Like a giant lazy Susan, Boston Calling debuts new rotating stage

Editor's Note: This story is an excerpt from WBUR's weekly arts and culture newsletter, The ARTery. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox, sign up here.

The Boston Calling music festival returns to Harvard University’s athletics complex this weekend with a few additions. The largest — and most intriguing — is a massive, rotating stage. It’s replacing the two performance platforms that have occupied the palooza’s main field since Boston Calling relocated from City Hall Plaza to Allston in 2017.

The concept could evoke the image of a spinning lazy Susan — serving up artist after artist — over three music-filled days. I gained some clarity on Wednesday at the festival site, where Boston Calling co-founder Brian Appel confirmed, “Yes, it’s a lazy Susan.” He also likened the innovation to a gigantic turntable. “Which allows us to have one band setting up while another band is performing,” Appel said, “and then literally ‘turntable’ the stage after the performance is over and queue up the next band to start.”

If you stand on the new stage’s black deck and look down, you can see the enormous circle built into it. When that disc rotates, the back of the stage becomes the front. “And that takes about 3 to 4 minutes to fully complete,” Appel explained.

The musicians themselves won’t actually be on the rotating stage while it’s moving — only their sets and equipment. “If you're out in the crowd, you're not going to see the deck rotating. It's going to just happen slowly, behind screens,” Appel said. “It’ll be seamless.”

The new behemoth stretches 80 feet wide, which is three times the size of last year’s main stages. And it's flanked by two enormous video walls.

Appel said his team has been implementing this innovative upgrade for about a year. They were initially inspired by other festivals that use them, including in Europe. Appel said they witnessed a rotating stage in action twice at Soundside Music Festival in Bridgeport, Connecticut. “We thought this would be the right time, given the technology is in place and it had been tested.”

The merging of the Red and Green stages into one has been on the organizers’ minds for a while, Appel said, but audience feedback from 2024’s Boston Calling helped convince them to move forward. Grievances about crushing crowds blew up social media last year in the wake of pop artist Chappell Roan’s set. Appel said she rose meteorically in the months after Boston Calling booked her to play her afternoon time slot.

“Historically for us at 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock in the afternoon, we'll have anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 people on site – and that day we had 37,000 people through the doors,” Appel said. “So it's not that the site can't handle that amount of people, it's just that everybody was trying to be in the exact same spot at the same time. In order to make people more comfortable, if we did have that type of experience again, we thought a one-stage solution was gonna help solve that problem.”

Now, audience members won’t need to move back and forth between the two main stages. If they choose, they could stake their claim and stay put. But Appel added the flow should improve with more room to roam or head over to the bars, food vendors, additional water stations and bathrooms.

At the festival grounds Wednesday, some 250 production staff were both building the site up and battening down the hatches before a predicted nor’easter. Tarps covered stacks of equipment and Appel said pumps to drain puddling on the grounds were at the ready. As for worries about the new stage, he pointed to the two, new video screens and said they’re rated to withstand gusts up to 70 miles per hour.

The weekend will be significantly cooler and possibly wetter than recent years. Appel recommends following the forecast, wearing layers and — as always — comfortable shoes.

“We’re lucky we’ve been doing this for a long time now, and we’ve seen every type of weather imaginable — from extreme heat to a bit of snow,” Appel said. “The attendees are in good hands here. And if anything does happen with weather, we're well prepared for it and they'll be taken care of.”

If festival goers have concerns or complaints about anything at this year’s Boston Calling, Appel welcomes the feedback.

“We hope it's a wonderful weekend or a wonderful day for them,” he said. “And if for some reason we're not providing something, the audience always likes to let us know. So reach out and tell us what we could be doing better.”