Grateful Dead 50 - prep

When the Grateful Dead remains

decided to play in Santa Clara,

the reality seemed a bit out of reach.

A missed ticket lottery meant scalper tickets,

prices went crazy those first weeks.

Face value tickets of $60-200,

shot up to $150-750+.

Without Jerry Garcia in the mix,

I wasn't too enthusiastic early on.

When school ended and summer officially started,

Jaxon hinted at going.

He had predicted the 50 yr anniversary show

months prior to their announcement.

I didn't believe him!

Well as soon as I asked if he was interested,

it was like tapping that first domino.

We had maybe 8 days to prepare.

It was all dependent on ticket prices.

Sure I've found tickets at shows before,

but that's a long haul on a crap shoot.

Amazingly enough,

the bottom fell out on eBay ticket prices.

Out of staters were scrambling to unload,

and I became a little obsessed watching auctions.

We missed a ton of what seemed like deals,

but patience and cheapness won out.

Thanks to fedex express and usps overnight,

we scored incredibly cheap tickets at the last minute,

as in they arrived the day we left.

It was on.

Since we had the shipping day to prepare,

why not make some shirts to sell!?

Jakob has become a spray stencil master.

The wife laid out some lettering,

and his fingers blistered up with the cutting.

The kids busted butt getting the shirts ready.

It added to the excitement,

and as a result Jake and his friend decided they wanted to go too!

Now we were on a mission.

Jaxon slaved away cleaning the van,

it looked like a yard sale so much stuff.

He even changed the oil.

Dang these kids are good!

I may have well taken a nap...

Unlike screen printing,

no shirt was the same.

They challenged their color choices each time,

super fun to watch them work.

They sprayed almost 4 dozen!

The van was christened 

with a faded "steal your face" dead sticker,

and by midnight we were off!

Part Two later...

TP