A symphony of support: Wine and Beer on the Red

Culture | May 27th, 2015

Executive director of F-M Symphony discusses Wine and Beer on the Red

Support classical music -- while socializing and consuming wine, craft beer and gourmet food this Wednesday at the Ramada. The Fargo-Moorhead Symphony’s annual fundraiser ball, Wine and Beer on the Red, is approaching its 21st year. The symphony’s executive director, Linda Boyd, informed us of some essential event info and background on this arts community affair. She also gave us the scoop on the highly anticipated annual Symphony Rocks concert, which will take place in September.

High Plains Reader: Why Wine and Beer? Why "on the Red"?

Linda Boyd: “Wine on the Red” was actually started by Virginia Dambach at Prairie Public about 25 years ago. They did a wine-tasting event with “stations” set up throughout their television studios, special aprons made up with the Wine on the Red logo on the front, etc.

When I was executive director of the symphony in the 90s (from 1993 to 1996), Virginia approached me and said PPTV had decided to discontinue the WotR event and wondered if the symphony was interested in taking it over. We said yes, and our first one was at Seasons at Rose Creek in 1994 or 1995.

It has gone through other locations and variations since then – we added beer several years ago, which involved changing the name of the event and reworking the logo. For several years it was held at NDSU Alumni Center, then we outgrew that space and moved it to Ramada Plaza and Suites.

So it is certainly farther away from the Red River, but we figured it would be too confusing to change the name at that point. Ramada donates ALL the food (in earlier years, various food items were solicited by a variety of restaurants around town), and they use the event as an opportunity to showcase their fine-dining chops.

HPR: Who usually attends Wine and Beer on the Red? Is it mostly classical musicians and classical music fans?

LB: The purpose of event-based fundraising is to tap into support from people outside your normal sphere of donors and patrons. It has to be an event that’s fun enough to stand on its own, to attract people to spend money even if they’re not involved with the symphony in any way. So the crowd of WBR tends to be quite varied.

To be sure, many of our supporters and patrons are there. But we also have a large number of young professionals/adults who see this as an affordable, informal event that is a fun way to spend an evening with good food and drink, plus raffles/games/auction.

It’s not nearly as expensive as a ball or gala, but still has some elements of those kinds of events. We direct advertising to that group with ads in HPR as well as commercial radio ads/sponsorship and social media. Many of our Urban Overture members are volunteers for the event, which gives them another way to connect with the symphony.

HPR: Can you talk a bit about what the event entails and what attendees can expect?

LB: The event starts at 5:30 p.m. – guitarist Eric Martens will be performing solo, a classical/jazz variety. Around the perimeter of the room will be the various wine tasting stations, interspersed with food pairing stations. One corner of the room will be set up as the Beer Pub, with a large variety of beers for tasting, plus beer pub food. All wines and beers are provided by Bernie’s Wines & Liquors, and all food is provided by Ramada/Basies.

One of the most popular games of chance are the Wagon Raffles. Three red wagons are filled with goodies: there’s a Wine Wagon ($1,000 value, bottles of wine/champagne/port/sherry of all varieties), Spirits Wagon ($1,000 value, a staggering array of booze) and a Beer Wagon ($500 value, a summer’s worth of a zillion types of beer). Raffle tickets are $10 each or three tickets for $25 – stuff your tickets into whichever box you want to win, or spread your bets around. Winner of each wagon is called at the end of the evening and gets to take their goodies home (need not be present to win). We also have a silent auction with a wonderful assortment of appealing stuff (everything from wine baskets to a Florida condo and UND hockey tickets), plus a Wine Bottle Ring Toss game for various prizes.

HPR: What are some other upcoming F-M Symphony events people can look forward to? Is there going to be another Symphony Rocks concert at Bluestem?

LB: The fifth annual Symphony Rocks at Bluestem is set for Thursday, Aug. 20. While we have featured local bands in addition to Post-Traumatic Funk Syndrome the past couple of years (Poitin in 2013 and Fuego Tropical in 2014), we’re returning to our funk roots this year and putting the spotlight solely on PTFS and the symphony, with the theme “Funkytown.” The concert will be preceded by a pre-concert Retro Bash in the Marcil Commons, which will feature 70s style cuisine, cash bar and participatory games of chance (including the popular Wine Pull game with all prizes provided by Bernie’s Wines & Liquors). Tickets for Symphony Rocks will go on sale Monday, June 15.