Back in May of 2010 the Luis Palau Association (LPA) started its Season of Service. During that five month period, they mobilized churches, community groups and business leaders to engage in multiple types of service projects, such as giving service hours to the city, and building a Habitat for Humanity house over the course of two months. 

The Season of Service kicked off with an event called Sleepless San Diego. Maybe you heard of it? (Mowalla produced this event alongside the San Diego Rescue Mission.)  It then concluded with a celebration called San Diego CityFest last weekend.   Mowalla was there at the beginning and the conclusion – bookending the whole Season of Service.  We were certainly proud to be a big part of both events, especially because it benefitted one of our hometowns in a significant way.

San Diego CityFest was a free music festival that took place at Tecolote Shores in beautiful Mission Bay Park, right alongside Interstate 5.   If you happened to drive by that weekend you could not have missed the mass of people, nor the gigantic stage.   The event had all of your festival favorites including: great food, a myriad of vendor booths, activities for all ages, and plenty of entertainment.  The entertainment ranged from high flying FMX for the teens to Veggie Tales for the kids. A fully programmed Main Stage featured Luis Palau and top CCA artists throughout the day.  A crowd of 40,000+ people packed the park!

Mowalla was hired by LPA to oversee and manage all Main Stage concert production, talent and to produce the live performances from the Main Stage.  Here’s what differentiates this festival from most others (and frankly, it’s my favorite part):  the Main Stage is run on a live-television format, so when the programming started at 2:03 PM the stage never went dark until the scheduled 8:59 PM end time.

Set changes were masked with other programming like special guest interviews, pre-produced videos, and testimonies.  When it came to flipping an 18-piece band in under 12 minutes… Well, let’s just say, the pressure was on!   Oh yeah, did I mention we had a HARD curfew of 9:00 PM?  We knew we were doing well when we had an extra minute of programming time to work with, especially so, because we were dealing with national acts and a group of pastors speaking (both known for their SHORT performances, LOL). 

As time went on and the festival grew, so did our role in making this event happen in our own backyard.  Mowalla helped with the management of the special event process with the city & local community groups, provided CAD and event design services, and leveraged both our national and local relationships on behalf of LPA.  It was our goal to make LPA feel like San Diego was their backyard, too. We worked hard to drive down costs against their bottom line.

In this economy, Team Mowalla knows that we have to produce a top-notch program without anyone ever knowing that it was done on a small budget.  Beyond leveraging our vendor relationships, we also leveraged our network in San Diego – looking to a few of the mega-churches in the city and assembling some of their own in-house production volunteers to fulfill some key roles for CityFest.  These volunteers did everything from PA to lend their time as camera operators.  It was our pleasure and privilege to be able to not only gather those volunteers, but work with them on site. 

Did I mention this wasn’t our first Palau Rodeo?   In fact it was our 6^th , however it had been a few years since we had had the opportunity to work with them.  We’d like to say that ‘we got the band back together’.  It was great to get the chance to work with so many old and new friends on this event.  I wanted to say thanks to the extended Mowalla Family that flew in from around the country – Jim (DaDa), Colin (C-Note), Laura (Momma) and Rachel (Boss Lady).  It was also fun to work with our Creative Artists friend again, Laurie Anderson.

Thanks as well to all of our vendors that help build the 140’ wide stage structure - Flag Systems, Kleege Industries, Sound Storm and Boogie Nights. 

Thanks to the LPA Staff who gave us the opportunity and journeyed with us from load-in to load-out, as well – Chris McFarland, Carey Dow, Doug Steward, Sarah Thorud, Alan White, and all of the Palau Team – it was great to be together yet again.

And of course I need to thank all the video crew who volunteered their time, sweat and muscle to pull off our video production – a BIG shout out to Jeremy, Ted, Nate Brain, Jacob, Malik, Oliver, Corey and Kevin. 

It’s a great thing when one is surrounded by great people – and I can’t say enough about the folks we got to work with on this event.  It was an awesome time with an awesome outcome and all benefiting San Diego, the place I call home.

Cheers Bra,

Brent Walla for Mowalla