Tupelo Music Hall in Derry built an outdoor stage, installed a sound system and divided up the parking lot to accommodate 75 vehicles.
DERRY, N. H. — Sue Martin rolled up to the Tupelo Music Hall in her gray Dodge two hours early for the first show, which started at noon. The 56-year-old bus driver had never heard of the headliner, a local bar-band singer named Tim Theriault.
“I don’t care who’s playing,” Martin said. “I just want to get out and go to a concert.”
She did that on Saturday in a breezy, sun-drenched parking lot in southern New Hampshire. Elsewhere in America, recent days had seen armed protesters storming statehouses, a nasty argument outside a breakfast restaurant and, in Arkansas, officials blocking a Travis McCready gig booked for Friday inside a former Masonic temple. There was no noticeable tension in Derry, where town leaders blessed what was thought to be the first post-coronavirus sanctioned concert in the country. And the Tupelo Music Hall was not just reopening. It was reinventing itself.
The inside of the 700-seat hall was dark. Instead, the venue built an outdoor stage, installed a sound system and divided up the parking lot to accommodate 75 cars. It temporarily rebranded itself as the Tupelo Drive-In Experience.
“You guys are part of history,” Theriault said into the microphone after taking the stage.
Tupelo owner Scott Hayward came up with the outdoor concept in early May after Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, announced that some businesses, including drive-in movie theaters, could reopen May 11. Why not do a drive-in for music? he wondered.
Not wanting his staff or patrons to get sick, he created a plan to follow social distancing guidelines. For $75, you got two parking spaces: one for your car, a second so you could bring a chair and sit outside. Hayward spent $6,000 on a golf cart to transport burgers, fries and soft drinks (the venue is not licensed for outdoor liquor sales) ordered by phone, eliminating food lines. He coordinated with local radio station 95.1 FM to broadcast the sets for those who wanted to sit inside their cars.
“We have to figure out how to slowly open things back up,” said Beverly Donovan, Derry’s economic development director. “This way, you’re giving the people something that they need, which is a cultural experience, a shared experience, but you’re doing it in a way that’s very limited.”
In largely liberal New England, New Hampshire is known for its conservative leanings and “Live free or die” motto.
