.”

The group had been doing pop-up events, but the clinic at the fairgrounds was much larger and needed a lot of people to help. Aside from Hammond Entertainment, Solano County EMS Coordinator Ben Gammon said numerous partners such as Solano County Public Health, Kaiser, North Bay Healthcare, Partnership HealthPlan of California, Medic Ambulance and Touro University California have pitched in to help in large ways.

The vaccination site has become focused on impacting racial equity by vaccinating the most vulnerable and underserved from the surrounding communities in the area. And, with the state identifying parts of Vallejo among the highest rates of infection, the goal of Hammond Entertainment has been to vaccinate as many of the 409,000 within Solano County by June — with the latest being August.

Currently, the site administers around 3,500 vaccines per day and has given out nearly 60,000 vaccines over a 19-day period, with each day being eight hours.

In addition to vaccinating as many people as possible, Hammond is putting people back to work and has created 170 jobs for the local community. Gammon said the events have needed every single one of the 170 people.

“I’ve been told the event has ran very well and people have come up to me and said ‘don’t change anything, this is very well organized,’” Gammon said. “Military people have come up to me and said it’s run as smooth as a military event. They love that they come here and they’re in and out in 28 to 30 minutes.”

Solano County has seen 31,819 cases and 197 deaths as of Wednesday afternoon according to county website, https://www.solanocounty. com/depts/ph/coronavirus. asp. There is 5.5 new cases per day per 100,000 and 1.9 positivity rate (7-day average) according to the state site (https://covid19.ca.gov/ safer-economy/#county-status).

Solano is currently in the COVID-19 red tier (substantial), but recent alarming data has Solano County Public Health Administrator Jayleen Richards worried that the county could go back to the purple tier (widespread) while many other nearby counties go to the orange tier (moderate).

Due to these stats, Hammond said he knows people are scared when they come to the clinics and he wanted to make sure that nobody went too far on the grounds of the event without knowing exactly what to do.

“I wanted people to greet everyone step by step from the time they parked and got out of their car to knowing which direction to go to in order to get their shot,” Hammond said. “We had a good system in place with people stationed around every 50 feet to make sure everyone was helped. We know this is very important and we know we are doing God’s work by helping people here.” Gammon, who administers thousands of shots each day, said his favorite part of each day is calming people down and making sure they are comfortable.

“I think as long as people see that I’m calm, then the know the anxiety will go away,” Gammon said. “We don’t want anyone to have an anxiety attack, but if that happens we have plenty of staff to make sure they are OK. A lot of these people, they don’t believe in anything until they get the shot and it actually happens. That’s when you see the tears of joy.”

Gammon said he’s seen a lot of different reactions, but one of his favorites came last week.

“I had one lady who was really scared so I told her, ‘hey, let’s take a selfie of this,’” Gammon said. “While she was getting out her camera phone I gave her the shot. She told me, ‘Hey, you just distracted me and gave me the shot.’ After that she was really happy and we ended up taking a photo.

“It’s things like that that help you get through the long days,” Gammon continued. “You feed off that positivity. You have an adrenaline rush and you want to try and give as many shots as possible. I think our record is 4,221 shots in one day. You go home feeling drained but knowing you helped accomplish something that is rewarding.”

To see if you qualify for a shot at the Solano County Fairgrounds and to book an appointment, visit www.solanocounty.com and hit the COVID link. Read the interest form.