Turned out, "Hospitality Night" is a city-wide block party, where everyone turns out to see Santa light up the historic Pepper Tree at City Hall, and they block off Forest (which is essentially Laguna's "Main Street") and party all night.
The Historical Society is in an old house one street over from Forest, and they wanted me to play out on the covered porch to try to bring people in. And it worked! The porch acted like a stage, and lots of people walking by stopped to hear me play, saw me up there, and ended up going on in to have a look at the historical stuff inside.
It was really quite nice to have a raised, well lit, and heated! Place to play, and the street is much more quiet than my usual spot on The Corner so the sound was quite good. There were a few chairs on the porch and lots of people took the time to sit and listen for a while.
The weirdest part was when a long-haired and wild-eyed guy and his girlfriend approached me from across the street while I was playing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas". They waited for the end of the song, told me how great it was, and that they had a proposal. I was leery of what that might be, but it turned out that the girlfriend had made a Christmas video for her family back east, and they had unsuccessfully scoured the internet for background music. They wanted to buy a CD, and use my song. Sure, OK with me, and really, how would I know or stop them anyway, even if I wanted to? The guy promised to send me a copy of the final video, but of course, he hasn't...
People kept telling me that I ought to be playing over on Forest where the real party was going on, but I felt like I should play where I had been asked to (and paid to) play, and besides, it was going so well. But finally, a little after 8:00, the foot traffic had all but died on Ocean, so I packed up to go see what was happening on Forest.
And it was a madhouse! People wall-to-wall filling the street, loud music from the rooftop parties, and a big stage set up right in the middle of the street. I set up next to the green swirly thing where the crowds started to thin a bit, and unsuccessfully tried to compete with the rock band on the stage. But after four songs, it was clearly not going to happen, and I was nearly out of battery, so I packed up and came home.
I was told that the Tommies were on The Corner, Sanchez was across from them, and another guy was in the Corridor, but it's hard to imagine that any of them could play against the rock band. I'm guessing that they were there earlier, and had to quit once the rock started up. Might be worth trying that myself, next year.
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