How Do I Get Myself Into These Things?

It started with a suggestion. Our church had received news that a choir from Arkansas was touring Europe and would be in Dublin for one day during which time they would perform a concert. We could donate the proceeds to whatever charity we wanted, they would charge nothing, we just needed to organise the venue and sell the tickets. I have a soft spot for Barretstown so I piped up that they might be a good charity to benefit from this event. I agreed to help out with the organisation…I mean, what could be so difficult about finding a venue and selling a few seats? Ha! How naive was I?

Five months down the line, with just hours to go before the concert, I’m swearing I will never do this again. I’m just not cut out for the stress. If it wasn’t for family and friends jumping in and helping me I would have succumbed to a heart attack by now. It’s not just the organisation…we found a lovely church in Dalkey that is willing to let us stage the concert there. My father made up some brilliant posters and my mother and I blitzed the area with them a few weeks ago. On top of that 500 fliers were posted through people’s doors in the Dalkey area. Advertisements have appeared in both the Church of Ireland and the Catholic parish bulletins. All those things went to plan. It’s more the one thing I can’t control that’s keeping me awake at night: is anyone going to actually show up? I’ve been having those dreams like the ones I had before I got married…you know the ones where you arrive at the church and you’re wearing only a giant pair of granny knickers and a boob tube and you can’t find the door and then you realise that all your exes are in the audience…hmm, ok….that was only me then? Nevermind.

The church will hold two hundred and fifty people…in my optimistic moments I’m hoping that we’ll have a hundred which would be respectable. At least that was what I was telling myself until I heard that they sang to an audience of nine hundred people in Aberdeen the night before last! I just have no way of knowing and it’s killing me. At times like this I realise just what a control freak I really am.

The thing is I know this choir is going to be amazing. I’ve listened to some of their songs on their website and having spent some time in the church in Dalkey I can tell that it’s going to sound beautiful in there. Forty five people singing old southern spirituals and classical pieces on Midsummer’s Eve. I just hope there are plenty of people there to hear it.

Of course if there’s anyone reading this who is interested in coming along please do! Admission is €15 and it starts at 8pm. Map.