After a solid week of rain falling at times with a force and fervor that brought to mind Noah, Atlanta Botanical Garden executive director Mary Pat Matheson allowed Monday that the attraction’s staff was starting to ask, “Should we build the ark?”
Outdoor attractions such as Zoo Atlanta and the Botanical Garden live and die with the weather. “But we don’t freak out from a week of rain,” Matheson said. That’s in part because it’s the weekends when the garden does most of its business. Last weekend hurt, of course, but a serious attendance drop “will depend on the weather next weekend and into October.”
Right now, her big concern is the Garden of Eden Ball, the attraction’s biggest annual fundraiser, with 300 expected Saturday night. The outdoor cocktails followed by dinner and dancing under a giant tent on the Great Lawn could move inside the new visitor center, if necessary.
Few entertainment or cultural events early this week seem endangered by the foul weather, in part because most shows head indoors after Labor Day, and fall outdoor bookings are few early in the week. There’s certainly nothing as major in the arts outdoors this week as the PGA Tour’s season-ending championship at East Lake, scheduled to begin Thursday.
But if the bad weather continues as predicted, it could make a miserable time of Sugarland’s show at Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre in Alpharetta or Francine Reed’s performance at Mable House Barnes Amphitheatre in Mableton, both on Saturday.
Preparations for a big event opening Thursday, the North Georgia State Fair, were proceeding as normal Monday despite the deluge.
“Obviously it’s not ideal, but we truck right along,” said fair assistant manager Bill Watson.
The 11-day event, the second largest state fair in Georgia, draws nearly 300,000 visitors to Marietta’s Jim R. Miller State Park every fall, with live music, flower shows, farm animals, games and rides.
“Everything’s going as planned, though [the 150 vendors] are coming in a little more slowly,” he said. Most of the 115-acre staging area is asphalt, which drains well, Watson said. The weather hasn’t stopped the riggers from assembling the 40 carnival rides in the Midway.
“Setting up is just a hassle, but we’re getting it done,” Watson said. “Those guys are used to doing it in just about any type of weather.”
For her part, the Botanical Garden’s Matheson was taking a stab at being philosophical about the “over-the-top” rainfall during more thunderstorms Monday afternoon .
“The drought was more damaging,” she said. “That got people in [a] mindset of not going outside, not going to the garden.”
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