Free, weekly, family-friendly entertainment
By Matt Larson
In 2008, a small group of musicians and music lovers came together to put on a show. They found some of the best bands in the Bay Area and had one goal in mind: to provide free family entertainment for the greater Napa community. It was a grand success and soon after they began a partnership with the city of Napa’s Parks and Rec department to give these free and family-friendly concerts at the Veterans Memorial Park in Downtown Napa. They called it Napa City Nights.
This summer, Napa City Nights will be held every Friday night from June 7th through August 23rd. “In the beginning, we didn’t have any money at all,” said Event Director and Co-Founder Chris Chesbrough. “We basically pooled equipment together, contacted a bunch of bands that we knew, volunteered to set up the show, and put on 3 acts every Friday night.”
Before too long, they were able to lock down some sponsorships to start paying the bands and buy better equipment. “And that’s kind of our story every year,” Chris said. “We get supported by the local merchants, we all volunteer, and we formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit so that everything’s tax deductible for our sponsors.”
“It’s gotten bigger and better every year,” he continued. Now in its 12th season, Napa City Nights attracts an average of 1,000 attendees per Friday night. They’re even planning to start live streaming the event as a bit of an experiment. However, it’s not just the Napa community that’s taken note of the event, as bands throughout the entire Bay Area are hopping in line to perform.
“We had over 250 acts, from all over the place, that contacted us to play,” Chris said. “It was one of our largest turnouts of bands submitting.” There is no submission fee for the bands—which is a tremendous service in and of itself—and every single band that submits has a fair shot to perform.
“We look at every single band that comes through via email and just kind of weed through to see what’s appropriate for our venue,” Chris explained. “We also might reach out to certain bands that we like to see if they’re available for certain dates. “It’s a bit of a process, all done by committee; we wish that we could have everybody play but that’s just not doable. But we do get 36 acts out there doing their thing!”
Providing an amazing experience for three dozen musical acts throughout the Bay Area, who also get paid for the performance, is a tremendous gift for the music, and music-lover, communities alike. Napa City Nights also offers internships for those interested in event production, which is not something they’ve started because of their success, but something they’ve been doing since the beginning.
“From working with the bands to sound and lighting, to merchandise, security, cleanup—we try to teach all aspects of concert production,” Chris explained. They’ve had at least three or four interns join their group of about 15 volunteers every year, a fairly small team considering the undertaking, so an intern would get a very full experience working with Napa City Nights. And the best thing is—anyone can apply.
“It’s usually people who’ve just got a love of music,” Chris told us. “That’s one of the things that I really like about the event; it’s very grassroots. And we teach old-school production.” With a much more analog approach (as opposed to digital, which they have begun to integrate), interns at Napa City Nights get to know the fundamental basics of putting on a live concert.
Open to anyone and everyone, Napa City Nights’ concerts enforce no age restrictions whatsoever. “It’s free to anybody who wants to come and check it out! Which we love … because if they don’t like the music they can always try to get a refund on their ticket,” Chris joked.
You can always just walk around downtown Napa if you’re not a fan of the current act and come back for the headliner, but these performers are carefully selected. In fact, most people do just the opposite of walking away—they show up hours in advance to set up camp in anticipation of this iconic event that remains consistently awesome, week after week, year after year.
Keeping with the family-friendly theme, no alcohol is available for sale at Napa City Nights, but it is allowed! “We don’t serve alcohol, but we do have a permit that allows people to bring it in the park,” Chris said. And there’s no corking fee or anything like that either, sticking to that “free” theme.
As with most events in Napa, if there isn’t wine or alcohol for sale, you can often bet on some eclectic food options, but you won’t find that at Napa City Nights. “We really want to support the local downtown merchants and restaurants,” Chris said. “We’ve got three vendors that do concert food and that’s it—hot dogs, ice cream, and pizza. We get inundated with people who want to set up a table but we just don’t do it.”
Everyone is encouraged to bring a blanket, a picnic, and dancing shoes! “We’ve got a huge dance floor,” Chris beamed. As far as the musical selections, it can vary quite a bit. “From world beat-type music to high energy rock ’n’ roll—soul, funk, some country—we like to mix it up. But you won’t get rap and you won’t get death metal at our show.”
So why should you attend? Simply, “It’s the most fun you could have on a Friday night,” Chris asserted. “It really is a blast, everybody has a great time. And it is truly keeping live music happening! We don’t do backtracks, we don’t do ‘disco’—it’s live music by people who actually learned how to play an instrument.”
But of course, it takes a village, and without the support from their sponsors, local merchants, and especially the volunteers, there’s no way Napa City Nights would have made it these past 12 years. “We can’t do it without our crew,” Chris said. “It’s an amazing group of people, and we work for food! It’s all about the people, our crew, and the artists. It’s been a pleasure to do it all these years.”
Look for Chris performing with his band Road Eleven. Opening night you can catch Purple Haze, one of the season’s few tribute acts. If you’d like to submit your own musical act for the 2020 season you can head to their website at napacitynights.com, or email your press kit to napacitynights@gmail.com. If you’d like to attend, head to the Veterans Memorial Park Amphitheater in Downtown Napa at the corner of Third & Main streets every Friday night this summer between the hours of 6:30-10 p.m. June 7th through August 23rd, 2019.
“Our mission, and our vision, is just to try to keep that family-friendly vibe going,” Chris said. “Everybody’s a part of the show. There’s no ‘us’ and ‘them’, it’s just everybody having a good time.” And, arguably, the best way to tell if it’s a great event or not is to ask how the bands enjoy playing the venue, and Chris has had a pretty consistent response from the performers over the years. “Every band that has played Napa City Nights always wants to come back, because they just love the venue, and they love the vibe.”=
Same goes for their regular attendees who come early every week to pick out their favorite spot to enjoy the show. So head downtown to get an early dinner in time to walk over to the park for some quality, live, entertainment.
Larson is an actor/comedian/director from Vallejo who lives a double life between the Bay and LA. When he’s not writing for Local Happenings Magazine he could be editing a short film or working on his next rap album—who knows!
Keep up with all things Larson at www.MarsLegstrong.com.”
