BerkshireStock Lives

A small town with big concert dreams is finding out the hard way that staging a festival with touring headliners isn’t as easy as putting up a stage and printing tickets.

In true “hey, let’s put on a show!” fashion, erstwhile promoter Michael Sayers originally announced a two-day camping festival called BerkshireStock, to take place at Eastover Resort near the tiny burg of Lenox, N.Y., Sept. 15-16.

He hoped to line up 30-40 local and regional bands – and three nationally touring headliners: Skid Row, Dokken and L.A. Guns.

The key word is “hoped.”

Three weeks before the event, Sayers was quoted in the Berkshire Eagle saying he was “flat broke” after spending $2,800 to launch the event – which appears to be the printing cost for flyers. There was still the not-small problem of paying for a stage, lighting, sound and all the accoutrements necessary to put on a fun and safe show – and, of course, the bands’ fees.

All of which was news to Dokken agent John Domagall of ARM Entertainment, who quickly confirmed that the bands were not booked for BerkshireStock – though he was contacted by Sayers.

“He called, but because we didn’t know him, we asked for a binder and never heard from him again,” Domagall told Pollstar. “We checked to see if he was advertising the bands and didn’t find anything online. It sounds like a case of wishful thinking and, when he found out the cost of it, he moved on.”

Sayers did move on, and appealed for sponsors to pony up the $17,000 he said he needed for a stage – when perhaps a reality check was more in order.

Enter Eastover Resort co-owner Yngxing Wang. She had already agreed to cover permits, security, catering and the campsite as a way to promote the resort as a recreation destination, according to the Berkshire Eagle. After meeting with Sayers and others involved, Eastover announced Sept. 5 it would step in and take over the foundering festival, which guarantees BerkshireStock will go on, though not at the scale of earlier dreams.

Eastover reportedly intends to sink more than $100,000 into site preparation, electrical hookups, a stage, backline and other logistics to create a proper concert venue. The resort expects to accommodate 2,000-5,000 concertgoers in less than two weeks’ time and continue with plans to carve out a festival site to make BerkshireStock an annual event, according to the Eagle.

And for Sayers, Wang told the paper that the live-in caretaker with the big dreams is “a very honest, hardworking guy and he continues to help, but now we are taking over all of the operations, everything.”